OUR MELBOURNE LETTER.

Evening Star, Issue 3988, 6 December 1875, Page 2

OUR MELBOURNE LETTER.

Melbourne, November 27. We have a sensation now with a will. We who used to brag so much about our unbounded credit, who held our beads so b’gh above our fellow Colonies, who said of our Colony “ I sit a queen and shall see no sorrow,” we have only LII.OOO in our Treasury; and that is somebody vise’s money. Of our own not a stiver. It has taken three Treasurers and four months to find it out. Now here is a neat little thing in problems, a sum in proportion for the youth of Tavai Poenammoo. Given three Treasurers and four months to find out that wo have only L11,f,00, how long will it take to get our finances straight? Sir James M'Culloch

startled the pub ic very much when be made this revelation, but no doubt he laid the foundation of a future surprise when some other Treasurer shall tell us that there was not the least foundation for it. For it seems to be an exceedingly difficult thing to find out how much money there really is. To my unsophisticated intellect it is totally inexplicable. When I want to know how much money I have I simply sit down and count it; why should not a Treasurer do the same ? To he sure it would take a long time to count Lll,ooo, but then it might be worth even that trouble in order to find out the truth. But tho strangest part of it is that our financiers can’t agree within 1100,000 Uno would have fancied (if one weio not a financier) that that was a tangible amount enough, but it seems otherwise. One man takes credit for its being

there, and says, “I got it from the laud revenue, and I meant to use it for building schools,” That is Mr Service. Another says, “ I can’t find it! It is not there! Isut n imports ! I am Treasurer still, so hooray I” lh..t was Mr Berry. What he meant I have not the least idea, and I don’t beli ;ve he had either. Then Sir James M'Culloch comes with a grave face and says, “ L >ok here 1 you’ve got to pay this i.100,000, you know ; and theiefoie you must provide the money tor it; ami it has to be paid to the railway fund next June, so be qui k about it.” When straightway to his ft.ee rises Mr Service, and vows again that, the pea is under that thimble after ail, and that the knight is only rigging them. As , to piospeots there will certain y be a deficit. However much the authorities differ upon the past, they are unanimous upon tho uture. Truly, in more senses than one “ their unanimity is wonderful” As to the probable ' mount by which t he revenue will fall short of the expenditure, there is some slight difference; but nobody offcis much objection to Sir James's statement that it will be between L15.),000 and Lioo,ooo. 1 o meet this, Sir James proposes a ouiiget that is, in the main, a copy of Mr Service’s'and Mr I Kerry’s, lie proposes to raise by the end of next June LBO.OOO by a land (ax, L 45,000 from a boose (ax, £60,000 bom as

income tax, and L26,(K)0 from an impost on banknotes— thesebeing all new burdens. A few thou-amis extra are to be got bynveing the Succession Duties. All these proposals are severely criticised by the gentlemen from whom ,®y ‘? re B ’ l^£ tantial!ycopied; the grounds oi the criticism, and its conclusion may, I think be famly summed up thus Tweedledum is not tweedJedee; therefore out you go.” And I have no doubt that the conclusion -will be very hard to resist. On Thursday evening Mr Bei vice made a meat capital speech, whose excellence, however, consisted not in the soundness of his arguments against the budget as in . e *POSuro of Sir James M'Cullochs inconsistencies, and in broad hints at his incapacity «3 a financier—the point on which the knight has always plumed himself on his strength, borne very good side hits were found in it, *'u W T} Ver ’ as ’ or i ns^a nco, uhere he plainly told the Berry-Longmore-cnm-Woodsfaction that he would not join in their tactics to use the forms of the House to impede public business; where he gave the same people a well-merited cut for inciting the rabble to offer personal insult to the Acting-Governor, and where he pointed out the delusive nature of the sham Customs reductions. The speech reads well, and is a model to all colonial chatterers in that it wastes not a word in “ blow,’’ The man has something to say, says it, and sto. s. The effect is therefore great. It certainly is i so in one way. That political “ Janus Weather-cock”—-the ‘Argus’—has obeyed the law of ms natur-% and has done it so suddenly as to k. ow well oiled the vane must be kept, A 1 morning it has pointed steadily in the M'Culloch direction ; then it described an arc of 180° on the instant, and indicates James Seivice as “ the coming man ” Of course the proprieties must be respected, so there are little saving clauses—a promise to support the Government as long as it can be done “conscientiously’’—(only think of an ‘Argus’ conscience !) —Sir J. M'Culloch is at present “a necessity,” and so on ; but (with a bow and a smirk to Service), “ None will welcome yorr return to office more cordially than ourselves.” (To be continued.)