Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1894.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 171, 28 August 1894, Page 2

Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1894.

THE acts of violence by the discontented shearers in Australia seem strange to people in this colony, where in spite of much rash legislation and bad administration the respect for law and order is strong. To-day a telegram from Sydney is published stating that aa attack has been made on station buildings protected by a police force by men carrying arms, and that something like a battle has taken place in which two men have been badly wounded by revolver bullets. Another message says that a steamer on the Darling river, which was carrying a number of non-Union men, was boarded by a band of masked men who fired the vessel which eventually sank. There were fifty people on board, and it seems to have been by great good fortune that there waa not any loss of life. These offences, one of which amounts to piracy, are about as serious as any that can be imagined. No crime "against the peace of our Sovereign Lady the Queen, her Crown and dignity " could well be worse than carrying on private war against her subjects, to the danger of their lives and the destruction of their property. If any of those connected with the Grassmere station or the police had been killed the crime would have been murder, and so it would have been if any of the people on board the steamer bad lost their lives. There are, of course, occasions when oppression reaches such a stage that the only remedy is armed force. The Australian shearers, however, have not shown that they are oppressed. They are well paid, and the form of agreement against which the Shearers' Unions are now fighting seems to be very reasonable. The Unions appear to have placed themselves completely under the control of certain leaders, whose employment would be gone if agitation were to cease. It has been stated several times that Unionise shearers have been greatly discontented because they were foroed to abstain from work, but a number of the men carry obedience so far as to be ready to shed blood at the diotation f of their leaders. The difficulty of the authorities in New South Wales and Queensland in suppressing disorder in tbe pastoral districts is their immense territory. Sheep stations are far apart, and it is not easy to concentrate a sufficient police foroe in a short time on any spot where there may be disturbance. In Kew Zealand a few days would be

sufficient to send a large body of police or some other force to any inhabited part of the colony, and there can be little doubt that it would be done if there were the necessity. But even granting all the difficulty one cannot help suspecting that the New South Wales Government has been somewhat remiss, and that if the disturbers of the peace had '.been convinced that the authorities would spare no means to put down lawlessness 'the trouble would have ceased before now.