Town Life in Australia eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 251 pages of information about Town Life in Australia.

Town Life in Australia eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 251 pages of information about Town Life in Australia.
beyond a little skirmishing over matters of detail, it passed through both Houses with as little excitement as any petty measure.  Public opinion has also declared itself in favour of imposing a tax either on income or on property, which is felt not to be paying its fair share towards the Government of the country.  A land-tax was talked of, but in view of the re-action on the land question, which has extended in a modified shape from New South Wales, and of the present distress of the landed interest, such a tax is not likely to be imposed.  Certain it is that additional revenue to meet the interest on the money borrowed for public works must be raised from some source.  The land revenue, which had been used for ordinary revenue purposes, is now beginning to drop; and since the colony is but slightly taxed, in comparison with its neighbours, it has no reason to grumble at an increase of taxation.  Amongst the more important measures passed last session, was one for providing compensation for improvements to selectors surrendering their agreements, and for remission of interest to those who have reaped under a specified average during the last three seasons.  Another sets apart a million of money for making a railway to the Victorian border to place Adelaide in communication with Melbourne.  The distressed condition of the selectors, who have taken up land in country which all experts pronounced unfit for agricultural purposes, except in exceptional seasons, will necessitate a measure next session to give special advantages for improved cultivation.  Here also, as in New South Wales, the antagonism between the squatter and the selector, though less pronounced, is beginning to be found artificial.  Owing to the clause in nearly all pastoral leases which provides for the resumption of all lands leased for pastoral purposes at three years’ notice, and the want of inducements to capitalists to open up the interior, local capital is travelling over to Queensland.  The probability is that the impossibility of selection beyond a certain area will be recognised, and special inducements will be offered to persons wishing to depasture unused land in the centre of the continent.  There is some talk of a trans-continental railway between Adelaide and Port Darwin, which a syndicate has offered to construct on the land-grant system.  But it looks as if the Government, which will never for years be able to construct the line itself, were unwilling to allow anybody else to do it.

The present Ministry, like its predecessor, which lasted four years, is eminently respectable.  The Premier, Mr. Bray, has shown himself to be one of the best leaders of the House ever known in Adelaide.  The Minister of Education, Mr. Parsons, is distinctly able.  The Treasurer, Mr. Glyde, represents caution, and the Minister of Public works, Mr. Ramsay, shrewdness and enterprise.  Altogether it is a strong combination of administrative ability, and in Messrs. Bray and Parsons it has two good speakers.  It cannot be

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Town Life in Australia from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.