OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2796, 14 June 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

(FROM OUR OWN OORnKSPONDRNT.) Sydney, June 2. The Government are in danger of alienating the commercial public of Sydney, which, after all, is their chief mainstay by their reckless habit of pro-1 claiming public holidays without notioe. Public holidays are rery nice things for ppople whose pay runa on all the same whether they work or play, but to the vastly larger class whose earnings or profits are dependent on their work they ate often a very serious inHictiou. Suppose the Government, in view of some contingency which in their opinion called for prompt action had suddenly, of their own motion, and without consulting Parliament, levied a tax on the working men, the shopkeepers and merchants of the colony, equal to the amount they lost through their enforcod idleness on account of Monday last being proclaimed a pubiic holiday. There would very properly have been a public protest which would have hurled them from their positions and covered them with humiliation. Yet they have as really mulcted them in that amount by the course which they then took, and altheugh the moral fibre of the people injured, or of their Parliamentary representatives is not robust i enough or virile enough to protest very effectively, the moral quality of the actions can hardly bo said to be essentially different. In the one case, indeed, there would be the justification of some public object ; in the other there is not even this excuse. The people injured have been prevented from earning money, and have moreover been derived by the Government of the opportunity of doing useful work in order that they might spend the money in frivolity or dissipation such money as they might have saved. It is not by administration of this kind that nations become great, still less wealthy. But colonial Governments, ' although they are by no means enamoured of the simple plan of working, saving and accumulating as a means of getting rich, have always another string , to their bow —that of spending borrowed money. If capital can be borrowed, they say in effect, what need of so alow an'l so tedious a method of obtaining it ? The interest is a fleabito compared with our already swollen and bloated expenditure. And so, unpardonable and grossly culpable extravagance in one direction is made the pretext for more reckless and more culpable extravagance in another, and tho time when the interest will become n crushing burden and when fresh loans will have perforce to be contracted, not for expenditure but to repay the old ones, is conveniently ignored. For some time the Governmentof thiscolony.to their credit be it spoken, have persistently refused to resort to this cheap and easy but reckless method of stimulating a temporary and ticticious prosperity. But there are now signs that they are about to depart from this obviously prudeut line of action. Railways and other public works involving the expenditure of some two or three millions are announced as about to be presented for Parliamentary sanction, and the next thing no doubt will be the : appearance of New South Wales in the London money market as a candidate for another loan. Then will come cheap money, feverish speculation and wholesale squandering. Some "boom" will be started to swallow up the loose money that will be flying about. The bubble will burst, the colony will come to the end of its credit for a time, the interest will have to be paid, and its last state will be worse than its first. Moreover, the crowds of people who will have been attracted from homely but productive pursuits to participate in the expenditure of the borrowed millions will find themselves out of employment, and in most cases the money they so easily got will have just as easily gone. It seems hard to say that a colony should not borrow at all. But it must be remembered that this colony has an enormous load of bebt already, something like 40 millions, I think. Moreover the habit of excess once formed, even in that which is in itself lawful, is generally such that the only cure which it admits of is total abstinence. When New South Wales begins to borrow again, the experiment will bo watched with a good deal of anxiety. It will be aa though a reformed drunkard were again to resort to the whisky bottle " for the good of his health." In cine cases out of ten we know beforehand what the result will be. A clerical scandal of more than ordinary magnitude has startled the religious world, and given rise to a good deal of ill-concealed exultation on the part of thoso who are opposed to religion. The minister of a Presbyterian Church, more than ordinarily wealthy, zealous and active, has found it expedient to resign his charge and leave the colony. It has been stated in an evening paper that a liaison, with a lady member of his congregation, is at the bottom of the affair, &_but as it is sub jmlice and nothing authoritative is known, it 'is wise to suspend judgment. Some of our modern lights have gone a little further than theii ancient prototypes. Tho Pharisees did demand proof botore they gave the offenders up to be stoned, but the practice now-a-days is to etone people — metaphorically, of conrse—on suspicion. As to the stoning itself in a so-called Christian country it is hard to see where the executioners are to come from. " Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone," said One of old, and the same instructor further defined ein as the desire of the heart. However, all these considerations are apart from the very obvious claims of church discipline, w&ich in this case has been very promptly set in motion.

Parliament meets three days in the week but it would difficult to define the amount of work done. The Federation debate still blocks the way. That the resolutions, even if carried, commit the House to nothing further than the discussion of the matter with representatives of tho other colonies eeems to be generally forgotten. Otherwise, the absurdity of wasting so much time on preliminaries would be apparent. My own opinion is that the Assembly will pass the resolutions in order to admit of further discussion and with a desire to ascertain precisely the nature of tho offer that will be made by the Intercolonial convention. Aβ for the Council—the nest of land monopoly and conservatism—many of the members perhaps a majority—would throw them out if they dared. But it is questionable if they dare, especially as they have another and a better string to thsir bow, in the fact that any proposition that is made must again come before them for acceptance.

The brewers have a grievance against i the Government. As a matter of fact they have had one ever since the excise on beer became law, but this is an additional and supplementary injury which they have been suffering all the time, but which until now they have been too modest to call attention to. Innocent and unsophisticated people have been wont to assume that beer is the product of malt and hops, just as bread is the product of flour, and flour is ground from wheat. But now it appears that it is very largely made from sugar—so largely in fact that the three or four large breweries in tho colony probably consume three or four thousand tons of sugar annually amongst them. This sugar carries a duty of £"> por ton, and the total amount paid in respect of it to the Customs annually is estimated by the brewers themselves at £18,000. They complain that, contrary to juetice and ordinary usage, they aro taxed twice over, having to pay duty on the sugar they use and again on the beer which they make. Like the Spartan boy with his fox they have concealed thoir injury thus far; but, unlike the Spartan boy, they have no intention of letting it prey on their vitals until it kills them, so they have made a cloau breast of the whole matter and demand relief. From one point tsf view it lookrf liko a request on the part of four or fivem-althy firms to be allowed to divide £18,000 a year amongst them. But there are considerations of oqnity which cannot bo so summnrily

disposed of, and it is probable that some relief will be accorded tho petitioners. Meantime, it is quite possible that the incident will add one more to the long list of honorary titles with which the unpretentious " stringybark " is already decorated. Why not call it S.B.—sugar beer? Another railway smash has to be chronicled from Singleton on the Great Northern line, which, until the catastrophe at Farley, had enjoyed a singular immunity from accident. This time, however, it is not on the Government line, but on a private line connected with it, belonging to the Singleton Coal and Coke Company. A drawbar broke and the whole train ran violently down an incline into a number of empty waggons. The guard, who stuck nobly to his breaks all through tho perilous rids, managed to save his life by throwing himself off into a heap of small coal by the side of: the line, just before the collisiou. Fortunately no one was killed, but there was a good deal of damage to rolling stock, the break van being smashed to atoms, and fourteen trucks derailed and more or less less brok en up.