The Labour Party has been in conference in Hobart for some! weeks. Bitter scenes have taken The item of contribut demption of debt is accounted for by the fact that the" Government, during the six months, used sinking fund money for the purpose of purchasing as many as poswble of {the war bonds maturing on Decem-her 15. Naturally, in the next half place "and complete unani feeling has been absent. particular note struck and the most} important movement made by the party has been the proposal to amal-ornate the Australian - Workers Union with the Australian Railways Union. The importance of this move can be realized bs the nambers involved—230,000 men. The danger of the move to the teneral public is The A.W.U. has in the pension systems was 9 expected. So far as the expenditure in concerned, the Government is well satisfied, although, naturally, "the opposition is not.
Tropical Disturbances Only twice before in the last years has Victoria suffered such a downpour of rain as in the last six weeks. With the breaking of the dry spell at the end of last year, just too late to prove Leneficial to many parts of the State and too early for the ether sections which were harvesting, it has rained on and off. Last week it more than xained—it poured. The intervening. to all those who have opposed it in pet schemes. It has. numerous representatives in the Federal and State Parliaments, and, on reaching' out its tentacles to embrace the great union of civil servants known us the A.RU. has placed that dissatisfied body in such as position that, as the secretary of the A.R.U. Mr. Keane, states:—"They could control the industrial movement in Austr Whether the parliamentary members of either union would desire to sce this amalgamation take place is doubtful. Queensland has had one: taste of a Labour government fight. ing their own party over the ques-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.