AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXV, Issue XXV, 9 August 1893, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Tuesday, July 25. EXTRAORDINARY EXPLOSION. A sensational incident occurred in Sydney Harbor last Saturday, the German barque Argo, lying in Neutral Bay, being blown up ; by an explosion of gas generated by a cargo i of coal. The vessel had a cargo of 1,485 tons ; of the Metropolitan Company's coal, which ' had just been loaded at the Government whart, Pyrmont, whence the ship had been ' hauled to its anchorage in Neutral Bay prior to leaving for Valparaiso. The sails were '• unbent, the stores were on board, and Cap- i tain Schultz was on shore arranging the final details with the agents. A number of men were in the rigging reeving the sheets, ; and were only awaiting the arrival of the master to cast off. Suddenly two treinen- ' dous explosions occurred, the reports beiii^ like the discharge of heavy guns. With the first report the whole of the afterpart of the , ship blew up, and this was followed immediately by a second explosion forward, which rent the deck from for to main hatch, wrenched off the whole of the stanchions, threw the iron deck-house several feet high, broke the iron deck beams off the ship, and tore and twisted the plating above the water line, breaking out the rivets and practically wrecking the vessel. Some of the men aloft sprang from a great height into the water, and the ship shook so that those who were on deck were violently thrown into the air with masses of deck planking and fittings. Three men — Hans Arfsten, the chief officer, Karl Kusplanch, the second officer, and Mr J. Chamberlain, a passenger — came down with the ruins, and were buried in the debris. The chief officer was dragged out in a dying condition, and the second officer and Mr Chamberlain were badly injured. In the second explosion the cook, who was taking some potatoes out of a bag in the fore hatch, was blown up on the monkey forecastle, a distance of 20ft. The flames shot up sufficiently high to burn the hair off the faces of the men aloft on the yards. The foremast, the lower part of which is of iron, with all its weight of gear and yards, was forced upwards some 2ft. A FATAL COLLISION. A collision resulting in a fatality took place at sea off Redhead, near Newcastle, last week. The schooner Guiding Star, 37 tons register, timber laden, from Port Macquarie to Sydney, was run down by the s.s. Elingamite, from Sydney to Newcastle, at ten minutes past four o'clock. The Guiding Star was struck on the port bow and cut in two, sinking immediately, the cook, August Mathieson, being drowned. John White, master, and Peter Nagle, A.8., the two survivors, were taken to Newcastle by the Elingamite. The "survivors state that the Guiding Star was on the south-west course at the time of the casualty, with the lights burning brightly. It was White's watch below, and he had just gone down when Mathieson, who was at the wheel, called out "Steamer close on !" White had already seen the steamer, steering something like north towards the Nobbys. The steamer had great way upon her, and did not appear to have time to stop. She struck the schooner on the port bow between the stem and the forerigging. The schooner sank almost immediately, the steamer passing right over her. Mathieson could not swim, but got hold of pieces of timber and floated for some time, but eventually sank. White managed to get into the schooner's boat, which was half full of water. When the crash came Naglc was nearly smothered by the falling sails and rigging, but he managed to get clear, and got hold of a harness cask, by means of which he kept up until a boat from the Eliugamite picked both the men up. THE GOVERNORSHIP OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA. In consequence of a Press cable message received from London stating that the Secretary of State for the Colonies had requested Lord Kintore to remain at his post as Governor of South Australia for the full term of six years, the earl was interviewed during a recent visit to Melbourne, and offered the following explanation : — " When calling upon the Secretary of State after he had done me the honor to offer me the Governship of South Australia, he gave me distinctly to understand that the limit to my appointment would be five years. On that understanding I accepted it, and left England on the sth of March, 1889. As five years will have passed since then on the sth of March next year, I applied on the 31st of May last for leave of absence pending my retirement, to commence from the middle of December. In reply, Lord Ripon sent me a confidential message in cypher, which reached me last Sunday. Xn that message Lord Ripon pointed out that a Governor's ordinary term is six years. He was good enough to say he had no desire to limit me to five years, and added that he begged me to remain to the end of the usual term, and also that • Her Majesty's Government greatly desired that I would do so.' lam not yet in a position to say what answer I shall give to Lord Ripon." Lord Kintore has been completely taken by surprise in the matter, having made all his arrangements for returning to Great Britain, and the Countess of Kintore having preceded him on the voyage. The explanation of the action of the Secretary of State is to be found in the fact that the new Premier of South Australia (Mr Kingston) has intimated the intention of his Government to do without a Governor and get the Chief Justice to act for some time in order \ to save the salary attaching to the office. The Imperial Government evidently view this idea with disfavor, and hope that by keeping the Earl of Kintore at his post the present or some succeeding Government may think better of the matter. A KEY TO THE FINANCIAL CRISIS. A notable lecture' was delivered by Mr James Smith, the well-known Melbourne litterateur, before the Bankers' Institute recently. It was entitled ' Financial Crises ; their Cause and Cure,' ,and the theory advanced by the lecturer was that all financial troubles were the result of an artificial system of credit, vicious in principle and disastrous in consequences. The earliest banking institutions known were those in China during the ninth and following centuries, when banks were established, receiving deposits and issuing paper currency to .enormous amounts. For a time a splendid apparent prosperity reigned ; but this money presently declined in value until, as in Paris in 1795, it required £300 worth of paper currency to pay for a cab. The nation was ruined, the Government was baukrupt, and the dynasty was overthrown. In Florence for a period of 300 years, from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries, the commerce of that city presented a record of unbroken prosperity, and insolvencies were unknown ; but directly the money changers or bankers of the " Etruscan Athens " exceeded their I original functions of employing their own J capital only, the city fell under the dominion 1 of the Medicis, a family of financiers, social inequalities began to manifest themselves, . and failures— especially in the fifteenth century—became of frequent occurrence. Credit, again, did not enter in the slightest degree into the financial transactions of Venice during the period of its commercial ■ greatness, which dated from the beginning 1 of the sixth century, and the experience of the great trading city of Hamburg afforded the most striking exemplification of the evils of the credit system. The Bank of Hamburg, founded in 1619, which neither issued notes nor discounted bills, had for upwards of 270 years enjoyed a career of , uninterrupted prosperity, standing like a

rock amidst panics and crises which had over* whelmed hundreds of other institutions. The many orißes which had ocourredin English and European commerce and the banking Buspensions and failures in which they had resulted were next traced by the lecturer, who dwelt upon the periods of inflation by which they had been preceded and the panics which accompanied them. Promises to pay, upon paper were so easily manufactured that a fictitious prosperity might be readily built up upon what was, after all, merely a hypothecation of the fruits of future industry, or, worse still, upon the more substantial basis of the anticipated results of speculative undertakings. The remedy for such a state of things, was a return to the methods of banking originally adopted in Florence and Venice, pursued by the Bank of Hamburg and adhered to by the Bank of France, which was still the strongest and safest institution on the Continent of Europe. Under the new state of things advocated, persons with capital, instead of living in ignoble ease and indolent security upon the interest of deposits loaned by them to financial institutions, would be compelled themselves to look abroad for channels in which to employ their money, and sound industry would be rather stimulated than retarded in the long run. A distinct benefit would be derived by transforming the drones into working bees. A CLOSE SHAVE. A Sydney constable had a narrow escape last Friday.- He was on duty at MarrickviUe at about 2 a.m., when he accosted two suspicious characters. As their replies were unsatisfactory, Constable Bell, to gain time, engaged them in conversation, and having remaaked how late it was, the men asked him the time. Bell made as if to pull his watch out, and took the opportunity to adjust his baton, which, fortunately, he placed horizontally across his left breast. Almost simultaneously one of the men drew a revolver and fired point blank at him. The bullet did not touch the constable's body, being intercepted by the baton, and imbedded itself in the wood of that weapon. i This saved his life, as the point at which the bullet struck it was just over the region of his heart. The men decamped, and Bell, pursued them without success. Later on a man who gave his name as William Desmond Barber was arrested on Newtown Bridge on suspicion of being one of the two men. A SINGULAR OUTRAGE is reported from Anderson Creek, Victoria. On Saturday last a very old resident of that township, named Chatty, died. He was a Chinaman, but of a superior class. He spoke English fluently, took a prominent part in all local matters, and was particularly active in the affairs of the Church of England, of which he was a member. He enjoyed the respect of all his neighbors, and the news of his death was received with general regrot. On the following Monday it was discovered that the body had been removed, and that those of his countrymen who had been deputed to act as watchere had been apparently drugged. The body was found hidden in a long culvert. Suspicion has fallen upon one or two young men who have long borne an unenviable reputation, and it is expected that sufficient evidence will soon be obtained to sheet the charge home to them. THE BROKEN HILL STRIKERS. A meeting, at which some thousands of persons attended, was held in the Government Domain, Melbourne, on Sunday afternoon, for the purpose of welcoming Messrs Ferguson, Sleath, and Polkinghorne, who were imprisoned for complicity in the Broken Hill riots, and have been released before the termination of their sentences to mark, by an act of clemency, the recent Royal marriage. The proceedings were entirely wanting in enthusiasm. The only one who simulated any great indignation with regard to the imprisonment of the men now released was Mr Trenwith, M.L.A., who in such terms as "damnable iniquity," "gross treason and treachery," shrieked out his opinion of the New South Wales authorities. Mr Sleath does not appear to cherish a grudge against any person except Mr Purves, whom he cannot forgive for the very severe handling that gentleman gave him at the meeting of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company aboiit twelve months since. Mr Sleath, in. gratitude for his release, expressed his sympathy with the Duke of York on having given up freedom of contract for unionism, and he delivered a lengthy address, in which he expressed the opinion that good would somehow be evolved from the present depression, for he is of opinion that the condition of the workers is being improved. -