TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10059, 10 June 1898, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The action which is apThe Hindoo parently to be taken in the Host. Australian colonies to

prevent the wholesale immigration to the colonies of Hindoos is probably the result of a considerable influx which took place a few days ago, together with the prospect of similar occurrences in the near future. The steamer Bucephalus which lately reached Australia from Bombay brought seventy-nine Hindoos, mostly Sikhs, who came out with the object of working on the sugar plantations of Queensland and northern New South Wales. Someone had told them that high wages were paid on these plantations, and so, knowing very little about Australia, but with a serene confidence that things would be all right when they got there, they took ship for the unknown country. They wanted to land at Sydney, but Sydney would not have them, and they were therefore obliged to go on to Melbourne. No objection Was there made to them landing, but the unfortunate Hindoos at once found themselves in a most unpleasant predicament. Few of them had anything to call their own, except the clothes they wore, only a small minority spoke English, and hardly one of them knew any trade but farming. They scan found, that Melbourne offered no soope for their energies in. that respect, and if their countrymen already in that city had not j taken compassion on them, and given them temporary house-room, things might 'liave gone hard with them. The Melbourne Hindoos would not do more because the new arrivals were not of the hawker class, who are now so common in Victoria. The latter, it appears, manage things much better. Farmers in their own country, they mortgage their little piece of land, obtaining at least £10, of which £7 goes in passage money. Landing in Melbourne with £3 in theic pocket they obtain £2 worth of goods from the merchants who supply Hindoo hawkers, and at the same time they get another £2 10s worth on credit. This modest outfit has been the basis on which many of these men j have made hun<gfteds of pounds in a. few yeara. With regard to the new* arrivals it may be mentioned that their numbers were expected to be recruited by at least fifty-four more during the next two or three weeks, lured by the same hope of getting work on the sugar plantations. It seems, however, fiat Queensland does not want any more Hindoos, and the prospect of a still further influx of the* men for whom there is no work, has,, stirred up the Victorian authorities, who have, as a first step, asked the Viceroy of India to do what he can to discourage emigration to Australia. LoBD Camperdown has An English just published a book which Hero. serves to remind a forgetful generation of one of the greatest and. noblest men who ever commanded a British ship—Admiral Duncan, who won for England tihe battle of Camperdown. The author has the best right to give to England an account of this hero, for he is his great grandson. "Duncan served at different times v under such notables as Hawke, Keppel, and Rodney, but it was not until he was sixty-three that lie was placed in confmand of a fleet, and it was after he had reached that mature age that he accomplished the feats which should keep his memory fresh in our minds. One. of his contemporaries has declared that Duncan was the "finest man in his person" he ever saw, six feet four inches in height, and proportionately broad and strong, with "nobly beautiful" features and easy though dignified manner. He was , scr handsome that it is said that when as a lieutenant he passed through the streets of Chatham, people would pour out of tflfeir houses to look at him, and admire him for his gigantic stature and grace of countenance. "He is heart of oak; he is a seaman every incfh of him; and as to a bit of a broadside, it only makes the old cock young again,'' wrote one of his sailors of him when he was getting old. At a time when the treatment of the sailors in the navy was hardly short of systematic brutality, when the lash was the gieat agint of, discipline, and the men were poorly paid and worse fed, Duncan did what I one man could to improve their condition, and it is a testimony to his humanity that during the mutiny in the fleet in 1797 hia own ship, the Venerable, was one of the only two that did not desert. The other was the Adamant, and the Admiral quelled the incipient mutiny on that vessel by a single bold stroke. Going on board he demanded whether anyone , -' disputed his authority or that of his officers. One man stepped forward and insolently declared that h* did. Duncan immediately seized him by the collar, and holding him with one hand over the ship's side, said, "My lade, look at this fellow, he who dares to deprive mc of my command of the fleet." A fortnight later, when Duncan left to watch the Dutch fleet in the Teiel, the Adamant accompanied him.

At this time both France The Battle and Holland were at war of with England, and DunCamperdown. can's duty was to blockade the Dutch fleet of fourteen ships of the line lying inside the Texel. It was no light task to attempt, with but two ships at his command, but Duncan's spirit rose at obstacles, and "with ships or without them" he declared he would cany on the blockade. In his address to bis crew he told them that they were in such, shoal water that if his ship was sunk his flag would still fly above the waves. So the two ships remained there, and Dun*

can kept the Dutchmen on tenterhooks by\ fr continually signalling to an imaginary > British fleet in the offing. Later on he hid to go to England, and while there news came that the Dutch ships were out. Hβ hurried off with a fleet to bring them to battle, and sighted them one morning at daybreak close in shore. A strong wind wag off the sea, and there was considerable danger to the British ships of strand, ing if any of them were dismasted. Duncan took the chance, as Nelson did later on and without waiting to arrange his fleet in line of battle, he bore down upon the enemy in "two ill-ordered columns," while, surrounded by his officers, he knelt upon his deok and "committed himself and them.with ; the cause they maintained, to the protee. tion of the Almighty." "The battle lasted two hours," wrote one of Duncan's crew "when we killed one-half and took the other half, so there's an end of all Dutchmen." The enemy lost fifteen ships, and for hjg services the was awarded a peerage and a pension of £2000 a year. It -\va3 at this battle that the well-known remark o{ one of the British captains was made. Hβ [ was a hasty-tempered Scot, who had not I fully mastered the signal book, and wag more puzzled tlian usual ovei it on the eventful morning. At last, dashing the book on to the deck, he exclaimed in broad Scotch / "D n! Up with the nel-lum, and gang into the middle o't." Duncan retired two or three years after Camperdown, but of. «fered his services again more than once be« fore his deatih in 1804. His memory h«s been dimmed by the splendours of Nelson's • gieafc victories, otherwise he would probably •: > ?v have secured a more lasting hold upon the remembrance of his countrymen.

Mr Ernest Terah HooleyY Mr Hooley. career as a millionaire and

a great financier has been one of the shortest and merriest on record. He burst upon an astonished public and Stock Exchange two or three short yean ago as the perfect embodiment of business acumen and enterprise. At first his yen. tures were amazingly successful. Ho pro. moted the Humber Cycle Company, at a profit to himself, it was said, of £100,000. His "deal" in the matter of Bovril it historic. At the suggestion of a London newspaper man he bought the existing property for two millions sterling and floated it at once into a company with a capital of three millions, making half a millionior himself out of the transaction, The journalist was rewarded with a cheque for £20,000. Mr Hooley also floated the Dun* lop Tyre and Singer Companies, and one may be sure that his banking account was sub* atantially increased in each case. To hie native county of Derbyshire he proved a lavish benefactor. He doubled the incomes of the two vicars whose livings were in his gift, and gave £5000 towards the cost of restoring a parish church. He promised, and no doubt gave, £15,000 a year for the benefit of the agod poor of the bounty, and turning his attention towards politics he presented a Derbyshire town with a Conservative Club. He filled the public eye shortly before the Diamond Jubilee by his gift of a magnificent com* munion service in * gold to St. Paula Cathedral, the cost of whioh ran into thousands of pounds. His attempt to exploit the frozen meat by forming all the refrigerating companies in these colonies, into one great combination, met, as will be remembered, with a cold reception out here and the suggestion fell to the ground, while his negotiations with the Chinese Government for floating a loan fpr them, with a concession for building a railway, had no better success. What has contributed to bring about such a crisis in Ws affairs that he has had to file his schedule remains to be heard, but it is impossible to think that so versatile and enterprising a financial genius will long remain under a cloud.