MELBOURNE TOWN TALK.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 198, 20 September 1888, Page 2

MELBOURNE TOWN TALK.

(from our own correspondent.) “ The three W’s” have been monopolising Melbourne’s attention during the last week—wool, wheat, and wine. “ Better than Melbourne’s usual three W’s,” says a press friend, glancing over my shoulder as I write. “ What are they?” I ask. “ Wine, waste, and women,” he answers cynically. Truly, we have been quite agricultural, pastoral, viticultural, and the other al (as my friend suggests), what with the agricultural show, the farmer’s conference, and the stock and grain question now before Parliament. It is not often country interests monopolise the metropolitan attention so thoroughly, and I hope suitable, benefit may be derived from the fact. . Without a doubt the question of a protective duty on imported stock and grain is one that appeals home to every Victorian farmer, and I don’t wonder in the least that they should take such a firm stand, and band together to get it made law. This is the prime object of the farmer’s conference, and I wish the movement success with all my heart. J That was an awful proposal though, made by one of the speakers at the conference, namely, that if the farmers could not succeed in inducing Parliament to do them justice they should go out on strike—that is to say,’ grow and produce enough only for their own consumption, and boycott the rest of society. Great heavens 1 what a treat. Fancy 1 The butcher’s shop would be closed. The bakers would in vain look for flour. The fruiterers would no longer be able to supply. There would be neither lamb nor mint “Where be my eggs and butter?” pate A families would sob. Of course the idea iK absurd and utterly impracticable, but I d" admire the novelty of the thing and the brilliance of the farmers’ representative who mooted it. A farmer’s strike—bah I As well talk of a hen strike not to lay, or a cow strike not to give milk.

Talking of strikes brings me in the natural course of things to the coal strike. It is in statu quo, and to me seems no nearer settlement than ever. The effects are becoming felt more and more as the days roll by and bring no settlement. Practically speaking, though, it only affects the working classes, those who have been, and those who run a chance of being, thrown out of employment in workshops and factories, in consequence of the inadequacy of fuel. Some six to seven thousand men, it is computed, are likely to be thrown out if it continues, and I need not say that if this dep’orable contingency eventuates, it will bring down dreadful misery on the city and the city-workers, “We are on the verge of a national disaster,” said one of our public functionaries yesterday. “It just depends how things turn out the next fortnight, to mean a commercial and industrial collapse or the reverse. The reverse I hope with all my heart. A curious outcome of the strike is the number of discoveries of coal measures that have come to light. In consequence of the feeling that we ought, after this bitter experience, to provide ourselves from our own coal-fields, strenuous efforts to discover some have been put into active operation. And with such surprising results too. I learn from reading the daily papers that the whole, or nearly the whole, of Gippsland is coalbearing—that there are millions upon millions of tons simply waiting extraction. Not only that, either, for one man writes that, (for a consideration, of course) he will pilot the Government to a spot where there are coalmeasures far surpassing anything of the kind in Newcastle. Nay, even more than that I am assured we have any amount cf coal nearer hand, and I have even hea-d it solemnly stated that Melbourne it-elf stands ' on a rich coal bed, sufficient in itself to supply the city. Out of all this wild talk I daresay some good will eventuate, for it shows at all events that people have made up their minds to the fact that Melbourne should have, what I have heard described as "a coal hole of its own.” By-the way, I must not omit all mention of such an import intfunction as the Agricultural Show, which was opened at Newmarket on Tuesday, under the auspices of the National Agricultural Society of Victoria. It was a good show in its way, though I have seen just as good at some of the large provincial towns, and though the weather was not over and above favourable, the function was, on the whole a decided success. The exhibits of live stock were, I am told, above the average of last year, although Ido not pretend to understand much about it myself. “But it is so, my boy,” said the Hou. J. McL , who took several prizes for merinos. “We are improving every year, and we’re getting wool up to a finer standard every lambing. I tell you we lick the world in wool. We lick it in length, in staple, in fineness, in texture, and in pbice, and don’t you forget it.’

The show was shorn of one of its attractions in not having the usual dogs as part of the exhibition. A curious coutretemps tended to bring this about. The society built a house specially for canine exhibits, but were prevented from using it through an injunction of the Supreme Court, obtained by Mr Dakin, the trainer. He alleged that the barking and howling of the dogs would injuriously affect several valuable racehorses uudeaAYs charge which were stabled close by, I said, he succeeded in obtaining an injunction against the use of the building. There has been a good deal of strong feeling about this, but I think my friend Dakin was right. Horses—especially racehorses in training—are wonderfully sensitive animals, and it is his business to look after, to the best of his powers, those under his care, and the show and those connected with it had of necessity to take secondary consideration. I have written nothing about politics and politicians this week, being primed full of matters agricultural. And, as a matter of fact, the position of affairs was not altered greatly during the last seven days. The farmers’ question is still the bhte noir—the rock ahead on which the Government bark threatens to go to pieces. As far as I can make it out, the situation may be summed up thuswise : If the Government remain firm they will win by a small majority, and then perhaps go to the country : if they fall in with the farmer's views anent the atook-tax they will have a'deoided majority and remain firm. There it is in a nutshell.