TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9013, 28 January 1895, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The Victorian Legislature, we The think, acted wisely in revising Governor their action of a week or two of ago, when they cut down the Victoria, salary of the next Governor

from £10,000 to £5000. The Government proposed that it should be reduced to £7000, but some ardent skinflint, prepared to retrench to the uttermost so long as his own honorarium was left untouched, moved its further reduction to £5000, and carried his point by 43 to 32 votes. On! member, in supporting' the , amendment,. argued that to a wealthy gentleman like Lord Brassey £2000 was a very paltry affair. Lord Brassey, however, may have had his own ideas on the subject, and as he was no doubfe aware that it costs the Governor of Victoria considerably more than £10,000 to live and entertain in the style he is expected to, it was hinted that if the £5000 was adhered to he might not see his way to accept .the position. .The hint was taken, and on the matter being brought up in th 6 House a night or two ago the members saw fit to settle the amount of .the Governor's '

salary at £7000. Lord Brassey should prove a worthy successor to Lord flopetoun. .He is . a man- of .wide < experience and is an (authority -on the, labour question and an expert on the Navy, r hie Naval Annual, which was. first issued in -1886,- being an admirable work of reference. As member of Parliament, first for Devonport and then for Hastings, he has always advocated the claims of the Navy to more attention, and it was due to his efforts that the Admiralty, consented' to the enrolment of a secondclass naval reserve, - for which the ' fishing population would - .be , eligible. Besides transacting his ordinary parliamentary duties he eat on several Royal Commissions, those dealing with agriculture, unseaworthy ships, the defence 'of naval coaling stations, and opium. He is also an ardent. Imperial Federationiat, and may be expected to do his.best to proniote the closer union of the colonies and the. Mother . Country.' Ifc is, however, as .owner and master of the famous yacht Sunbeam that Lord Brassey 1 is beet known to most people, and he was the first yachtsman who obtained a Board of Trade, certificate for competency to. navigate as master. His philanthropy is- almost .proverbial, he is President of Dr. Barnardo'e Homes and of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, and besides subscribing largely to the -funds of ite missions to seamen, recently gave a donation of £5000 to the Sailors' Institution at Poplar. He considers it his duty to j give away at least a tenth of his yearly income in charity, but ifc is said the real , amount is always greatly in excess of tbis.

The late Lady Brassey bad Lady the honour of having written Braseey. w'hatisprobably one of the most . popular books- of travel which was ever published. " The Voyage of the Sunbeam " has been- read in every* corner of the globe. On that boat, in which she had made so many- pleasant journeys, she died in 1887, after she had-visited Australia, and was on the homeward voyage. . The present Lady Braseey ,~ whom Lord Brassey married in 1890, is the sister of the Earl of Essex, and> seems in every way fitted to. follow Lady Hopetoun as leader of , Victorian society. - A recent interviewer learned from .her that before her marriage she lived very quietly, had travelled but little, that ' her uneventful home life had developed a great taste for reading, and that she was an. enthusiast about • a great walker, an accomplished horsewoman, and very fond , of- hunting. She, too, is a good friend to the poor, and in spite of the demands made upon her by' her duties as wife of a public 'man she finds time to personally vieib and help' the needy and suffering. She founded a convalescent home for children at Bexhill; Sussex, and is a frequent and welcome visitor at the. Seamen's Hospital near the Victoria, and Albert Docks, with which Lord Brassey is also associated. She told the interviewer one thing which rather surprises us, that she spent her honeymoon in a six weeks' cruise in the Sunbeam in the Mediterranean. One would have thought that she would have objected, at so early a stage in her married life, to spending six weeks on a boat so intimately connected with her predecessor. JStrongmindedneas is evidently one of her ladyship's qualities which escaped the notice i of the interviewer. ~ .

There* recently anived Prospecting in Sydney one of the best in the known of the prospectors Golden West, by whose discoveries I Western Australia . has .lately achieved auch fame. This was Mr John G. Dunn, the discoverer of the celebrated Wealth of Nations mine. Mr Dorm has been a prospector for many years, starting aa a very young man with little bub a sonnd constitution and a sufficient know* ledge of geology to enable him to determine whether the country he came upon wajs likely to prove auriferous oroor. He pursued hie career in New South Welti for

years with bat small success, and co nearly four years ago he set out for Western Australia and the Murchison. He explored, for 150 miles inland, but had no luck and then turned sooth ward, being at Lake Barlee when Bay ley discovered Coolgardie. He kept going south, and eventually dropped across several payable properties, which he disposed of to syndicates. Then he had the exceeding good fortune to strike on the Wealth of Nations. " The first camel's load I toot in," ho says, "consisted of about £8500 worth of quartz gold, and the second £13,000. The total value of the stuff brought in was £22,000, and it included one atone which weighed 1591b and contained about 800oz of gold." This mine, he claims, is one of the best defined lodes in Australia, and the geological features are favourable for a continuance of it to any depth. He Bold out his interest in the mine to a syndicate,-who in turn disposed of the mine to Colonel North, "the Nitrate King," for £146,000. Mr Dunn promises the world another surprise. He is going out again shortly to a place that is " all tight," but which up to the present has only been sees by himself and his camels.* Hβ has handled gold from it, and apparently thinks he has another Wealth of Nations lying ready for ! him to take possession of whenever h 9 likes. i It is only a matter of time, Mr Dunn thinks, nntil there is a Continuous gold field all the way from Coolgardie to Murchison, but he has a poor opinion of some of the mines on the former field. " A lot of mines there have been placed on the English market that are not worth the lease of the land." As usual, however, the shareholders will be the last persona to hear of this, which has been known all over the colonies for months.