February. 19 i_ 



history of the Month. 



XXiX. 



gion of party warfare, and was seeking to gain party 

 advantage by attacking a gentleman who was re- 

 sponsible not to the electors of Tasmania, but to 

 t:ie Imperial Government for his actions. 



A new Labour organisation is to 

 Labour's come into operation in July, which 



Amalgamation, promises to play an important part 

 in industrial matters. It is st\-led 

 the Workers" Union, and its declared objects are : — 

 (a) The ultimate emancipation of labour by the 

 abolition of the wage system, and the establishment 

 of a co-operative Commonwealth, (b) To regulate, 

 improve, and protect the conditions of members of 

 the union, (c) To provide legal assistance in defence 

 of members' rights where deemed necessary, (d) To 

 ]>revent. if possible, bv conference of both parties 

 to a dispute, any threatened industrial dispute or 

 strike, or lockout, and to settle any dispute that may 

 arise, (e) To secure social justice by industrial, 

 municipal and political action, (f) To propagate 

 industrial unionism bv distributing literature and 

 industrial newspapers, (g) To assist all industrial 

 kindred unions and organisations, (h) To establish 

 a Labour paper for the advancement of these objects. 

 The government of the new union, which is ex- 

 pected to embrace all the States, will be vested in a 

 general executive consisting of general president, two 

 vice-presidents, secretary, treasurer, three trustees 

 and a committee of three to be i^lected^ by ballot of 

 the whole of the members. 



R.L.S. as 

 Editor. 



think we are sure of good informaticsi. but we a: 

 not sure that we can hear any more than the editor 

 of our contemporary can, if he likes it, and must 

 have heard, if he likes it or not. The point about 

 this paper is that the information will appear in its 

 columns instead of being hid in pigeon-holes. Th- 

 will be no suppression here." Suppression did come, 

 however, but it was the paper, and not " the news.'' 

 tha^ l^W a victim. 



A Gloomy 

 Prophet. 



It seems tne natural tnmg lor w- 



The Mitchell Library authorities in 

 Sydnev have acquired an interesting 

 memento of Robert Louis Steven- 

 son. It is a file of the ■'■' Samoan 

 Herald," of which R.L.S. was parr proprieior, and 

 which, despite the brilliance of its staff, had a very 

 short and chequered career. The first issue of tlie 

 pai)er contained a caustic leading article by Steven- 

 son, in which he animadverted on certain features 

 of his reptile contemporar}-, published at Apia, to 

 proclaim his own ideas as to how a newspaper should 

 ;^ run. '' There is another paper," he writes, '"' but 

 where is the news? Xo doubt it is all in the editor's 

 head, but somehow or other it does not get out into 

 the columns of the Samoan "' Times." A paper ought 

 to be a looking-glass of the week's doings, and our 

 paper is like the back of one, with a picture painted 

 oil it of somebody that never existed. We are not 

 sure that we are going to enlighten public opinion 

 much. We do not set out to be able to do it. We 

 are not sure the public want it if we could, ^^e 



ther prophets in Australia to y: 

 dict a drought, though the couc: 

 has had such a Icmg succession • f 

 t>eneficent seasons that droughts have almost gone 

 out of fashion. Mr. Douglas Archibald, the well- 

 known Engli.sh m.eteorclogist. comes as a prophet 

 of gloomv portent. At one time a professor in the 

 University of Calcut:.;. Mr. Archibald has for 

 twelve rears or so been supplying twice-a-week fore- 

 casts of British weather to the principal newspapers 

 in Great Britain.' He made a .study of meteorology 

 m India, and in 1876 discovered laws relating to the 

 wintef and summer rainfall in Northern India. 

 Three years prior to its appearance he predicted the 

 great 1896 to 1900 drought, which caused such. 

 famine and distress in India. He now predicts, an- 

 other severe drought in Australia, to begin about 

 1917, reaching its most acute stage between 1920 

 and 1954. and continuing more or less till IQJT- 

 Mr. Archibald bases his opinion on data collected 

 bv Professor Bruckner, whose obserAarions and cal- 

 culations Mr. A ■ "^-" M terms facts and not theories. 

 If the predict; r-s true ii s'nould certainly have 



proved advantageous that full and timely warning 

 was given. There is just the chance, on the other 

 hand, seeing that Mr. Archibald was bound for the 

 hot springs of R ■ " ' . in search of health, when he 

 made his forer...^.. _ -ii. not feeling very well, he has 

 been disturbed by unnecessary forebodings. 



Our Australian ivedi.icr prophets, it 

 When Prophets ii satisfactory ■ '^ote. do not share 

 fitter. ^Ij. Archib.. ticipations. Mr. 



Clement Wragge, popularly known 

 at oiie time as the • Inclement " Wragge, do.s not 

 believe that the weather runs in 38-year cycles. He 

 forecasts an under the average rainfall up to 1915, 

 increasing in that year and becoming abundant till 

 1920, when a four-years" drought will begin. Mr. 

 Hunt. Federal Meteorologist, also disputes. Mr. 

 Archibald's c.^ ns. and argues from local data 



that no kmnvn c\..-- period can lie reconciled ' :"h 



