Mr. Ward Back

A Transport Minister and Luggage Transportation

THE Australian Minister for Transport and Minister in charge of the Aus tralian Territories of New Guinea and Papua, Mr. E. J. Ward, arrived in Brisbane on October 5. having returned by ship from a world tour.

Mr. Ward immediately flew to Sydney, in time to march with other Ministers at the head of a Labour Day procession which demanded a 6-hours working day.

A Federal Government car (one of those famous £1 800 Chryslers) raced from Sydney to Brisbane to meet the return ing Minister’s party. The newspapers said the car was for Mrs. Ward, who dislikes plane travelling. Mr. Ward in dignantly denied this; he said the car was for his party’s luggage!

Mr. Ward, having toured North America by rail, came back with elaborate plans for improving Australian train services.

Maybe, if his ideas are given effect to, the Australian railways will be accepted as good enough to carry Mr. Ward’s party’s luggage.

M. Routhier, head of the French Geological Mission in New Caledonia, re cently made an announcement about the scheelite and datholite deposits at Faja, in the Kouaoiia region of the east coast.

Scheelite is a tungsten ore. The metal is used in the filaments Of electric lights.

Datholite is a boro-silicate of lime. This alliance of scheelite and datholite is rare.

It is not yet known whether it is favour able to the treatment of the Faja ores for tungsten. The datholite deposit seems to have been first mentioned by the great mining engineer Glasser in his compre hensive “Report on the Mineral Riches of New Caledonia,” which is now out of print.