OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2778, 3 May 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Sydney, April 8. The week lias been chiefly remarkable far the utter and shameful discomfiture of the official weather prognostications. A few days ago we were told that tho three years drought, predicted by Mr Egeson, was about to begin, and that wo need expect no mora rain worth speaking of. But on Sunday and Monday down it camo again with forty flood-power. All the low-lying lands were again submerged, and the poor people, who had been tempted by the weather forecast of Mr Egeson to re-occupy their premises, must have felt the conspquences very bitterly. Monday night was black and threatening, and no one was surprised to see in Tuesday's papers an official prophesy to the effect that general rain was likely to continue. But those who have watched these forecasts, and have formed their own opinion as to the value to be placed on them, were not at all surprised to see the weather on Tuesday clear up, the blue sky again appear, and the sun come out in all his glory. I can only repeat what I said when Mr Bgeson's prediction of the three years' drought first appeared: "If men with all the records open before them, and with all the scientific facilities at their disposal cannot accurately foretell the weather for three days together, what reliance is to be placed on their ability to foretell it for three years?" These guesses at the future are made in all good faith, but, they remain guesses still, and the man who pins his faith to them will find that he is depending on a mere airy speculation.

The Daily Telegraph the other day published a letter from a writer who proclaimed himself a scion of the aristocracy, a son of "Lord Voleur" and who besought the people of New South Wales not to give assistance to the degraded English coal-miners now on strike. The letter contained abundant internal evidence showing that it was really written in the interests of the miners, and was intended to expose out of their own mouth the heartlessness and rapacity of the " Voleur'' class, who have been suffered to monopolise the public lands, and who will only allow labour and capital to develop them on their own terms. The word ■' Voleur " means thief, and many parts of the letter were so clumsily written that the real intention of the writer was very evident. But there is a class of newspaper correspondents, and I really think they constitute the majority who are like the proverbial Scotchman, in that a glimmer of a joke can never gain entrance into their skulls except by a surgical operation. Numbers of them took up the cudgels on behalf of the unhappy miueia, and the cause of the latter must have been in great danger through the too-palpable exposure of the well-meaning imbecility of their self-constituted champions. However, tho miners seem pretty well able to take care of themselves. A good share of the advance for which they are contending is being very generally conceded, and victory seems to be attending their efforts. It is a pity, however, that capital and labour should expend their strength in fighting one another. Better would it be if they were to combine their forces in a united attack on land monopoly, which circumscribes the operations of both of them, and fleeces them to the very quick.

As ye' Henry George remains unanswered aa to his chief thesis. He may have been unguarded in his language, and oversanguine in his expectations. He may have overlooked the existence of many things which are, in his burning desire to bring in those which ought to be. But his central position that the unearned increment in the value of land belongs to the people, and must, sooner or later, or more or less, thoroughly be claimed by the State on their behalf has never yet been touched. Most opponents of the movement spend their strength in attacking some position that is not all essential. Very commonly indeed they attack propositions that no one has ever maintained. For instance, Mr Salamons the other night deemed it incumbent on him in consequence of what Henry George had said to maintain the existence of Providence, as though the existence of Providence, instead of assuring to right doing its proper reward, absolved men from endeavouring to see the truth and do it! Mr Copeland, the same evening, spent a long time in maintaining what Henry George maintains much 'more intelligently than he does, that a definite tenure of land is an indispensable condition ot individual and national prosperity. None ot these attacks are likely to prosper. The Australian public is not any quicker of perception than it ought to be, but it is hardly likely that it will allow itself to be influenced by such abject puzzle-headedness as Mr George's assailants are in the habit of displaying. " Save me from my friends" has passed into a proverb. " Send me enemies that will help my cause " might serve as a fitting companion to it. It is hardly necessary to remark that the question whether rates and other taxation shall be levied by preference on the unimproved value of land, or on the value of the capital and labour which has been expended on improving it, is not affected by stupid misrepresentations and anathemas. The one course offers a premium to the joint efforts of capital and labour. The other locks lip the land against them, and fines fhem heavily when they break through the embargo. And although land monopoly and the methods by which it is maintained thus constitute a crushing incubus on the progress of the community, they do not themselves profit as they would under a healthier and honester system. Those who have purchased land in the hope of profiting by the unearned increment sometimes it is true make enormous gains at other people's expense. But such is the general stagnation —a stagnation which to a great extent has been caused by their own operations— that in by far the greater number of cases they are helplessly and almost hopelessly looking for tenants or purchasers who don't come. They are like the Bedouin bandits who secure in advance the watering places in the desert in order that they may levy blackmail on the approaching caravan. But in this case the caravan knows so well the fleecing which awaits it that it is no hurry to advance at all but prefers to remain in the half-dead and half-alive condition, into which its legislators and administrators by continually shirking their duty have allowed it to drift. Of course this illustration is overdrawn. Ponple.who avail themselves of the facilities which the law gives them to purchase land aie not often, it is to be hoped, consciously bandits or robbers, nor would it be either just or expedient to proceed against them as if they were. But their innocence or guilt does not alter the facts of the case or render it less necessary to take action upon them. If rash and violent, action is proceeded, it is all the more imperative that such action as is wise and well-adapted to the circumstances shall be taken. For the good of i the landowners themselves, as well as for that of the oommunity generally, it is time thnt we made some well-considered beginning to put an end to the present anomalous state of things.

Parliament has been further prorogued till April 29th, when it is to meat for the despatch of business. When the Opposition swallowed the estimates in a lump, in order to get into recess, no one imagined that the holiday would extend over a couple of months at the outside. But since the Assembly took to voting the public imney into its own pockets, a recess means a holiday on full pay, and it may therefore be expected to moderate very effectively the zeal of its members. Scarcely a murmur has been heard, even from the most ardent Oppositionist, at the prolongation of the period of inaction. But, perhaps now the date is fixed, Nome of them will make known their sentiments. Mr MacMillan stands pledged to recast the tariff on Free Trade lines, which means, I presume, the abolition of the duties on dairy produce, sugar, kerosene, and many other articles. He has, sworn to have a tilt at the windmill, How he will fare time alone can tell.