OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 438, 8 April 1890, Page 2

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

(FROM OVB OWN CORBKSPONDBXT.) Sydney, March 26. The week hae been chiefly remarkable for the utter and shameful discomfiture of the official weather prognostications. A few days ago we were told that the three years’ drought predicted by Mr Egeson was about to begin and that we need expect no more rain worth speaking of. But on Sunday and Monday down it came again with 40 flood power. All the low lying lands were again submerged and the poor people who had been tempted by the weather forecast of Mr Egeson to re-occupy their premises, must have felt the consequences very bitterly. Monday night was black and threatening, and no one was surprised to see in Tuesday’s papers an official prophecy to the effect that general rain was likely to continue. But those who have watched the forecasts, and have formed their own opinion as to the value to be placed on them, were not at all surprised to see the weather on Tuesday clear up, the blue sky again appear, and the sun come ont in all his glory. I can only repeat what I said when Mr Egeson’s prediction of the three years' drought first appeared: If men with all the records open before them and with all scientific facilities at their disposal, cannot accurately foretell the weather for three days together, what reliance is to be placed on their ability to foretell it for three years? These guesses at the futnre are made in all good faith, but they remain guesses still, and the man who pins his faith to them will find that he is depending on a mere airy speculation.

The Daily Telegraph the other day published a letter from a writer who proclaimed himself a scion of the aristocracy, a son of Lord Voleur, and who besought the people of New South Wales not to give assistance to the degraded English coal miners now on strike. The letter contained abundant internal evidence showing that it was really written in the interests of the miners, and was intended to expose out of their own month the heartlessness and rapacity of the “ Voleur " class, who have been suffered to monopolise the public lands, and who will only allow capital and labor to develope them on their own terms. The word “Voleur” means thief, and many parts of the letter were so clumsily written that the real intention of the writer was very evident, But there is a class of newspaper correspondents, and I really think they contribute the majority, who are like the proverbial Scotchman in that a glimmer of a joke can never gain entrance into their skulls except by a surgical operation. Numbers of them took up the cudgels on behalf of the unhappy miners, and the cause of the latter must have been in great danger through the too-palpbale exposure of the well-mean-ing imbecility of their self-constituted champions. However, the miners seem pretty well able to take care of themselves. A good share of tbe advance for which they are contending is being very generally conceded, and victory seems to bs attending their effort. It is a pity, however, that capital and labor should expend their strength in fighting one another. Better would it be it they were to combine their forces in a united attack on land monopoly which circumscribe the operations oi both of them, and fleeces them to the very quick. As yet Henry George remains unanswered as to bis chief thesis. He may have been unguarded in his language and over sanguine in his expectations. He may have overlooked the existence of many things which are, in hie burning desire to bring in those which ought to be. But his central proposition that the unearned increment in the value of land belongs to the people and must sooner or later more or less thoroughly be claimed by the State on their behalf has never yet been touched. Most opponents of the movement spend their strength in attacking some position that is not an essential. Very commonly indeed they attack propositions that no one has ever maintained. For instance Mr Sala, mens the other night deemed it incumbent on him, in consequence of what Henry George had said, to maintain the existence of Providence, as though tbe existence of Providence, instead of assuring to right doing its proper reward, absolve! men from endeavouring to see the truth and do it I Mr Oopeland the same evening spent a long time in maintaining what Henry George maintains much more intelligently than he does, that a definite tenure of laud is an indispensable condition of individual and national prosperity. None of these attacks are likely to prosper. Tbe Australian public is not any quicker of perception than it ought to be, but it is hardly likely that it will allow itself to be influenced by sooh abject purrte-beadedness as Mr Gaorge'l assailants are in the habit of displaying “ Save me from my friends,” has passed into a proverb. “ Send me enemies that will help my cause ” might serve as a fitting companion to it. It is hardly necessary to remark that the question whether rates and other taxation shall be levied by preference on the unimproved value of land or on the value of the capital and labour which has been expended in improving it, is not affected by stupid misrepresentations and random anathemas. The one course offers a premium to the joint efforts of capital and fines them heavily when they break through the embargo. And although land monopoly and the methods by which it is maintained thus constitute a crushing incubus on the progress of the community they do not themalves profit as they would under a healthier and honester system. Those who have purchased land in the hope of profiting by the unearned increment sometimes, it is true, make enormous gains at other people’s expense. But such is the general stagnation, a stagnation which, to a great extent, has been been caused by their own operations—that in bv far the greater number of oases they art helplessly, and almost hopelessly looking for tenants and purchasers who don’t come. They are like the Bedouin bandits who secure in advance, the watering places in the desert in order that they may levy blackmail on the approaching caravan. But in tbis case the caravan knows so well the fleecing which awaits it, that It is in no hurry to advance at all, but prefers to remain in the half dead halt alive condition into which its legislators and administrators by continually shirking their duty have allowed it to drift. Of course this illustration hover- ( drawn. People who avail themselves o* tbe facilities which the law gives them to purchase land ere not often, it is to be hoped, consciously bandits or robbers, nor would it be either just or expedient to proceed against them as if they were. But their innocence or guilt does not alter the facts of the case or render it less necessary to taks action noon them. It rash and violent action is precluded, it is all the more imperative that such action as is wise and well adapted to the circumstances shall be taken. For the good of landowners themselves, as well as for that of the community generally, it is time to put an end to the present anomalous state of things. Parliament has been further adjourned till April 29, when it is to meet for the despatch of business. When the Opposition swallowed the estimates in a lump in order to get into recess, no one imagined that the holiday would extend over a couple of months at the outside. But since the Assembly took to voting the public money into its own pockets, a recess means a holiday on full pay, and it may therefore be expected to moderate very effectively the of its membars. Scarcely a murmur has been heard, aven from the most ardent Oppositionist, at the prolongation of the period of inaction. But perhaps now the date is fixed some of them will make known their sentiments. Mr McMillan stands pledged to recast ths tariff on Fraetrado lines, which means, I presums, the abolition of the duties on dairy produce, sugar, kerosene, and many other articles. Ha baa aworn to have a tilt at the windmill. How ho will fare time alone can tell.