OUR SYDNEY LETTER

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3533, 25 May 1912, Page 4

OUR SYDNEY LETTER

A r J RO U BLED TREASURER.

(From Our Corresopndcnt.) SYDNEY, May 14. Tiie general plan of the Government is sound enough from the point of view of the politician who is devoted to “the game.” In brief, it may be thus stated: “Get as much popularity as can bo purchased by unstinted promises, and, when the position becomes no longer tenable, let the other side come in, and get all the unpopularity which pursues unavoidable retrenchment and economy.” This is all plain sailing for the Ministers who do the promising and the spending. But, even in the spending stage, before the inevitable point of impecuniositv lias been reached, the Minister who has to find tlie money has an anxious time of it. Mr Cann, the new Treasurer, is more level-headed than some of his. more juvenile and impetuous colleagues, and he is beginning to wear an anxious and worried look. He is expected to find the funds for a loan expenditure of considerably over £5,000,000 a year. And lie lias succeeded to the task at an unpropitious juncture. ' As long as Mi - Fisher bad a few shillings to throw about as the result of his forced loan from the banks, and so long as lending institutions were flush of money by reason of the consequent “boom,” it was easy enough to obtain money for currentrequirements. But a change has come over the spirit of the scene. Local money, having for the most part been “mopped up” bv local Governments, municipal bodies, and Hie like, is scarce, and it is also dear. Rather than face Lombard street, after Mr Fisher’s endearing little freak of taxing the “absentees” who had been so foolish as to invest in Australian securities and Australian lands, West Australia has borrowed two sums of £500,000 each in Sydney at 4 per cent. N.S.W. Treasurers have been accustomed to figure on 3 per cent. An advance of 33J- per cent in the interest rate is not much to an enthusiastic spending Minister, especially if it is said quickly. But-to a Treasurer who lias to look at matters, not in the glow of a finely kindled imagination, but in the light of cold hard facts, it is a very serious matter. Mr Fisher has no more money to lend. Indeed, judging from present appearances, it is more than likely that he may have to call in some of that which be has already lent. Some 2} millions sterling has been furnished by the Savings Bank, and duly spent. Here again, in the view of the “tight time” which every one is predicting, it is well-nigh certain that this stream will seriously dwindle, if, indeed, the withdrawals do not begin to exceed the deposits. Mr Cann, moreover, has to show that the advance in the interest rate is in no way duo to distrust of “Labor” methods and the “Labor” policy. But, when he has succeeded in performing this task to his own satisfaction, lie will he as far from finding the funds to support the “slap-dash” policy of his colleagues as before. Mr Holman talks largely of borrowing liberally. •Mr McGowen says that the taxpayer will have to find the money. But it is hard cash that is needed, not mere plausible talk, bard cash, and plenty of it, and very promptly furnished. The loan account is already overdrawn by nearly two millions and a half, and commitments for further enormous expenditure are being entered into almost daily. If there is nidinber of the Ministerial team who will have to earn his salary under such circum- • stances as these, it is plainly the Treasurer. No wonder that Mr Cann is looking serious, for the present position is not only serious but absolutely critical. '

“MY FUNERAL.”

The unwillingness of undertakers to interfere with one another’s funerals lias passed into a colloquial phrase. “It’s his funeral, I shan’t trouble,” is the general sense. But the Governments in Victoria and of this State are reversing the catchword. i lie A ictorian Cabinet is strongly of opinion that the senior State wishes to poach on its own peculiar province. It was instrumental in bringing out a large party of American land-seekers to view the Victorian lands which have been made'irrigable regardless of cost, but which are at so woeful a discount among our own people that they have to be hawked all over the world to ■ find tenants. But the Government of this State also has large tracts of irrigable land at Burren Juk, and, at the present juncture, they also are of little use, except to look at and brag about. Therefore,' is was naturally thought that it would he very nice it the prospective American tenants would take a look at the inviting premises which are “to let” on our own side of the border. ' Overtures were accordingly duly made through the proper channels, conveying a most friendly invitation. Sad to say, it met with a chilling refusal from southern officials. “Arrangements would not permit,” and so on. They might just as well have said at once, “This is pur funeral, and don’t, you try to put your linger in the pie.” However the Yankees were not horn yesterday, and if they.think that the advantages which we can offer are superior to those available in the southern State, and that, in either State, there is a reasonable prospect of doing well, despite the ever-growing demands of the unions, they won’t much care whose funeral it is. They will bo quite willing to “chip in,” even as chiei mourners, in the procession which offers the "best terms.

A CASE FOR THE CASUIST. The passion for fixing wages hv hard-and-fast lines, though, if strict justice were done, scarcely any two men’;; wages would bo precisely alike, produces some queer predicaments. The following question, put to a witness by the" President of the Arbitration Court tlie oilier day, tells it own story. “Do you seriously press that I should award a motorman with 30 years of service 11s a day, and this hoy of 18 in his first year 12s a day ?” The reply was as conclusive as that of Shylock. “It is in the bond.” An “award’’ of such, and sucli a date specified that certain wages should be paid for certain work. The boy was doing tin’s work, and, under the “bond,” it was argued he was entitled to the wage, no matter bow absurd and inequitable it might seem to his Honor. The claim was rejected. But it is clear that, like certain personages of another description altogether, the President of an Arbitration Court needs to have a pretcrnaturally good memory.

THE BLACKS’ CAMP

As soon as wo think that we have got one scandal decently covered up, another makes it appearance, as if to remind ns that we are only striving to suppress symptoms, and are leaving the root of the disease -untouched. T n:> almost unspeakably deplorable condition of affairs at the blacks’ camp is -the latest case in point. The children, it is circumstantially declared, are brought up in immorality as soon as they are physically capable of it. The camps are described as breeding grounds for half-caste child, many of them nearly white. It is very rare, it is further said, that a girl in one of these camps, whether white or colored, reaches the age of 16 without becoming a mother. Mr Donaldson affirms that these unfortunates have no chance whatever. Though nominally they are under the protection of the State, they are really the prey of halfcastes and dissolute whites. It is the old story of futile “nationalisation” over again. The question thrusts itself forward, and will not be laid or exercised. How does it come to pass that collective efforts at philanthropy —philanthropy by proxy, as it may be styled— so inevitably tend towards the gravest abuses? “Something” will have to be done, if only to get the scandal out of sight. What it will be remains to be seen. THAT CONSERVATOIRE.

Mr Carmichael gets some support for his idea of establishing a State Conservatoire of Music from an unexpected quarter. The late Madame Soldene, one of the brightest and most amusing writers that ever took pen in hand, also cherished a warm desire for the welfare of Australian girls of talent. The trials which some of them have undergone, after proceeding to Europe, will) little more lima their talents to subsist on, but with the determination to obtain recognition, made her heart bleed for. despite her persiflage she would have dearly loved to mother the lot of them, which, of course, was impossible. But she thought, not altogether without reason, that if a Conservatoire" were established in Australia on such a scale as to command recognition front the musical and artistic world, the temptation to embark on so perilous an enterprise as a trip and prolonged stay in Europe would he to a great extent moved. There is much truth in this view- It does not necessarily follow, however, that the institution should be inaugurated and sustained by the State, and made subject to the blight of officialism from its very inception, still less, that the GovernorGeneral should be deprived of his Sydney residence in order to carry the scheme into effect. ENSILAGE.

11l the dry conditions prevailing over die greater part of the interior of the State, a big stack, or pit, of ensilage wold be worth the proverbial “Jew’s eye.” But very few are in possession of it. A report of the Commonweath Statistician purports to give the number of settlers who have made this rudimentary provision against scarcity of fodder. They only number 915 out of a total of over SO,OOO holdings. The quantity of ensilage stored in the year 1910-11 was 61,000 tons, and its value is set down at £95,000. It would be a great deal more valuable now than it was then, but there is little ground for hoping that the storage has increased in anything like the same vaiio as the need. The ideas of the enlightened shoot fast and far before the actual practice of the rank dud hie. Yet, when the “enlightened” ones, by some unforseen turn of Fortune’s wheel, come into a position to put their ideas into practice, they so frequently “come a cropper” that there is some excuse, even if there is no justification, tor the distrust which is felt by the old stagers for all “newfangled” notions. However, wisdom will assuredly he justified of her children in this matter of making provision against drought. There has been such a diversion of money and energy to the metropolis in the' spendthrift times which are now drawing to a close, that the State was

probably never in a- worse position than she is at present, to withstand a prolonged period of dry weather.