A Clergyman on Victoria.

Evening Star, Issue 7403, 24 December 1887, Page 2

A Clergyman on Victoria.

In one of his latest letters to the ,'■ Scotsman,' the Rev. Dr Cameron Lees expresses opinions about Victorian institutions which will provoke a Bmile in Melbourne. He drifts into politics and. serious mistakes. His opinion of the legislators in the popular Chamber is not complimentary. Not long since, he states, many of them were commercial travellers, who used their railway passes to push their business, and "when not engaged in their legislative duties travelled about with their samples at the cost of thecountry." Members are now, lie says, drawn from a slightly higher class, viz., "boss cockies, village shopkeepers, and petty solicitors." Dr Lees evidently agrees with the Chief Justice of Victoria that '" parish yestry " , politics are the order of the day.. "The debates, 1 ' he says, "are of a somewhat local character, and the atmosphere of the whole place is very parochial. Men cannot rise to nigh flights of eloquence in the discussion jot abattoirs, the' merits of a' swing gate-'fot^uhwy.sheep/, 1 w the state of a suburban Mghwiy'-'iT and yet, says the reverend frequentlyjtuiae} dlljeW«rton.* ,: «TM Premier is hit oft as' I" ft litSe,fwbietirjd, dapper man, of cold exterior, and evidently very considerable belief in himself." Mr Deakin seems to have made a more favorable impression; bat Mr Pearson is held up as. the conspicoons figure in the House, " the only man that bears on him the evident stamp of and refinement." Itlsacarcely fair of Dr Lees to • quote »• long extract in which Mr Uaunson falls foul of the Premier and the Agent-General as "a' fair sample " of how Victorian Parliamentary debates ore conducted. "The sight best worth seeing in Melbourne " is said to be Library, to which Dr' Lees, space, He pronounces the?.' metropolitan tramways simply splendid. .-The people are described as n'*,very/, no#t»j,and! civil to strangers." The working classes struck him, as, grave, even Tin their pleasures. The sobriety of jyonng Anstraliana impressed him much; The gentle manners, of the better classes, are noted,' Dr Lees.thinks -mors of the Australian girl than the Australian boy. "She is charming in manner, and has a frankness andabsence of prudery that are very'taking."-