MELBOURNE TOWN TALK.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1947, 18 September 1888, Page 3

MELBOURNE TOWN TALK.

(From our own Correspondent.) " The three W V have beon monopollsIng Melbourne's athntlon durlDg the l&Bt week — wool, wheat, and wine. " Better than Melbourne's usual three W'i," sayt a preis friend, gUnoiog over my ehouldet aa I write. " What are they 2" I ask. '• Wine, waste, and women," he answer* cynically. Truly, we hare been quite agricultural, pastoral, vltloultur&l, and otber-al (as my friend suggests), what with the agricultural show, the farmers' ooDferenoe, and the s ock and grain qacs tlon now before Parliament. It is not often oonntry interests monopoliie the roetropolian attention so thoroughly, and I hope suitable benefit may be derlver from the fact. Without a doubt thi question of a proteotlvo duty on imported stock and Brain ii oue that oppeals home to ev?ry Vioorian farmer, and I don't wonder m lh« loast that they should take euoh a firm stand, aud band together to get it made law. This is the primp oKj-ct of the farmer* 1 conference, and 1 wish the movement success with all my heart. That wns an awful proposal, though, made by one of tho speakers at tho con ference, namely, that if tho farmers could not puoceed m inducing Parliament to do them justice, they sVoutd go out on strike — that ie to any, grow and produce enough only for their own consumption, and boyoott tbo rest of society. Great heavens ! what a treat. Fancy ! The buchera' wbopß would bo closed. Tho bakers would look m vain for flour. The fruiterers would no longer bo ab!o to supply. There would be neither lamb nor mint sauce. " Wbero be my eggs and butter?" paterfamilias would ciy. "Wbst am I to do for dinner?" materfamilias would cob. Of i oourso, the idea is absurd »nd utterly imff practicable, but Ido admire the novelty iof the idea and the brilliance of tho farmrrs' representative who mooted it. A I farmers' strike— bah ! An well talk of a ben-strike not to lay, or a cow-strike not to give milk. Talking <f strikes brings roe m the natural o iur«e of things to the coal strike. It is m statu quo, acd to me coemu no nearer settlement than over. The effco'* are becoming folt more and more as the days roll by and brirjg no settlement, Praotlcally epo*klop, though, it enly afF:ots tho working clauses, those who have been, and those who run a chance of being, thrown out of employment In workshops and faotorles, m consequence of the Inadequacy of the supply of fool, Some six to seven thousand men, it la computed, are likely to be thrown out if it continues, and I need not soy that if this deplorable contingency evenlaatoa, it will bring down dreadful misery on the city and the city workers. '• Wo aro on verge of a national disaster," ssld one of oar public functionaries yesterday. '.It jast depends how things turn out the next fortnight, to mean a commorclal and industrial collapse or tho reverse." Tho reverse, I hope with all my heart. A curious outcome of the Btrlke is the number of discoveries of ooal meaaores that have come to light. In ooD&equvnoo of the feeling that we ought, aher thlß bitter experience, to provide ourselvea from oar own coal-fields, strenuous eff r a to disoovcr same have beon put into active operation. And with euoh jarprlalng ro■alts too. I leurn from reading the daily paper j that the whole, or nearly the whole of Glppaland fa coal bearing— that there are millions upon millions of tons simply waiting extraction. Not only tha», olthor, for one man writes that (for a consideration, of course) he will pilot the Government to a spot where there are ooal measures far surpassing anything of the kind at Newcastle. May, even more than that, lam assured we have any amount cf coal nearer hand, and I have even heard it solemnly slated that Melbourne Itself stands on a rioh coal-bed, soffiolont In I itself to supply the city. Out of all this wild talk I daresay some good will even taate, for it ehowo at all events that people have made np their minda to the fact that Melbourne should have, what I have heard described as "a coal-hole of its own; By-the-way, I must not omit all mention of such an important function as the Agricultural Show, whioh was opened at Newmarket on Tuesday, under the aaipioes of the National Agricultural Soolely of Victoria, It was a good show In its way, though I have teen jast as good at some of the large provincial town*, and though the weather was not over and above favorable, the function was, on the whole, deoldedly a success. The exhibits of live stock were, I am told, above the average of last year, thoofth I don't pretend to understand much about it myself. " But it is bo, my boy," said the Hon J. MoL ,who took several prfzs for merinos. "We lick it m length, m staple, m Bneneeo, m texture, and In price, and don't yon forget it " The show was shorn of ono of its attrao tions m not having the usual dogs &■ pirk of the exhibition. A curious contretemps tended to brloc this about. The Sooiety bnllt a house especially for oanloo exhibits, but were prevented from using it through an injunction of the Supreme Court, obtained by Mr Dakin, the trainer. He alleged that the barking and howling of the dogs would injuriously affect several valuable rooehorsea under his charge which were stall jd olesa by, and, as I said, he succeeded la obtaining an injunction against the use of the bulldltg. There has been a good deal ol strong feeling ibout this, bat I think my friend Dakin was right. Horse ■ — especially racehorses m training— are wonderfully sensitive animals, and it la his baelneßs to look after, to the best of his powers, those under his care, and the show and those connected with It had of ueoeisUy to take secondary consideration. I have written nothing about politics and politicians this week, being primed full of I matters agricultural. And, as a matter of faot, the position of •fitlrs was not altered greatly dating the last seven days. The farmers' question is still the httt, noir the rook ahead on whioh the Government bark threatens to go to pleocs. As far as I can make It oat, tbe situation may be summed op thusnise : If the Government remain firm they will win by a small majority, and then perhaps go to the country ; If they fall In with the formers' views anent tbe stook-tax they will bare a deolded majority and remain firm. There It Is m a nut-sheli, From lack of time I will not write more, holding some of my disintegrated, easy-chair kind of jottings until next weak. Arrivtderci!