A SYDNEY LETTER.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 244, 18 November 1914, Page 6

A SYDNEY LETTER.

LOYALTY AND THE TRADER

HALL.

From Ovr Special Correspondent,

SYDNEY, November 6.

The capture of the Emderi by the Sydney is, of course, the one topic of conversation,; but- —and it is a very big but—there is and was not the .slightest, enthusiasm. In Melbourne, according to the wires, the utmost enthusiasm pre-, vailed. The crowds, as soon as the victory was posted up outside the newspaper offices, cheered the Sydney, its skipperj and crew; but in Sydney, we had nothing of- the sort, though it was our own particular ship which has cast such glory-on: the .'British Navy, and especially the part of t".ie British Navy which is known as the Royal Australian Navy. The reason is not far to seek. New South Wales, now being in the hands of a Labour majority, many of whom are discontented Irish, does not understand the broader meaning of the word "loyalty." Consequently, there have been no demonstrations and, no thankful cheers, for such things would have been considered signs of weakness by the Trades Hall —that extraordinary body of horny-handed sons of toil which now holds sway in the mother State of the Commonwealth.

Perhapa it would not be out of place here to give -New Zealanders an inside glance into the Trades Hall of Sydney. For my sins, I have attended the meetings of august body for close on six arid itteetihg after-meeting I sat through'(and deserve a comfortable pension for so doing) in the hall where the polity of £ Government is evolved. In the hottest nights of summer, the delegates shuddered at; the opening of a window and expectorated freely, each on his little square of cocoa matting, whether a woman (one dare not say lady) delegate was present or not. Now. that the representatives of this "august body" happen to be in power, thi3 ' * august body " wonders why the Ministers have not played up to them ; and given them all they demanded. They cannot* understand" the difference between ,the politician and the honest statesman,, but to' thej credit of New South Wales be it said, there are one or two amdng the crowd of* office acceptors who have a higher ideal than that of the Trades-Hall paid "politician.

TRADES HALL LAUGHS AT LOYALTY. - The man whom Australian journalists have selected as their war correspondent at the front, Captaitt :* '• Cliarjie Bean, placed the Whole thing in a nutshell not so long ago when he wrote, referring to the Trades Hail politician: "There are plenty of us nowadays with nothing but a sneer for loyalty. Here (in the mess room : of H.M.S. Powerful), in; this wonderful'service are men a.ll living by one quiet, unswerving faith. Everyone, from the time he was a little boy, lias held without questioning that loyalty to his King and his country, and the wonderful ideals that King arid country really stand foi'j is a thousand times more important than such a trifle as his own life. ... Ninety-nine out of a hundred men at ' the Trades Hall would laugh at men for this sentiment. They would go further—they would honestly despise- ttieni'f oir.it;'. . ..There is a sturdy, deriioeratic manliness about the Tradeg jHall man, and'he thoroughly believes • hiriiself invincible. But one can't help thinking he miserably underestimates the power of that loyalty. . If it ever came to a fight, the Trades Hall man would see some power he could not understand carrying these men through and over -everything—over things worse than death; they might be put through flame, thirst, starvation; through torture, through nerve-shatter-ing times, and awful, ghastly wounds, and yet find them still persisting. That loyalty would make them the most terrible enemy —the enemy that nothing can stop whilst he lives; and it would carry them ori and over those who lacked it/' Prophetic utterance! . This loyalty is just what the Trades Hall man cannot grasp. He is never or rarely found at the Barrack gate offering himself in defence of his adopted country. lie prefers to sit tight i#f*the Trades Hall, expectorate and smoke to his heart's .content, and let the other fellow go arid fight for hini# ?i *: £ ?•';; r k A HOPELESS JOB.

As a proof of the foregoing one must turn to the building of the rest, of the Australian navy. Gn the stocks at Cockatoo Island we have at the present time two destroyers —the Torrens and the Swan—arid the fast cruiser Brisbane. On the outbreak of war any ordinary-minded man - would have thought that a rush job would have been made of these boats. But the ordinary man forgets' that this State is now run by the Trades Hall, and what has been the result 1 Would the Australian (New South Wales section) workman help to place the country won for him in safety by expediting the work on these three vessels? Not at all! He issued an ultimatum that if extra men were put on to fit the Brisbane for completeness with a" view to smashing the enemy, he would order-a strike in case wages were reduced through the employing of extra hands, and he, mighty man, had to give up one of his pints or pipes. The same held good with the destroyers, and though the head of the construction department stated he could put a lot more men on to rush through the destroyers and the cruiser, Trades

Hall absolutely declined to help save its own unwashed, miserable skin, and threatened to place " King Strike " in charge at the least attempt to provide the country with adequate protection on the Bea. And the beauty of it is (from the Trades Hall man's point of view only, of course) that the obedient Government placed in power by King Labour meekly acquiesced, and Cockatoo Island is '' as you were/'' When over on the island a day or two ago I was shown thousands of pounds' worth of steel plates for the Brisbane alone, which' should have been worked into her six months ago, with proper progress. Today, my informant told me, it. will cost hundreds of pounds to scale those plates of their rust alone, whereas had enough men been put on the job at first the Brisbane —not to mention the two destroyers —would have been integral parts of the' Australian fleet by the time the gfeat '' I—l'' declared war upon Europe. THE FORTUNE OF WAR.

It is not often nowadays that a vessel is at sea for three months without speaking another vessel., It:.was the ill-luck, of a German four-masted barque—rthe Ernst —to experience such a lonely voyage; and as a consequence-she is now a prisoner in Sydney Harbour. She had been due to arrive from Hamburg a couple of weeks, ago, and„on. November 11 she neared the port of Sydney flying the German'flag. A tug went out to meet her and tow her in, but the German skipper "was,, of course, given no hint of w.hat was to happen when the harbour was reached. The pilot-who boarded the Ernst also kept quiet about the war, and when the barque was towed in she still flew the German colours. After having been granted pratique, the captain naturally expected that' he would be freei to proceed up the harbour, but a surprise awaited him. A launch came alongside, and. a naval officer and guard boarded; her. In.a few moments Captain Keinholdt was told of the outbreak of war, and the. German flag was hauled down. He explained that no vessel had been passed which couldhaye given them warning," and hot/a steamer even ' had been" sighted on the' Voyage! The Ernst is a steel barque of 2193 tons and has a valua pie cargo. / i TERRIBLE DROUGHT. [' /■ ;

Though, beneficial rains have fallen over many parts,of New South Walesy there are. thousands of squaie miles yeairniiig for a. good, steady downpour. Mr A. Sullivan, of Eock. Forest, who has recently returned Jfrom a visit to his station, C&wga, in the western district, stated that the conditions there are the worst experi-. enced' sincfe iߣBr Not T a«blade of grass is to be . seen and hardly a drop pf water remains in any of the dams or river courses. Sliepp were dying in. hundreds, as it was impossible to remove them. The heat also was inteuse, arid during the l&st few weeks the- thermometer had averaged 110 degrees. In, one big waterhole, which had not "been dry for -years,/the-station hands found and subsequently removed over-SOOO dead fish, some of which weighed 601b. The owner of Cowga estimated his loss at several thousand pounds. Luckily such. dry conditions .do - not- occur allover the State, or n eat, wheat, and wool would, in these present, times, be luxuries only millionaires could indulge in. TBiCKS OF TltE TRADE.

The Customs Act in force in Australia lays it down that goods imported into the Commonwealth "must bear the name of the country of manufacture in plain English. " Once the goods have paid duty and been handed over to the consignees any old legend can be substituted for the place of origin. Most big firms in Sydney, prior to the war, did not worry if the goods sold over their counters bore the words '' Made in Germany " or not.. WitH the. outbreak of war and the hatred 1 of all things German the big shops carrying* as m^ny ; do, heavy German stocks, decided jthat the labels giving the place of origin must be done awayjwith. In one big emporium the hands were set to work to destroy every card haying on it the words 1 ' Made in Germany," and ■, the hatpins . and other allurements to rbc found in -Ladies' Paradises, as Zbla called them, were recarded" on- fresh pasteboards, simply bearing the words "Made abroad" on each. In another big shop creations just out from. Vienna had the names of the makers removed and Parisian ones substituted. The traveller for one large warehouse told me also the story of'their wonderful silk blouses. "The silk is made in Japan," he said, "sent to Lyons in Franee to be dyed, and then shipped across the Channel to England. There the material is cut up and made into the finished article, and passes through the Australian' Customs" bearing the label 'Made in England' on each garment!" Japan, France, and, England, are, allies, -ihfti HIIPii % 8 $ I

The order has gone forth that in future all canteens in the military camps are to be of the variety known as " dry.'Now" that the First Australian Imperial Expeditionary Force has left Australian shores," it is stated that the. -canteens on board the ships will also be *' dry.'' In letters received by Sydnejutes fr6m ; members of the force on board the troopships information is-available to show that the canteens are not dry —very much the re-verse,—-but no man is allowed to get over the odds.

Certain restrictions in the imbibing of alcoholic liqubrs is necessary where a large number of men is congregated. At the Kensington camp, where the Ist and 2nd.-'nfantry Brigades were under canvas, many cases of men indulging not wisely but too well led to the canteen contractor being given three hours to clear out—lock, stock, and barrel. This action on the part of the O.C. nearly led to a mutiny among the men, and the guard tent was for days afterwards, taxed to its utmost capacity to contain those "who had gone out and got it on their own. The moderate drinkers alao grumbled at being deprived of their daily glass of ale, and in the end the canteen was restored under certain restrictions. The "dry" canteen business on land or sea does not appeal to the ordinary fighting man. A§ one of them put it recently: "We aren't going to the war for the good of our health, and certainly not for the good of our pockets. If a man is accustomed to his glass of beer each morning and night he'll go .'off-colour without it. We are going to ' fight Germans, and they've been brought up on beer. So are Englishmen. English and Germans are the best fighters in the world, and it's the strengthening properties of beer, so the doctor told me, which made them what they are. All the Latin races wiio drink wine don't count. Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, and even French, though they are our allies, haven't got the stamina of the British or the Germans who have been brought up on beer. And now we are to have our beer knocked off because a few people (who take precious good care xiot to go to the front, but sit at home and pass resolutions), who don't know how good beer is, say it is sinful to drink it, and are bringing pressure to bear on the Government to prevent us from drinking it. Why can't they mind their own business 1 We'll have a league of Chidleys next approaching the Government with a request that no trousers or tunics be supi plied to the Expeditionary Forces, but | only the rudiments of a blouse and a [ halfbred kilt such as Chidley roams our

streets in*- I know chaps who won touch salt—they say it is bad for them, -—but they don't try and stop us from eating it. There's too much interference from well-meaning busybodies," concluded the soldier, and there are thousands more of his opinion. The matter of drink in camps /was also referred to by the Rev. Frank Milne, chaplain-captain, of the military forces, when the question ; was debated; before the General Assembly .; of the Presbyterian; Church of Victoria:/ only this week. "The chaplain protested against the f act to Jthe jnen in khak^ : was when they were' found drunk xn 'thft'streets;//He'-' had been for three weeks in camp,; he said, and in daytime and nightrtime he had never seen a man the. worsd , for liquor, and there, were 11,000 men in the camp. It was a great pity that the Church's only reference to soldiers who, many of them, were going, out to die, was the possibility of their getting, drunk. FAIE BENTS.

. Among the many matters which, the Labour. Party in this/St&ter has '/mixed"-' itself .up in is;'"the Fair' Bents Bill] as it js called. Under this Bill the .Go- /; vernmerit proposes to decide what a landlord is td charge as a fair, rient, or, in how mueTi interest he is to receive for his capital outlay. ■- With regard to moneylenders, no doubt such a Bill would; be welcomed',- for in a Sydney court recently a case was dealt with in which it was proved that this descendant of Shylock had Only : charged 987 per. eent. per annum./ Ten v.per cent, is* reckoned a fair by most property-owners to-day in Sydney; that is, as far as houses in the suburbs are concerned, but .many of theni! do not even get that., A few years ago 12 per cent, .was thought, a fair return : on bricks and mortar," but to-day> ow- ; irig to the enormous increase in wages laid down aid the minimum by the various wages boards, the landlord is:• not generally the wealthy man he is credited with being. Ten years ago one could get plumbing or carpentering work done on a house for 6/- to 7/- a dayj now it is respectively 12/- and 10/- a day. Municipal councils* have also raised tlieir rates in many: instances,:, and,', to . give a concrete example, in Coogee," one of the waterside suburbs of Sydney, • some properties have had their rates increased by 50 per , cent. ; since 1913. This ' all comes but of the landlord's pocket, for the idea of passing., any of it on to the tenant would mean the latter's prompt departure and empty There is one sun-glint appearing in the cloud overhanging the 1 pro-perty-owners, and that is that the Government,;in spite of the, Labour Council's emphatic orders to place the Bill on the 'Statute Book, has decided that the Bili coines finder the heading of "contentiousmatter,''and, according . to its sacred promise, the . Government v will not touch contentious matter while the'war lasts.'ln this way the ill-wind of war is: ;a$ a gentle zejihyr to the - harassed owner of property. ' ''' -