OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 491, 9 August 1890, Page 3

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) INGRATITUDE FOR BENEFITS. Sydney, Juls23. The interruption of cable news for a few days has vividly impressed on the newspaper reading and commercial portion of the community the immense value of telegraphic communication with the more ancient portion of the civilised world. Numbers of interesting topics on which some instalment of light was being shed daily were suddenly shut off into darkness. Commercial men, suddenly deprived of their connection with their eorrespondents, were afraid to make any important purchases or enter into any momentous transactions. Yet they were not very grateful for the cable while they had it. The fact is that they had got so used to it that they took it as a matter of course, just as we regard the daily rising of the sun. By a curious perversion of the mind, we convert the constancy and regularity cf a benefit—factors wnich add immensely to its beneficent power—into excuses for ingratitude. However, the commercial world had a tangible ground for complaint in the exorbitant charges which are levied for cable messages and which are practically prohibitory against all but wealthy firms. A movement is on foot to induce the cable company to reduce their charges by something like 75 per cent. This, if effected, will enable the newspapers to give three times as much cable news as they do now for the same money, and in a corresponding degree will facilitate the uta of the cable by the general public. THE FISHERY DIFFICULTIES. When communication was resumed, it was Been that the course of events had revealed acme exciting features. The annoying New foundland difficulty continues to plague England and France, and it is now thought that the former will purchase peace with Nova Scotia by “buying off” the pertinacious Gaul. The situation, however, is very strained. Shots have been fired and it is evident that nothing but the sternest resolution not to take offence prevents an •pen rupture between the two great Powers. The spread-eagleism also of Secretary Blaine, in reference to the Western fisheries in Behring’s Sea, is causing trouble, and it is i evident that many misunderstandings and jealousies lie in the way of the hoped-for union of English speaking peoples. THE AMERICAN SILVER BILL. To Australians, dependent as we are on the East for cur tea, our woolpacko, our rice, ■pices and a host of other articles, the passage of the American silver bill is a very momentous item, tending as is does to increase the price of all these articles by someth! rg like 25 per cent. They are all paid for in eilvercoin, and the silver bill (which has now become hw) dirsets the Govrrnment of the United States to buy up silver at the rate of 4.500.000 dollar, a month until the price of the lilver contained in a silver dollar ie equal to a gold dollar, that is to say until the price of silver has been raised from 3s 6d an ounce, at which it stood before this legislation was proposed, to something like 5s an ounce. Already, I may say, it has risen to 4s 2|d, But all Eastern goods are paid for in silver currency, and this sudden alteration of the ratio of silver and gold values implies that that silver Surrency will have to be paid for at a much higher price than heretofore. Formerly a sovereign would purchase, say, 16 rupees. In the future it will probably purchase only 12. It is evident therefore that many more sovereigns will be required to pay our Eastern hills* The balance of course will be redressed M eoon M the greater purchasing power of the rupee and dollar makes itself felt in their own country. But this, owing to their conservative habits of thought, will come about slowly. Indirectly, too, we in Australia are likely to be benefited by an advance in the price of wheat which will be brought about by this silver legislation. Russia and India, next to America, are the most important wheat producing countries in ths world, and as both of them have a silver currency the same causes which make tea and ju»e goods advance wi<h Si will operate to bring about an advance in wheat in the London market—an advance which means, of course, an advance in Australia also. Our farmers are notoriously badly paid, and any change which gives them a fairer remuneration for their labour is to be welcomed. DELAY OF SHEARING. The persistent wet weather with which the colony has been visited for the last twelve months seems to have broken up at last, and the genial Australian sunshine is on 3e more streaming down upon us. Should the fine weather continue a peiiod of commercial activity will at once be ushered in. Shearing, the pastoral harvest, has been delayed for a long time in some districts owing to the impossibility of obtaining supplies and the abnormally inclement weather which we have been experiencing. As soon as preparations are resumed in earnest, an active demand for goods will be experienced, which it is hoped will go far to atone for the inactivity of the earlier portion of the year.

THE POWER OF UNIONISM. Shearing itself is likely to be attended by a revival of the labour troubles which have now some to form so important a factor in all industrial movements. The Shearers’ Union demand that the squatters shall employ none but union labor, and have declared that the I carriers’, the wharf laborers’ and the seamen’s unions will unite with them to prevent any wool that has been shorn by non-unionists from being shipped. The sympathies of the public, in the main, it may be safely stated, are with labor rather than with capital, and the services which unionism has rendered to the cause of the former are by no means overlooked or underrated. Bat for all that, if capital has its duties it also has its rights, Bad if labour has its rights, those rights have also tbeir limitations, which in this case appear to have been recklessly overpassed. Such an ultimatum, together with the terrorism by which it is sought to enforce it. seems to be an iniquitous and illegal device conceived ia the restraint of trade, and a shameless and tyrannical invasion of the rights and liberties of employers and employed. The former are dictated to as to the men they ■ball engage to do their work. The latter are to be coerced into joing the union. This M union,’’ it must be further remembered, is mainly influenced by hotheaded and impru dent agitators, whose heads have been turned by the position of unwonted power in which they find themselves, and who in their wild dreams of the universal conquest of unionism overlook some of the most important factors in the problem which lies before them. One of the most vital of these is respect for individual freedom. When this is trampled under foot, it is simply the exchange of one tyranny for another—the tyranny of uncultured revolt in the place of that calculating and far-seeing prudence which has at least learned selfrestraint. A community which tolerates such claims is dangerously near to decadence, and one which permits them upon the stage of actual conflict is in great danger of disastrous internal convulsion. What is now required from the Executive is ths faculty of governing —fairly and justly, but still wisely, and with foresight of possible and probab’e congequence?. But this is just the faculty in which modern methods which depend for thrir mainspring on the adroit flattery of King Demos are most wofully deficient. Our Government can get on remarkably well, as long as they are not called upon to govern. When they are, their incompetence and want of adequate backing become corspicuous, borrowing mania.

Politically, matters rem tin very quiet. In an equally divided expenditure covering some fourteen or fifteen millions of money has been almost unanimously agreed to. Yet this will p'edge the borrowing •apacity of the country (if its operations are to be confined within the bounds of patriotic prudence) for the next four or five years at least, and during ? hat period will prevent the incepti-n of any other public works of importance. Every member seems to seek expenditure in bis own electorate, and in order to obtain it the majority make no scruple in aiding other members to obtain expenditure in theirs. Thus it comes to pass that prudence and economy are altogether lost sight of. In a few weeks the Assembly has deliberately mortgaged the resources of the colony for as many years, has ignored the rights of its successors, and has endorsed a loan expenditure which is plainly about three times as large as oau gafoly bo entered upon. Thus'dew

tive wisdom.” when it embarks upon the seductive streams of log rolling, become selfconfessed and patent collective folly. And the worst of it is that the people who see the folly, do not denounce it as they ought. Some of them think it will last their time. Others find it so hard to live that they welcome anything, however ill-judged, which promise to create a diversion. Yet others, who are the worst of all, expect to find their own account in the expenditure. It is a mad world, my masters.