MELBOURNE.

Otago Witness, Issue 879, 3 October 1868, Page 9

MELBOURNE.

(FROM OTTE OTO COKBiSSIPOKDENT.) r * September 19th. The dayfl of our present session of Par- . liament are now pretty nearly numbered j and it' is generally asserted that on or about Thursday next, His Excellency Sir Henry Manners Sutton will dismiss the members of, both Houses to their homes. As is usually the case upon the ' near Approach', of the recess, our senators have been getting; through a considerable amount of business lately. The Eailway and Public Works Loan Bills have both passed through their, most important stages in the Assembly, although not without a good, deal/ of discussion. Hon. members from the Western and Gipps Land districts were, of course, in duty bound to express some little dissatisfaction with the settled determination of the Government to postpone the claims of these districts to railway accomodation, until after the completion of the Ovens line. But in the opinion both of the majority of the Assembly, and of the great body of the public out of doors, the reasons adduced by the Ministry for taking that course were conclusive. They explained that, apart from the increased taxation, which would be necessary to meet the interest on such a loan as would be required for three, or even two, different lines to be .constructed simultaneously, there would be really little or no saving of time by taking that course. In the first place, the whole of the available "plaat" at present in the hands of contractors here would be insufficient to carry out more than one line at once : and, in the second place, by undertaking more than one railway at a time, the competition in thelabormarketonthe part of the contractors would be so great as to cause a rise in wages, and thus entail an increased expenditure of the public money. Yielding to' the weight of these and similar arguments, the Assembly passed the second reading of the Eailway Loan Bill without division. It would probably receive the assent of the Upper House and the Governor next week. In the meantime, the members of that House have been engaged in a little scheme of their own, by which I presume they hope to regain a portion of their lost popularity without much concession to public opinion! After a great deal of talk about " constitutional reform," they have at length agreed to a Bill, reducing the property qualification of members of their House from its present minimum of LSOOO in real property, to L 250 0; and that of electors to LSO a year instead of LIOO. But seeing that we are much too near" the end of the session to allow of the' Bill passing through the Assembly before the prorogation, this question of Reform will, of course, be shelved for an indefinite period, and probably lost sight of altogether, until the recurrence of another "deadlock." The Select Committee appointed by the Assembly to inquire into the charge brought by Mr Moses Alexander, the Secretary of the Constitutional Association, against Mr C. E. Jonea, the Commissioner of Railways, have finished their I labors and brought up their Report. The i conclusion arrived at was, that Mr Alexander had failed to establish the assertion that he had paid Mr JoDes the L6O in question. The closing paragraph of the Report says : — "In the opinion of your Committee, an accusation, the aim of which is to destroy the reputation of a public man, requires to be supported by undoubted integrity of character and purpose on the part of the accuser, or by exact and conclusive proofs of the facts alleged. Mr Alexander's accusation against Mr Jones has been found wanting in both these conditions ; and your Committee, after careful and protracted investigation, feel bound to report, as their unanimous opinion, that Mr Alexander has failed to establish his allegation that he gave Mr Jones the L6O mentioned in his declaration.''" The evidence upon which the above conclusion was founded was very voluminotis, no less than 28 witnesses having been examined. The main allegations in the charge rested entirely upon the testimony of Mr Alexander— a portion of which, by the way, was contradicted by a person who was brought up to corroborate it. The Committee had, in common fairness to Mr Jones, no other course to take than j that of accepting his explanations, and ac- ! quitting him of the charge. Some of your readers may, perhaps, be surprised to hear that notwithstanding the unexpected settlement of the long disputed L 20,000 payment to Sir Charles Darling, our Legislature has not yet entirely done with ihe claims of that gentleman upon the Victorian Treasury. It appears that owing to a change in the amount of salary payable to the Governor of Victoria, which- took effect a few months after Sir Charles Darling's installation in office, he did not receive so much pay during his first year of service as he was legally entitled to, by about

£5000, That sum tfie Assembly therefore voted to him a few.nights ago, and it ib probable that the vote will be assented to by the other two branches of the Legislature. We have had another case of " breach of privilege" since the despatch of •my last letter. Mr Longmore, a member of the Assembly who has made himself somewhat too conspicuous by his personality, having recently attacked a squatter, named Tobin, in a speech upon the Land question, the latter, on meeting Mr Longmore in the street, threatened to horsewhip him if he dared to repeat his offensive remarks. Upon this, Mr Longmore brought, the matter .before the House, "and Mr Tobin was formally declared to. have . committed & " breach of privilege," and therefore to be amenable to arrest by the Sergeant-at-Arms. The offender, however, subsequently apologised to the House in terms that were deemed sufficiently submissive and respectful; and he was consequently allowed to get off scot-free, with the understanding that he would not do so any more.

Quite a sensation has been created here by the arrival of a trading vessel — the Dayspring— from Hong Kong, with anumber of Chinese passengers, fearfully afflicted with scurvy. Someparticulars of this abominable case have, no doubt, reached you already. I may add that, contrary to the well known harbour regulations of the port, the dead bodies of three unfortunate Chinamen were thrown overboard after the vessel had reached Hobson's Bay. There were also two European passengers on board, one of whom is now lying ifi in the Melbourne Hospital, and it is feared that he may never leave that institution alive. Captain Middleton, the master, has been severely handled by the authorities, aa he has not only been heavily fined for throwing the dead bodies into the Bay, but also committed for trial on a charge of manslaughter.

At the Criminal Sessions of the Supreme Court, now being held in this city, Samuel Benjamin — some particulars of whose very usuroius bill transactions I referred to in a previous letter — has been placed upon his trial for obtaining money on false pretences. The case for the prosecution broke down on a technical point, the Judge deciding that the prisoner's own examination taken at the Insolvent Court could not be used against him.

Mr Archibald Michie, whose powers as a public speaker are so widely known, delivered a very interesting and eloquent lecture before a crowded audience at St. George's Hall, Bourke street, last evening. The subject of the lecture was the political and social state of the Colony of Victoria, and it was so treated as to form, in the opinion of many, a triumphant answer to the well-known article in the Westminster Review on Victorian politics.