222 



The Review of Reviews. 



March SO, 1906. 



puzzle for the ordinan- voter, and the cloudiness is 

 increased when it is remembered that a separate 

 ballot-paper of this kind was issued to each voter 

 for publicans', wine, storekeepers' colonial wine, 

 storekeepers', and club licenses. The excitement was 

 most intense. Huge processions marched through 

 the streets. Audiences of from twenty to twenty- 

 five thousand people were addressed in the open-air, 

 and the greatest excitement induced, especially by 

 the addresses of Mr. Samuel Mauger, M.P., and 

 Mrs. Harrison Lee, who had gone over from Vic- 

 toria. The result of the Polls is that, with the ex- 

 ception of Adelaide City, reduction was carried all 

 over the place, and even in the city itself licenses 

 other than publicans' were reduced. As a result 

 there will be an ending of eighty-one licenses 

 without a penny of compensation being paid. 

 A most charming proposal was made by the 

 Traffic to the effect that the Liquor Party would 

 allow publicans' licenses in Adelaide City to be re- 

 duced, provided they were distributed nicely over 

 the suburban districts which had voted reduction. 

 It is hard to imagine that they were in earnest, or 

 that they believed that, even if they had the power, 

 the Temperance Party would allow the Traffic to 

 -escape out of a small area in which they had 

 managed to corral it. The results are highly satis- 

 factory, and probably prophetic of what may be 

 in other States when the people get the power of 

 •dealing with the Traffic into their own hands. 



Australia is not yet willing to 



Nov Zealand's adopt the penny post, either in its 



Penny Post, ^^^.^^ borders, or to its nearest neigh- 



bour, New Zealand. Only here and 

 there in Australia penny rates obtain. Speaking 

 in New Zealand a few days before he left for 

 Rome, Sir Joseph Ward gave an idea of what the 

 penny post had saved the people of New Zealand. 

 Since' 1901 the people had saved ^^380,000 on post- 

 age in the colony alone. On letters sent outside the 

 ■colony ;^29,ooc had been saved. During five years, 

 •therefore, the people of the colony had paid over 

 ^^400.000 less than the\- would have paid under the 

 old rate. This is a faint illustration of what the 

 'Government can do in reducing the taxation on a 

 small everyday expenditure. With regard to the six- 

 penny telegram, too, although it was prophesied 

 that it would not be a financial success in Ne\v 

 Zealand, a saving of ^^383, 631 had been effected 

 for the people. In the railways, also, travelling 

 rates had been reduced, so that in the three great 

 functions of the State for the people, the interests 

 of the latter were being trulv conser\"ed. Australia 

 lags strangely behind the steps of her neighbour in 

 this respect, and it is time that a forward movement 

 -«'as made. 



Some time ago we announced the 

 Workers' fact that the Seddon Government 

 Dwellings. had put through a bill for the erec- 

 tion of workers' dwellings, and it 

 will not be long now before the scheme is in course 

 of operation. Land has been set apart at the chief 

 centres, and houses will soon be in course of erec- 

 tion. The Government intends to ensure sufficient 

 di\ersity of design to pre\'ent anything like a Go- 

 vernment brand being upon the houses, and if the 

 intentions of the Department are carried out, it is 

 probable that the results will be so good in the 

 matter of completeness and general effect that it 

 may be called upon to extend its operations to a 

 degree which at present it does not anticipate. See- 

 ing that the proper housing of the people is such a 

 large factor in national development, there ought to 

 be only one answer as to whether a Government 

 could do a better thing than see that its people are 

 housed comfortably and cheaply. 



The Premier of Tasmania has de- 

 Tasmania's livered his Government policy. Tas- 

 Government j^^ania has been rather badly hit by 

 Po'icy- Federation, and Captain Evans 



placed in the forefront of his speech the fact that 

 the cost of the transferred departments to the Com- 

 monwealth had grown by ^"85,000, while the loss 

 to the country through Customs ■ revenue was 

 over ^160,000. It is, therefore, not to be won- 

 dered at that he strongly favours the retention of 

 the Braddon Clause. What Captain Evans wants 

 is an airangement which would give immediate re- 

 lief to the State by assuring the return of a sum 

 equal to the annual interest bill. The madness of 

 the Australian States in days past in allowing 

 Crown lands to go out of their hands so freely is 

 being demonstrated e^'erywhere, and at last the Tas- 

 manian Premier finds it necessary to propound a 

 policy similar to that being adopted by some of the 

 other States with regard to the re-purchase of alien- 

 ated lands. If severe experience can teach Govern- 

 ments lessons, not one foot of land ought to be alien- 

 ated in the future, and moreover, the land that is 

 resumed should not be allowed to pass out of the 

 hands of the Crown. That is where Victoria is mak- 

 ing her mistake in an otherwise splendid policy, 

 through the selling of the freehold of the lands 

 she takes over, thus imposing upon future genera- 

 tions a tremendously heavy burden, for as fast as 

 population warrants' it, the process of cutting up 

 still further will have to be carried out, and value 

 upon value will have to be added, as the years go 

 by, to the lands recently purchased. 



The exhibition of colonial manu- 



The factures, which I mentioned in last 



^*F Mhui*"'^'*" issue was being held in Melbourne, 



txmsition. ^^^ ^^^ concluded, and has proved 



to be, contrary to the experience of most exhibitions, 

 a pronounced success, financial and otherwise. The 



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