OUR SYDNEY LETTER

Evening Star, Issue 15516, 11 June 1914, Page 5

OUR SYDNEY LETTER

A GOAL FAMINE IMMINENT. The coal miners of the Maitland districtire immovable in their determination not to work the afternoon shift. The mineowners are just as determined that the mines shall not be worked without it. They say it is impossible to make the mines pay by working only one shift, and that they will not, attempt it. Some mines have made tho concession, but it is represented that they are exceptionally favorably situated The miners, on tho other hand, maintain that what is possible for one is possible for all, and are determined to stand fast. If they can see thenway to earning their living* in some other way they are, of course, on sound ground. But otherwise, employment is a matter of mutual agreement, and the needs of each side are entitled to faiy consideration. The unions seem to have gone far past the point of fairness. Nothing will suit them row but dictation and domination This means a fight to the finish. No other arbitrament is of any avail. It is feared that the Newcastle collieries, and possibly those of the South Goast, will be drawn into the fight. In that case, there will be a coal famine of great severity. But, as the funds of the Employee-.’ Federation are at their customary low ebb. it is possible that the logic of facts may assertitself before much damage is done. The usual demand fur the “nationalisation”' of tho mires will be made. But anything of the kind is a long way outside of practical politics.

RUSTICATION. Annoyed beyond measure at the freaks of a concourse of turbulent undergrads., and fearing lest the wholesome restraints of discipline might be altogether destroyed, the University Senate have “hit back”.to some purpose. Letting off crackers in lectures may bo comical once in a while. But it is easy to have too much of it, especially when it ia accompanied by other instances of disrespect to the authorities. The Senate, at any rate, have had more than enough. They have sentenced one of the offenders to rustication for a year, and have put another back in his examination for three months. A number of medical students have been fined £2 each, and there is every indication that future outbreaks will bo similarly treated. Needless to say, there is the inevitable outcry against the severity of the punishment, and tho blunder of* attempting to repress the exuberance of youthful spirits. But where is it to end.' the done are anxiously asking. Some of them go so far an to say that if they had been firmer in the past the evil wouM not have reached its present dimensions. Tho students are all of an age at which they may fairly be expected to have outgrown boyish, folly, and to have some conception of the fitness of things. Nine of every ten of them attend the University for a definite purpose. That purpose is not at ail promoted by letting off crackers in class, or by singing insulting song# under the windows of tho professors who are aiding them to attain it. The -standard of University culture “ must have dropped very low before such things could be even so much as thought of. The University, it seems, like many other things in tins topsy-turvey sphere* is very different in reality from what it is popularly thought to be. The best way to avoid these punishments is to cease to give occasion for them.

THE REVENUE. Minister® are jubilant on account of the splendid prospects of the revenue. For the expired 11 months of the current financial year it shows an increase of nearly a million and a-half as compared with the amount received in the‘ corresponding period of last year. Next month it will receive a further imperii® from the collection of the increased income-tax, so that (h* outlook is for an increase of two millions or more for the whole year. “See low tlv® country is prospering juider our rule,’’ says the Premier. Well, nothing out a drought, or _ some similar calamitv, can prevent expansion in the revenue when additional taxation is imposed. There are limits, of course, to the power of taxpayers to respond to the calk made on ithem. But those limits will not be reached so long as the seasons continue fair, prices good, and so long, esj suailv, as the Government are able to obtain, and to spend, something like eight- or nine millions a year of borrowed money. But this is a state of things that cannot List for ever, arid the fiercer the pace now, the more severe will be the collante when the bubble bursts. 'Hie Slate Premier and his colleagues are taking up the tune which was sung by Sir Julius Vogel 20 years ago in New Zealand. They sing it ‘with as much spirit as if it originated with themselves. But it will probably last their time, and is not that the main thine 1 * June 3. " b '