OUR MELBOURNE LETTER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9331, 23 January 1892, Page 5 (Supplement)

OUR MELBOURNE LETTER

(Fkom Our Own Coukespondent.)

January 12. When Sir Graham Berry was told peremptorily that he was not to be granted a longer tenancy of the Agent-generalship, there was a shrewd suspicion that the next appointment was "cut and dried.1' It was evidently to go to a member of the Government or a leading supporter. The Government declared that the subject had never been considered and would not be till after the session Now wo know what "the little game" was. Mr ilunro intended the position for himself ail along—that is if he lasted out the session The public never thought of the Hon. James for the post. He is quite unfitted for it by his boorish manner if it were nothing else; and, unlike hir Graham Berry, he' is not the kind of man who can educate himself into fitness But no one dreamed that he could go off to London and leave all his financial institutions in the lurch. Two of these, certainly, have suspended payment to their depositors—the Real Estate Bank and the Federal Building Society; but if any man was deemed necessary to the working out of their salvation it was Mr Munro Perhaps they will get on better without him^ goodness knows; at any rate they could scarcely do much worse. There is no use blinking the iact—the appointment of Mr Munro is a gross job. He is one of the last men Parlinment would have chosen; and he has conferred the appointment on himself. The crisis has very considerably "de.luetcd" his pecuniary resources ; and he has given himself a billet for three years at L 2500 a-year. That 4s the plain English of it.

Mr Shiels is to be Premier. All'his best tnencls regard this as a mistake. He is an excitable, impulsive, volatile Irishman—scarcely responsible for all he says when the frenzy of oratory is on him. And where he will wind up with the worry and responsibility of the Premiership upon him, heaven- only can tell. He has a "big contract" before him already as Minister of Railways, namely, to tell the Commissioners (which he has to do under the new act) how they are to abolish the deficit. If things go on as they are, the railways will show a loss of L 300.000 when the financial year ends in June next. Retrenchment in salaries won't do much to wipe this off, especially as Parliament has added L 15,000 a-year to expenditure by putting 6d a day on to the general wages, lhe commissioners will strongly oppose any reduction of train mileage, and they declare they can discharge no hands. It would seem to the ordinary mind that all left is the raising ot rates for goods and passengers. Mr Shiels, perhaps, is "game" enough to propose this, but will his colleagues allow him ; and if they do, will Parliament keep them in office? One can easily imagine that Mr Speight is glad enough to have the responsibility shifted ~ .T c G-5v Taylor has been committed for trial for the Land Credit Bank frauds-that is advancing money in large sums to himself, his wile, and his son without the directors' knowledge. The general management of the bank did not show up at all creditably in the Police Court examination. The chairman (Mr C. R Martin) was allowed to draw the interest on his deposit quarterly, though the customary term was yearly; and Dr Clarke, another director, was allowed " something more " than the ordinary rate of 4 per cent, on his current account Dr Madden, who is defending Taylor, was particularly inquisitive about an alleged arrangement between the directors and Taylor that they should not prosecute him. The chairman (Mr Martin) admitted that Taylor, when the trouble began, gave the bank a second mortgage over some, of his property and transferred contracts for the purchase of land on which L 52,000 was actually paid up ; while his wife gave them L3OOO in hard cash and a promissory note for L«, 000. But Mr Martin sternly repudiated the notion that there was any bargain to give the Taylors any quid pro quo for all this, though he admitted that the Taylors, m making these payments, were "trading" on the directors' good nature.

Our wheat yield shows an average per acre of llf bushels, or about a bushel less than last year, which was so very favourable. We expect to have close ou six million bushels for export. It is not expected that the average shipping value will be anything over 4s per bushel.

The English cricketers are.having a royal time. They were greatly chagrined -^ Grace especially—at losing the Australian match; and they did not deserve to loss it, to say truth. Not that the issue was governed by luck, except ths ordinary chances of the game, by which a man will one day score 100 and the next day one ; and even in this respect the Australian side had their share of hard luck in Giffen's early dismissal in both innings. Bug the English team played better all round. Their fielding was as good'as it could be ; their bowling was better than the Australians', and their batting was a good deal more brilliant. Thus the Englishmen scored in the first inuino-s 250 runs from 550 balls, while the Australians got only 229 from 907 balls ; and in the second innings the Englishmen had 157 runs from 428 balls, against their opponents' 233 runs from 1151 balls. The attendance was very large; so large that Lord Sheffield's team take L26CO from the match—the sum left after paying .bare expenses. On Saturday and yesterday the Englishmen played 16 of South Melbourne, and there was quite a respectable attendance on Saturday. Those who thought the great "W G." was played out were making a decided mistake. He cannot get down to a ball in the field with the celerity of youih, certainly, but he has done some excellent scoring with the bab. In the South Melbourne match he put up 63 (the highest score), delighting tha spectators with one hit over the chains for 5,

A serious accident occurred on the horse tramway line which ruas down the sea coast between Sandringham and Beaumaris (beyond Brighton) on Friday. The car, which is a double-decker, was thrown off the line by a stone on the track, and it upset, falling happily against a ti-treo, which prevented it coming all the way to the ground. Several pissengers were hurt rather severely. This season's shipments of Victorian butter to the London market up to the present amount to 1625 tons, and it is expected that before the season terminates the estimated quantity of 2000 tons will have been reached.

At Harrow, a country town, the Key. Thomas Ward, the Anglican ■ curate, has been drowned. His horse came "home with a wet saddle on. Mr Ward was last seen alive giving his horse a drink at the river, when on his way to Cluuie station. It is supposed that he attempted to cross, and got into a deq) hole full of logs. The grappling operations were guided by the horse's tracks on laud, and resulted in the recovery of the body in about 10ft of water.

Another suicide, the result of the financial crisis, has occurred, this time in the Geelong district. The victim was a farmer named Arthur Henry Boardman, between 30 and 35 years of age. His dead body was found by a young man named Doherty lying against the wall of a pigstye, the left hand clasping a sixchambered bulldog revolver, one chamber being loaded and a second having an empty cartridge shell in it, whilst there was a bullet wound through the deceased's head. He had lost over L2OOO by the recent failures in Melbourne. A solicitor's clerk named Henry I. V. Geary is before the Melbourne Police Court for forging cheques upon his employers, Messrs Ellison and Simpson, for L 282 and L2O. It is alleged that during the past four months Geary, who was a trusted employe of the firm

Gorged cheques to the amount of L 1442, and

that his cash-book shows a deficiency of L 153, making a total of L 1595, nearly all of which has been lost in betting on horse races.

A singular case of child desertion occurred at Carlton on Friday last. At about 3 o'clock on the afternoon of that day a respectably dressed woman, who wore a thick veil, accosted John Gerraghty, a cabman, on the Grattan street cab rank, and directed him to drive her and a little boy she. had with her, about three years of age, to a house in Park street, Parkville. On arriving at a house which stood soma distance back from the footpath, the woman said,

"This is the house I want to go to." She then said to Gerraghty, " This little fellow," pointing to the boy, "is a relation of mine,

aud has been stayingwith me for months. His

parents now want him home, but if 1 take the little fellow in he will cry when I leave. Will you take him in ? The parents will understand

the reason why I did not come in." Gerraghty then took the boy to the house. The lady of

the house was surprised at what was stated, and saij there must be some mistake about the matter, as they had no boy staying with any relation. Gerraghty then returned to the cab with, the child, but when he reached it the woman had gone. So far all inquiries have failed to trace her.

The Argus thinks the time has come when Victoria, and for the matter of that the Australian colonies generally, must go in for industrial development, and the avenue which

stands most invitingly open for exploration is the frozen meat trade. If New Zealand, with only 15£ million sheep and under a million cattle, can export a million and a-half carcases a year without any apparent prospect of a decrease, what should Australia be able to do •with her 88 million sheep arid 8-£ million cattle ? The reason why Australia has not developed the trade iv the same ratio as New Zealand, it is declared, is not sufficiently accounted for by the preference of the English market for New Zealand meat. "The principal reason is that the New Zealand sheepfarmers were forced to develop this trade or perish, whilst in Australia the stimulus of necessity has hitherto been absent. That this is now likely to be applied a glance at the stock markets suffices to show."