MELBOURNE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1191, 26 September 1874, Page 5

MELBOURNE.

(from our own correspondent.) September 9th. The Budget Speech of our free trade Treasurer has been received with general disappointment by the free trade party. All the hopes of any modification of our tariff in the direction of free trade are now scattered to the winds. In Mr Service we have a merchant who has all hia life advocated the principles of unrestricted commerce, and has been quite ready, when the interests of his class were in danger, to denounce the wickedneßS and the folly of protection. Now we have him as a Minister, as Treasurer, at a time when on all sides the need of some amendment of the tariff is required ; and we find him amending it so as to make it more protective than ever, and boasting of his "loyalty" to the principle of protection. His excuse for all this is that in a Democratic country the majority must rule. The majority in Victoria have decided for protection. It is therefore the duty of the Government to give effect to the will of the people in this respect. To this it is answered— Granted that the majority must rule ; but then let them rule, and let the protectionist members who have fought for this system, and have passed it through Parliament, now administer it. As they gained the victory, let them gather the spoils. It is as opposed to justice as it is to political morality, that the ideas and opinions of one set of men should have force given to them by another set of men to whose minds they are but nonsense and absurdity. Our present Government is weak and characterless to the last degree of contemptibility. By its friends it was never viewed by anything but a makeshift Government, and the question how long we can make shift with it must soon come up for decision. - Without principles, policy, coherence of opinion, parfcy union, or mental capacity, it is deficient in everything that can form the raison cTdtre of a Government. It lost its common sense, practical insight, and its political honesty, when it lost Mr Francis ; and it lost itß intellectual ability when Mr Langton retired from it. The Francis Government without Mr Francis is a mere caput mortmim. Mr Kerferd is a man of fair intentions, but of no political capacity, and it is making a farce of Parliamentary Government to have it administered by such a Prime Minister. Amongst them the sole idea in framing their financial policy has been to put forward something that would be acceptable to the majority, and enable them to bring an ingloriovts session to a safe, if not a brilliant termination. This perhaps accounts for the way in which the Government has dealt with the tariff question, but to understand how it has been passed over so quietly by the merchants of Melbourne it is requisite to know how the case affects them. For a long time it has been matter of some surprise to see how patiently the merchants have put up with the enormous burdens laid on our trade. The explanation is that the existing state of affairs answers their ends very well. When the tariff was first introduced it imposed new conditions on the commerce of the port. It made command of a large capital essential, as the merchant, in addition to the ordinary import charges, has now to pay the enormous duties, and has to pay them in advance. The smaller firms who had not the needful capital at command were unable to meet these requirements, and were compelled to retire from the trade. The larger firms found their business enlarged by these changes, and were enabled to find remunerative occupation for a greater amount of capi tal than before. The competition against them was reduced, and they were left in the monopoly of the field. So that on the whole the tariff answers their ends very well. After the first change their profits rose to the new level, and they are quite satisfied with their present position. The consequence i ia that although the mercantile class profess a very ardent devotion to the principles of free trade it is to be understood that in this they speak only as theoretical economists. It does not at all follow that they wish these principles reduced to practice, or that they wish to see our protective tariff made less protective. Like Mr Service, they are devoted free traders in theory but loyal protectionists in practice. And so, between lukewarm friends outside, and self-seeking politicians inside Parliament, free trade has been fairly "dished," and in spite of all that may be done by the Press, it is probably decisively removed from the sphere of practical politics for some time. While Mr Service, by becoming Treasurer, has thus developed into a loyal protectionist, Mr Langton, by quitting the Treasurerahip, has regamed his free trade principles in all their pristine force. He has, moreover, regained all of his clear vigour of speech and telling force of argument, and in the course of the debate on the tariff he delivered a speech that was the strongest possible condemnation of the policy by which in financial matters he has been guided for the last two years. Lady Bowen has left for England by the outgoing mail, and Sir George is to follow her in a little time. I have seen it stated that there is reason to doubt whether Sir George Bowen will return again to the Colony, but 1 Ido not know on what ground the assertion

rests. < There has been for a long time an impression on the mind of the public that our detective police force is not so efficient as it has been, or as it ought to be. At one time its efficiency and smartness and general success won high praise on all sides, and we were able to congratulate ourselves on the possession of an agency for the suppression of crime that was admirably adapted for the •work it had to do. But for some years there has been a belief, which more recently has become a certainty, that the force was losing some of the best qualities for which it had been distinguished. This belief has lately been confirmed, and its truth admitted by a report of the Chief Commissioner of Police who fully concedes the deficiencies attributed to the force. He explains it by the fact that the men who join are not of a stamp to equal those who were in the force years ago. The best men have been in for a long time. They are growing old, and only inferior men can be got to take their place. This circumstance is attributed by the Chief Commis>

sioner to the fact that the force is not sufficiently paid. The highest pay given is 12s 6d a day, and this is not at the present time sufficient to induce men to join who possess the qualities required to fit them to be firstclass detectives. A man to succeed in this calling must be smart, intelligent, well-in-formed, and with a wide experience of the world. You can't get all these conditions in Victoria for 12s 6d a day, and it is quite evident that if our detective police is to be raised to its old standard of efficiency Parliament must be prepared to pay them better than they are paid at present. Only a very small sum would be required to make up the amount, and considering how much is recklessly squandered this ought not to be wanting in a matter of so much importance. The Madame Goddard mystery is as mysterious as ever. We have had many contributions to the discussion in the daily Press, but they have thispeculiarity — that they all tend to leave the matter more obscure than before. All that we positively know on the subject is that Madame Goddard engaged to give some performances at Sydney, and that she broke her engagement, going on board the steamer surreptitiously under another name. This was denied by her agent, but the passengtr list published in the Sydney papers left no room for any further denial. In excuse for this conduct Madame Goddard assigns the utterly ridiculous reason that she was informed that some people intended to cause a disturbance at the theatre. Of course it was a ridiculous one, for there is no reason to suppose that the expectation had any other authority than the diseased vanity of the lady pianist or the very eccentric imaginations of the two gentlemen who act as her agents. The letter sent to Mr Benuett at the Sydney theatre Madame Goddard disavows in a statutory declaration, and may, therefore, fairly be acquitted of its authorship. But the authorship remains highly suspicious ; and although Mr Smyth e, the agent, from whose hands it came, has written a letter two columns long to the Argus, he carefully refrains from stating to whom the letter is to be attributed. On the whole, Madame Goddard has very well succeeded in maintaining the reputation she has won at every place in her lengthened tour ; and if at one time we felt a good deal of surprise that the "Queen of Music" should think it worth her while to take the long voyage to the antipodes, the surprise has been very much mitigated as we become more familiar with the proceedings of the lady.

Tue Williamsons maintain their triumphant run at the Royal. Their success has been quite unprecedented in the history of the theatre. Neither Brooke, nor Montgomery, nor Charles Mathews, nor Barry Sullivan, ever drew such houses for so great a length of time as the Williamsons have done. They are now, in the fifth week, playing the same drama and the same farce as those in which they first appeared. The managers of the Royal are very much surprised by their success, and also, it is said, not a little chagrined. It has been stated that when the Williamsons came they offered their services to the managers for £30 a week. Those cautious men, however, refused to pay so prodigal an amount, and at length made "terms" with Mr Williamson, by which he and his wife were to take half of the proceeds after £50 a night had been taken to defray expenses. By this bargain the astute lessees imagined that they had secured themselves, and if there was nothing left for the Williamsons to receive, why that was their business. Well, the result has been that the pair have been drawing pay at the rate of £400 a week, and those munificent patrons of the drama, Messrs Harwood, Stewart, and Co,, have viewed with anguish the good thing which they let slip through their fingers. Some particulars of this statement have been contradicted, but I believe that it is not far from the truth. The house is still crammed nightly, and although the artists have a varied repertoire of plays •which they can bring forward, the continued popularity of their present performance prevents them from changing it. The Italian Opera Company has returned from Sydney, and has given a series of performances in the Opera House that have been fairiy patronised, as indeed they deserved to be from the merit they displayed.

It hardly seems necessary that we should support opera houses or theatres here when we have a number of high-minded legislators who play tho fool in so admirable a manner three evenings a week in the Parliament Houses for our amusement, if not for our edification. There is a singular specimen of legislative genius — Mr W. A. C. A'Beckett — a member of the Legislative Council, who has often afforded the community a good dealof entertainment by the novel vie he at times takes of the subjects to which he applies his colossal intellect. He ia the son of Sir William A'Beckett, the first Chief Justice of Victoria, and by one of those lucky strokes of fortune, which are usually believed to fall to the exclusive shares of persons not eminent for mental capacity, he was by a fortunate marriage placed at an early age in the enjoyment of a larger income than his father earned by a lifetime of labour. Leaving the serious business of politics to those who take interest in them, Mr A'Beckett has assumed to himself the more congenial post of the buffoon of Parliament. The other day he startled the House by giving notice of a motion for excluding newspaper reporters from the House, and making it penal to print any other report than that of the Government Hansard, to be duly certified by the Clerk of the House. The question arose wha^. had been the dark criminality which the newspapers had been guilty of to call for such stern measures. When the motion came on, Mr A'Beckett explained to an expectant universe that a paper published in Melbourne, the Daily Telegraph, had misreported him, and had attributed his letter of correction to another honourable member, which, he argued, could only have been done from a deep malignity and determination to injure him by the most unscrupulous methods. Having relieved himself by this explanation, he proceeded to relieve the House and the Press by withdrawing his motion. Thus, this dai'k cloud, which seemed to threaten the utter annihilation of the newspaper interest, passed harmlessly away.

In the other House, some very (excellent ooling was enacted by a grave Scotchman, a representative of the wool-producing interest named Macßain. This gentleman, who was

evidently intended by nature for the pulpit, had not a happier destiny interposed and made him a squatter, inflicted the other day on the Assembly one of his characteristic speeches, full of what Mr Higinbotharn quaintly termed "very serious humour and jocular piety." Subsequently, he got engaged in some irregular discussion, and under the influence of excitement he fancied that he was amongst his brother Presbyterians, lay and clerical, in the General Assembly. He, accordingly, began addressing honourable members as "reverend gentlemen," and the absurdity of the address, coupled with the puzzled gravity of the speaker, all unconscious of his own joke, " brought down the House," and it was some time before the Assembly could get over its hilarity, and resume the business it had before it.

September 10th. The accidental detention of the Otago through grounding in the river allows me to add to my letter a short postscript to say that the Budget debate finished last night in a rather unexpected way. The principal speakers had all had their say, but there were still many of the small fry— l trust this ii not a breach of privilege — who rose one after the other and uttered stupid platitudes on the subject, or repeated with a look of wisdom and an air of novelty things that had already been repeated many times, and were never worth saying at all. At last it seemed that nobody had got any more to say, and that all that had been said was to have no consequence. There was no one even to demand a division, and the item on which the discussion had arisen jDassed without objection. Now Parliament will be able to proceed with the Estimates. And, indeed, it is time, for we are a long way advanced into the financial year, and, if we get into this way of spending the money first and revising the items after. Parliamentary control over expenditure will soon be a dream. Madame Goddard gave her first concert last night, to a highly delighted audience. Madame Goddard may act at times very foolishly, and may — and, in fact, is — guided by some very eccentric agents ; but when it is not the woman, but the artiste, that is in question — when she sits before an audience at the piano, and exhibits that wonderful mastery over the resources of the instrument, and that marvellous faculty of interpreting the musical conceptions of the great masters of the art — then everyone loses remembrance of the strange escapades at Sydney aud elsewhere — the extraordinary letter to Mr Ben. nett, and all of the complications of this obcure affair — and recognises only the brilliant talent of this highly-gifted lady. The Mayor's invitations to the fancy ball are issued, and for the last day or two the advent of the postman has caused a flutter of expectation. Happy are those who are recipients of the large envelopes containing the card 'in gilt letters conveying to them the assurance that "Mr and Mrs M'llwraith request," Sec; but miserable indeed is the iate of those who watch the postman pass their door and go and deliver an invitation to those odious Snookses across the street.