OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 403, 14 January 1890, Page 3

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

| FROM OVB OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

Sydney, Deo. 24. A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and many of them, to all my readers, ant everyone else. I was very nearly writing, t< everyone who deserves it. Bat as no one car be really happy who deserves it not, it seemec rather superfluous. This is the time ol feasting and merriment. May we remembei what the genial influences of the season oughl to remiud us of. Not those, I fancy, whc eat and drink and revel the most will be the merriest or happiest, but those who give the most and the most wisely. But this giving, what a complex and paradoxical thing it is. One, ba it man or woman, shall give you more pleasure by a tone ot the voice, a glance of the eye, a grasp of the hand, than another who pompously confers upon you the leavings tit his wealth. Gifts in themselves are lifeless •nd valueless. According to the heart from which they oome is their real worth. And, judged by this rule, what so valuable as the gifts which in our perpetual stream flow down to humanity from the Giver of all good—whose manifestation, full of grace and truth, the whole Chrisiian World will have commemorated by the time these lines are read, Shall there be no gratitude for these, no passing on from our own superfluity to those who need it more than we do? Here again there is need for discrimination. Bumping hard against the stern facts ot life, we are not slow to discover that not those who make the greatest parade of their poverty, or who complain the most loudly of the neglect and callousness of their fellowmen, are those who are really the most in need. As if to point this moral, so appropriate to the season, a case of the grossest imposition has just come to light. A blind man was wont to take his stand in George Street, near the Commercial Bank. Standing with outstretched hand, mutely inviting the alms of the passers-by, he seemed the very picture of misery. He became almost as well known as the bank itself, and many were those who deemed it a sacred duty to give him a coin. Something, 1 don't know what, caused the police to fancy that he was hot io poor al he looked, and the other day they arrested him on a charge of begging in a public thoroughfare, Then they found that instead of being poverty stricken creature ha appeared, ha pgd fixed deposits in the Commercial Bank, arid in the Government Savings Bank, amounting ta nearly £lOOO. That amount, judiciously distributed, would have caused many a widow's heart to sing for joy, would have lightened many a burden that, although horns with stoical and uncomplaining fortitude, Is crushing those who bear it. But, gftsr all, almsgiving is only one form of practical benevolence, and that not the highest form. How many are there who need to be benevolent to themselves to begin with?— benevolent to their own batter nature trampled ja the mire of their avarice, their ambition, or fheir paseions. How many are there who peed to learn bow to be benevolent to wife, to Children, to dependents ? But there, the fact that this is Christmas time, and a Christmas litter most be my excuse for sounding deeper chords than those which journalism essays to touchPolitically the year closes ominously, There is apparent peace, because the Houses of Parliament have gone into recess. But it ja a peace that prepares for war. The passjng of the estimates for the year has cleared tpe decks for action, and there is an undisguised determination that when the Legislature next assembles it will not be to deliberate for the public good, but to decide which of two equally balanced political parties shall' farce its " platform ” down the throat of the Other, ft reminds one of the ancient ordeal pt trial by combat. While the fight lasts good feeling aud good government will be thrown to the winds. And when it is over the- -rsalt will be the same as if it had never been fought, That is to say it will be a compromise. Bach is battling as I said before for the right to force its undiluted political dogmas down the throats of those who hate them. But, whatever may be the (result the minority will be too powerful to admit ot the possibility ot coercion. Seeing then that after the fight is over the beaten party will still be able to force its claim to consideration, why cannot both sides scree to extend consideration to etch other before it begins? A Parliamentary division has no more power to alter the real truth—the real rights of the cause—than had the combat & I'outrame. The tact that a champion was unhorsed or speared or got his throat cut didn’t render his cause one atom intrinsically worse or better. Civilisation slowly awoke to the fact, and the combative knights in iron armour had to give place to the judge and jury, who do at least make some show of Candidly and dispassionately inquiring where the truth lies. But the knights still flourish in party divisions, far more impervious to argument or conviction than the armoured champion to chance arrow are our modern political fighters. Why cannot we do away With the whole pestilent tribe, and settle down like sensible men to see what is really good and practicable? It will oome to this sooner or later, and until it does coma our pretence of government by means of anarchy will be a wretched parody. I don't know whether Chrismas influences had anything to do with it, but a very serious labor trouble which hade fair to disorganise the whole of the coasting trade is in a fair way of being amicably settled without the objectionable appeal to physical force and endurance. I refer to the dispute between the engineers and captains of steamers. The latter claim jurisdiction over the whole ship Ths former declare that as captains can only have a very superficial knowledge of machinery they are out of place in the engine room, and they demand for themselves a separata and uncontrolled jurisdiction as to details, though of course they are willing to

concede to the skipper the right of deciding the speed at which the engines are to be run. There la a good deal of reason in the complaint made by the engineers, that at present they are in danger of being arbitrarily and vexatloaely interfered with by men who have little or no oomprehension of the minutia of their work. But it is plain, on the other hand, that it would never do to create an imperium in imperia. There can only be one captain on board a ship and he must be captain everywhere, in the engine room as well as on the quarter deck. The question seems to be one for the exercise of tact and discrimination rather than for the drawing of hard and fast lines. Other things besides seamanship are required of a captain. If he cannot command without provoking ordi narily wall disposed men to rebellion, he is plainly out of place and should make way for some one better qualified. On the other hand if an engineer is so morbidly sensitive that he resents the taking of Ordinary precautions by the captain be also is out of place. Unfortunately these questions are often complicated by personal favoritism, and jd the CVerpowering feeling ot resentment kgainst injustice and in tbs conviction that no redress awaits them but such as they can force for themselves, positions are tfken up which in the long run must prove (ifiigpalllp. I don’t |hqw that there hae'been anything of the sort in the present instance, A conference is to be held to-day Consisting Of two representatives st each aide, and It is quite expected that an amicable arrangement will be arrived at, In commercial matters the year closes quietly but hopefully, Prices of commodities have risen all round, but the demand is jlbws and paints to *• period of general sue hence. The mainstay of New South Wales |s of joprM the pestoral indastry, which, with ?eo| |t a high price, ana abundance of feed »nd water, is flourishing bravely, barring bush fires and grass seed,