It is no exaggeration to say that Australia was—horror-stricken when the news first came through *that Japan had been almost overwhelmed by earth tremors, sea and fire. Japanese visitors in our midst, including some scientists, hastened to relieve our feelings by declaring that the reports of the casnaltices were probably greatly exaggerated, and quoted previous occasion, when tha first report of 100,000 deaths finally took official form with less than 4,000 as the figure. But the matter was brought home to us much more definitely when naws came through that two Austra-lions had been killed in Yokohama. Mr. Hawkes was the father of Hawkes, the international tennis player, and Mr. Keays had actually helped in the training of the younger Hawkes in tennis. Both were killed, though Mrs. Hawkes, who accompanied them and is the mother of the player, somehow escaped. There are many Australians paying visits to Japan, and there is naturally a good deal of anxiety, but this one conerete cass, especially while the bulk of the community was talking tennis, has concentrated attention. At first the government, sesmad not to know what to do and referred the matter to the Imperial Government.
The acting Prime Minister, Dr. Page, said that if Japan would give a hint, Australia would help. However' the matter was taken up by tha public, and subscriptions to the newspapers started to pour in so that foodstuffs might be bought and sent over to the East. Unfortunately Australia does not grow rice, but she has ample supplies of flour, meat, canned fruits and other goods which may be useful in this great emergency. After a delay, due probably to the fact that the Prime Minister had left and the acting Prime Minister had gone away from Melbourne, it was announced that the Commonwealth Government was prepared find £10,000 in cash and £50,000 in foodstuffs and that it would despatch one of its own steamers about the end of this week with goods. In addition to this help subscriptions are flowing in to the newspapers, and the churches and other public bodies are moving to join in the general campaign of help.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.