See (in this Volume) COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: AUSTRALIA. AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909 (July-September). The Imperial Defense Conference. Defense Bill in Parliament. Proposed compulsory military training. See (in this Volume) WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: MILITARY AND NAVAL. AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909 (September). Coal Miners strike in New South Wales. See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1905-1909. AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909 (September). Meeting at Sydney of Empire Congress of Chambers of Commerce. See (in this Volume) BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1909 (SEPTEMBER). AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1910. The last year of a troublesome Constitutional Requirement. Article 87 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia (see in Volume VI. of this work), reads as follows: "During a period of ten years after the establishment of the Commonwealth, and thereafter until the Parliament otherwise provides, of the net revenue of the Commonwealth from duties of custom and of excise not more than one fourth shall be applied annually by the Commonwealth towards its expenditure. The balance shall, in accordance with this Constitution, be paid to the several States, or applied toward the payment of interest on debts of the several States taken over by the Commonwealth." This, which has been known as the Braddon section, has imposed a serious handicap on the Federal Government. As its working was described recently by an English Press correspondent, "it made the Commonwealth raise four pounds whenever it wanted to spend one. It made the States begrudge the Commonwealth every penny it spent, even out of its own quarter—for every penny saved out of that quarter was an extra penny for the States. And it prevented every State Treasurer from knowing, until the Federal Treasurer had delivered his Budget speech, how much money he was likely to get from Federal sources for his own spending." At the end of the year 1910 the requirement of the Article will cease to be obligatory, and the Federal Parliament will be free to make a different appropriation of the revenue from customs and excise. Meantime the subject is under discussion, and in August, 1909, it was announced that a conference of the State Governments had come to an agreement—subject to ratification by the Federal Government—which provides for the annual per capita payment of 25s. in lieu of the three-fourths of the Customs revenue which has hitherto been returned to them. Western Australia to receive a special extra contribution of £250,000, decreasing by £10,000 annually until it ceases. Until the arrangement becomes operative, the Commonwealth may deduct from the statutory payments to the States £600,000 annually towards the cost of old-age pensions.