Our Contributors.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 520, 8 July 1881, Page 3

Our Contributors.

ECHOES OF MELBOURNE

[from our own correspondent.l

June 21

" Lightning changes " have characterised Victorian politics for the past month or so, but the entertainment has at last come to a close, and the performers, dressed in their ordinary manner, have come to the footlights, and are bowing their thanks to the patient audience that has watched their performances for the past five years. The last act of reform was exciting, as may well be imagined by folks at a distance, who have too much to attend to to hear the noise of our mimic warfare, especially when there was the disturbing ele ment that the fate of the Ministry hung in the balance. The intrigues that went on would fill a goodly volume, and Parliament House wrs the centre whither the hawks of our political arena took their flight. The culmination of reform took place on Wednesday, the 15th June, and perhaps a more exciting evening has never occurred at Parliament House. Prior to this Mr Berry, who was spinning about like a teetotum to save place and pay at all hazaids, had, so he said, nailed his colors to the mast, and d cided to discharge the bill mutilated by the Council in order to secure the support of the Corner to keep him in office. But on Tuesday night he found himself on the horns of a dilemma. He had secured the help of the Corner, but this had caused five or six of-the moderate Liberals who supported him to forswear allegiance and declare in favor of making one more effort to obtain concessions from the Council, which loss nullified thesupport of the Corner. At this stage Sir Bryan O'Loghlen, who seems determined to get the Ministry out at all hazards, moved that the Council be asked to confer with the Assembly. So many members were in favor of the trying the Council again, and were determined to prevent another reform agitation being started, that on Wednesday it was pretty well known the Ministry were in a minority. Mr Berry, like the magician in the fable, had exhausted his changes, aad was in despair. But at this stage the Opposition, who have saved him more than once for their own purposes, just as the butcher rescues his fat sheep from the sheep stealer, once more stepped in and became his guardian angel. They saw that if Sir Bryan carried his motion he would be impregnable, and would be " sent for." This did not suit their book, so as a last resort they hurried up to the Council, and getting the members of that body to thrust aside Sir Charles Sladen, an ultra-Tory, who heretofore has led them by the nose, they got them to make some important concessions. Mr Ramsay declared these I to the Assembly, and the game was up.

The bonbon was snatched from Sir Bryan's lips, and Mr Berry had once more to turn himself inside out and humbly cut the leek presented to him. It was a spectacle to inspire pity and disgust to see this man. who has practically been dictator of Victoria for four years, humbly on his knees accepting the selfish mercy of his victorious enemies. The Radicals howled and shrieked " Treason ! Treason 1 " but it was in vain, and before the House rose on Wednesday reform, if it can be so called, was un fait accompli, and Mr Berry's ministerial life ensured for a few days.

Owing to the importance of politics this week I must trespass a little more on your space than usual, for who knows but you may want to reform your own Legislative Council, and the information will be useful, Our Council as it existed was elected by £50 ratepayers ; the members were elected for ten years, and retired in rotation. Our Council as it is, or rather will be, will be elected by £10 freeholders and £25 leaseholders or occupiers ; the members, whose qualification will be £100, will hold office for six years, and the elections will take place on the same day, to prevent the excessive use of the plural votes. The declared object of this change is to make the Council more amenable to public opinion, but the views of each party as to what will be the result are very different. The Liberals fancy that once having permitted the franchise to be so lowered the Council will with a little pressure come down to universal suffrage, so that our two Houses will be like the American Congress, and the will of the majority of the people will be law. The idea of the Conservatives is very different. They think they have created a House which, representing the whole of the upper and middle classes, will, without lowering its franchise, assume a dominant position like that of the American Senate, and become the leading Chamber, keeping in check the wild projects of the democrats. Time alone will show who is right. So far the Conservatives have the best of it, and have, after a furious warfare that convulsed Victoria for four years, and nearly led to bloodshed, dictated their own terms and obtained the bill they wanted. Both sides are now engaged in claiming the victory. The lesson which your people can learn from the great struggle that has just closed so lamely in Victoria is that in English communities extreme views can never prevail, and that the proper course to adopt is that which lies between and concedes a little to each party.

America will have to look to her reputation for exceptional crime if Victoria goes ahead in that line as she has recently been doing. The colony was horrified this week by an occurrence thnt happened at Newtan, a mining village near Smythesdale, Balhirat. A halfcaste boy, the adopted son of a Chinese miner named Wing Hok, aged about five, was missed by his father on the evening of the 16th. After a while the son of a neighbor, named James Hall, aged fourteen, came to Wing Hok and reported to him that he found the body of Tommy (the name of the deceased) in a water-hole in his father's paddock. On tho body being found it was discovered that the throut had boen cut, and that there was a shot wound in the leg. The affair at first appeared a perfect mystery, but the detective who had the case in hand soon found clues which led him to suspect that the child had been done away with by James Hall and his brother William. James Hall gave evidence at the inquest in a very bold manner, parrying the cross-exami-nation wonderfully for a boy of his age. He was immediately afterwards arrested, and also his brother William, aged ten, The latter was not so hardened as his brother, and he has confessed thf>t he shot the half-caste child accidentally, and that then James cut his throat and threw the body in the water. Victor Hugo never imagined anything , more terrible than this. What are our youth going to turn when, despite our civilization and our school system, such a monster has been produced in Victoria?

As usual, we are going to make fools of ourselves over the Princes, who will arrive here on Saturday next, and who ought to be treated merely as middies, for it was the intention of their father in placing them in that position to learn obedience before they commanded it themselves. They would do well to follow the example of Prince Battenberg, a Royal German, who is a lieutenant in the fleet. Our German fellow citizens invited the young Prince to their Turn Verein and made a great fuss about him, erecting a throne and all that. Prince Battenberg, on ascending the throne, made a suitable speech, in which he deprecated these honors being paid to him, and said that if he had known what they were going to do he would not have come, However, he prized the demonstration for its meaning, and thanked them, but he would be still more pleased if in future they would let him visit their social gatherings as a simple lieutenant in the Queen's navy, and allow him to sit among them and smoke his pipe and drink his lager like the rest of them. The " hochs "at this were tremendous, and amidst the applause the Prince descended from the throne and took his seat unostentatiously in the midst of the company.

Mr H. B. Moore, once Secretary for Lands, has been appointed secretary to the V.R.C. Several of the sporting writers had put in applications, but as a matter of fact the affair was cut and dried, whereat the disappointed applicants are very wroth. Mr Moore will make the best secretary the great club has had, for all that. r J.he feeling of the committee towards the Press is

unfavorable, if we fake Captain Standish late Chief Commissioner of Police, as an exponent of their views. The captain, when canvassed by a friend of a scribe, said very tartly, " I'll see that no pressman doesn't get the billet." The Press has been very severe on the captain occasionally, and ho has not forgotten it. Newspaper men are in trouble in Parliament as well. There are fire active pressmen in the Assembly, four ot whom are on the Age, one a Minister, Professor Pearson. Mr Ramsay, when making his great speech which settled reform, violently attacked the Age and the Press in general, and condemned pressmen who were actively employed on newspapers sitting in the House ; in fact he said he did not know but he would bring in a bill disqualifying them like the clergymen, the insane, and gentlemen of the William Sykes persuasion. The Press members might have retorted that if he did they would introduce a bill to disqualify lawyers, who certainly cause more trouble in Legislatures than litterateurs—usually well-behaved members.