OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 316, 25 June 1889, Page 3

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

(FROM OUB OWN COBHESPONDENT.) Sydney, June 12. The central figure in public interest at the present moment, judging by its importance to the community, ought to be the Land Bill. From that measure we hope for results which will tend to stimulate the improvement of the country and the development of its resources, besides adding immensely to its wealth. But, notwithstanding this, and notwithstanding, also, the fact that its present position in a house so equally divided is very critical, our fickle and pleasure-loving popu lace give it very little attention. They leave all these things to the members of Parliament. And, as many of these latter gentry are even less interested, and less informed, than their constituents, the prospect is not reassuring. So far as they can use the measure for advertising themselves so far will they condescend to notice it. But as for making a painstaking Inquiry into existing abuses, and providing a carefully adapted remedy for them, that is quite another matter. The second reading, after a fruitless debate extending over several weeks, was carried almost unanimously., But the real fight is to come in committee, and although many members are sincerely desirous to sink all party differences, and pass a really good measure, I am afraid that they are not sufficiently numerous to effect the desired end.

The real interest of the community is about equally divided between Mr JAn Davies and the “petrified man." The report of the committee appointed to enquire nto the proceedings of the former, that is to say, of the Casual Labor Board, has now been made public, together with the evidence that was given before it. It furnishes a vivid picture of the laxity with which the affairs of “the unemployed" were administered. A quarter of a million of money seems to have been expended in the loosest possible manner. But the responsibility for this must be held to rest with the central administration which inaugurated such a happy-go-lucky expenditure. Mr Davies’s record had been before the country for many years. We all remember the episode which turned upon his orthographical eccentricities, and which procured for him the sobriquet of “ January John.” We all know, therefore, that nothing in his past career gave any warrant for the for the expectation that he had the necessary knowledge and ability to devise an elaborate and efficient system of bookkeeping and financial procedure as a check against himself, In any other department of the public service those checks would have been supplied as a matter of course. Much more, then, ought they to have been applied in this ease, where, in consequence of the lack of official training there was more than ordinary need of them. The responsibility for the omission cannot be shelved or shirked. It is, also, the responsibility for all that has happened since. To fasten on two or three items, which admit of a worse technical construction than the rest of the expenditure, and make them the foundation of criminal proceedings, is very like straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. The neglect and apathy which rendered such doings possible, and which wipked at them while they were being carried on, are themselves criminal. The money that has been squandered would have built fifty miles of railway. It would have repaired the worst places of the country roads and many other things beside. It has been muddled away, and now there is next to nothing to show for it. This is the real offence, and it is one which can neither be forgotten nor atoned for—not even by the sacrifice of a scapegoat. As for the petrified man all the authorities seem to be at odds. Geologists, sculptors,

"duly qualified ” medical men, cannot agree whether the ugly lump of stone is a sculpture, a casting, or a veritable “ subject?' As for the plain people who are not experts they are all pretty well agreed on tha subject that it is a clumsy imitation got up for the gate money, end which is receiving a splendid gratuitous advertisement at the hands of the “ experts 1 aforesaid. The latter far once are ia their proper places—dragged at the tailsofa procession of penny shov. men, Mr R. H. Levien, whose suspension at the hands of the Supreme Court I mentioned recently and who resigned a seat ii the Assembly in consequence, hrs received a splendid vindication at ths hands of his constituents, having been returned trium phantly and unopposed. Jt is to he hoped that the Supreme Court will manage to adjust its decisions in such a manner as to command the respect of the people generally. Otherwise the consequeross may be serious, There is something like a recrudescence of the mining borm, some silver’stq Its haying advanced in value over a hunurod per cent, daring the last month or two. The advance is due, less to any intrinsic improvement In the mines themselves than to a widely spread, and sedulously-inculcated belief that they are 11 going up.” When a gambling eom. munity become possessed of an idea of thia sort, it brings about its own' fulfilment," There is a rush tq buy them, and of course the would be buyers raise the price against themselves. But when tl ay wish to Bel:, ; n order to realise their gains (?;, the process is reversed. As soon as the would be sellers begin to preponderate over the would be buyers the price falls as rapidly as it rose. Instead of realising profit, the panic stricken holders begin to wonder whether they will realise anything, That the shares have any intrinsic value of their own is doubtful, At any rate it ia the last thing thought of. Then there Comes a sauve qui peut, and for weeks and months the shares are selling for as many shillings as they before commanded pounds. Even now, when the “ market " ;a regarded Sb rising, the operation of tfeia principle may lie seen, prices often’ Su'eiuatlng as much as 25 per cent, fn a day according as sellers or buyers happen to be In the majority. The men who have private information as to the way the strings are going to be pulled in tha way of repor's, essays, etc, are the man who win at this game, just as cardsharpers are said to win by keeping the trumps concealed in their aleevra. Gradually the ’’ innocent •’ Section' of speculators are fleeced of their money. But there seems to be always a fresh relay ready to eome forward, Legislation has been invoked against thia gambling curse which works untold distress and misery. But no legislation can cure it. An unsparing exposure ol tbe hopelessness of winning honestly may do something, But the only real cure to be hoped for ia ia the gradual advance of Bon’scientioijsnees. r > " ' At last the Crown solicitor has succeed in finding, in the person of Mr H. E, Cohen, a barrister who is willing to undertake the task of prosecuting the Hon. John Davies., From what I have said before, it will have been gathered that there were considerable difficulties in the wayi First, Mr Pitcher's opinion was taken. He held that as Mr Davies's services were of an honorary or setbar, pathats, If I may so esprosa it, of gfl' j Lhari,ster,Tie coffid rtot be proearfled agairuit ua a’u Ordifißiry Civil faSivaar. _ I'tea aa

appeal was made to Mr F. E. Rogers, another counsel learned in the law. He differed from his learned brother, and considered that a pros cution would lie under certain sections of the Criminal Law Amendment Aot. Mr Rogers, however, was " too busy ” to undertake the task himself. Then the job, it seems, was hawked round the bar without success, until at last the haven of refuge was found in the person of the gentleman I have mentioned.

An agitation is on foot by advocates of temperance to prohibit the employment of barmaids. The amount of obscene ribaldry these girls are compelled to hear in some of the lower drinking shops is appalling and revolting. And these “ lower ” shops are to ba found among some of those which make the greatest pretensions to •• style." The Daily Telegraph has an article on the subj ot this morning, in which it admits the gravity ot the case, whilst it endeavors to minimise it by comparing the barmaids with overworked shop girls. Bat this line of reasoning takes no account of the fact that the stuff vended by the barmaids destroys tbe power of self restraint in those who drink it, at the same time that it powerfully excites the animal nature, thus directly tending to produce the evil that it deplores. “It was the drink that did it," says many a man when he finds that he has hopelessly committed himself in a manner of which in his sober moments he would never have deemed himself capable. “It is not I that speak, but tha wine with which you have served me," many a man may say, who has perhaps a mother and sisters of his own, and who would try to take the life of any one who should talk to them as he talks in the presence of the barmaid. There is no parallel between the case of the barmaid and that of women who are simply overworked and underpaid, but who are not compelled to supply incitements to insult at so much per glass. The Telegraph is on stronger ground when it maintains that the evil is not one that can be dealt with by legislation. Its remarks are worthy of remembrance by those who advocate this kind ot intervention in other cases, say for instance in effecting tbe compulsory cowpoxing (perhaps syphilising) of children in order that they may escape the imaginary danger of smallpox. Some of the latter, like Dr Manning, have persuaded themselves that the tradition which prescribes compliance with this lucrative but exploded superstition, is a wholesome one and therefore regard tire observance of it as a step in morality. Hea-, therefore, what a lea-ling metropolitan journal has to say on the subject of barmaids. Even if this partial advance of morality could be secured, it ia worth while to consider whether we ought to pay tha price for it of so great an interference with the general liberty,