VICTORIA.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1560, 18 February 1879, Page 3

VICTORIA.

[FROM THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE PRESS.] Melbourne, February 4,

There is no political news to hand. The vacancy in the representation of West Bourke, caused by the death of Mr John Thomas Smith, is causing some little ruffling of the otherwise calm wafers, but not much; nor does the perturbation extend far. The election will be contested, and that is all except that there is some fear lest the constitutionalists, in their usual blundering way, will allow two of their party to run the election, and so give the Ministerialists an easy victory. And this suggests the reflec tion that people, or a party, without personal ends to serve, but aiming only at the general good, never do act so politically as those who have sinister notions. Great Britain wants no accession of territory at the expense of its neighbours, or other improper advantage ; and yet it blunders terribly in its diplomacy and is often put in the wrong, whereas rapacious and unscrupulous Russia never makes a mistake. I make a present of this notion to some jurist more philosophical than myself. My present intent is to show that in Victoria constitutionalists and free traders, always aiming at what is good and right, work out the disadvantages that usually attends similar efforts.

The Embassy is gone dead. No creature in this city ever speaks of it now, except in conversation with the third ambassador, most improperly and unwarrantably left behind. This politician, the sable brother, is doing his best to keep himself to the fore. He writes to the “Age” habitually; he parades the streets industriously, in the clothes supplied him by his friends the disaffected loyal Liberals, and becomes voluble about his wrongs and injuries whenever he can get a listener ; he even went the length of having his house robbed (nobody ever knew before that ho had one), and valuable State papers abstracted, for dark political purposes. But the excitement cannot be kept alive by any means. The thing has frittered out. It was but a joke all through, this sitting up of an impecunious nigger as a rival to Berry in the delegation business, and it served its purpose in bringing the precious Embassy into even greater contempt than it had previously been held in.

' ho Loyal Liberals are a poor miserable set. Principles they have none, scarcely opinions. So far as I can find out by talking with the best, of them, their only idea is t ! at the possession of property is a crime wbj h Berry may bo trusted to bring to justice better

than any other man. All the same they hate He has feathered his own nest and quartered his relatives to the uttermost limits of consanguinity in marital connection upon the public, while the great bulk of the Loyal Liberal community is worse off than ever before in the history of the colony. Still they will vote for him and his nominees, and throw up their hats for them. So ineradicable is human folly when it takes a political direction ! . Then they are quarrelling furiously among themselves. One prominent member accuses another of peculation ; another is accused of accepting money as the price of a Magistrateship, to bo obtained trom Berry by the influence of the Loyal Liberal Association. It is altogether a miserable condition of affairs, and all respectable men begin to blushjat the thought that they are Victorians. Sir George Bowen is going away and Lord Normanby is coming to fill bis place. Cheers huzzahs for his Lordship. It’s the way of the world, and was very completely formulated in the verse in the old Wapping song which runs :

“ The landlady came in and said with a frown. Else up Jack and let Bill sit down, for he is inward bound ”

Already the ladies’ stay makers and other surgical instrument manufacturers, the aerated water men and the dentists, are effacing “ Bowen ” from their lists of patrons, and substituting “Normanby,” No one seems to care when poor Sir Ooorge goes, or where, hero or hereafter. For the first time in my life I feel a kind of kindness for him, for it is in my nature to sympathise with distress. Surely there never was a man in this world who tried so hard to please as our de* parting Governor has done ever since he came among us. It is not only that ho has been all things to all men—he has also been all things to all women and children, and all snobs and cads. His effusive geniality spared nobody. He gushed on every public occasion in a way calculated to draw tears f 6m the eyes of not only the emotional, the weak, and the foolish, but also (though the secretion was otherwise compounded) from the eyes of the judicious and the critical few. The deuce of it was that he was always trying to make up by flattery what he fellshortof inlibeality. Do my readers recollect the true story of an old Ayrshire lady, who, on entering her parish church every Sunday morning, deposited in the collection plate, with a most courteous salutation to the two elders in charge, a half-penny, neatly wrapped up in tissue paper ? Well, if rot, I’ll tell the story. On one occasion a fervent appeal had been made from the pulpit for a liberal contribution towards a fund that was being collected to defray the expense of whitewashing the church, an important work that might cost 25s or 30a. “We’ll see hoo her ladyship will come oot the day,” said the one elder to the other, and immediately she marched in, depositing her little parcel as usual, but with more than her usual condescending politeness Hastily pulling it open, the elder discovered the customary offering, and following the giver up the aisle, tie exclaimed, “ Mair o’ your bawbees, an’ less o’ your booin’, would Sit ye better, Lady Buty.” It has been so with Sir George all through his residence among us. What might have been done for his own credit and that of hia high office, by a moderate expenditure of “ bawbees,” he has tried to do by “ booin’,” and at length his politenesses fell far below par. They were indeed so depreciated that they would scarce pass current at any price whatever. But I am not going to say anything against him now that he is going away, and no kind of demonstration in his favor can be got up even by the most diligent use of all the means at the command of au unscrupulous Ministry. I wish him well, as do many others who have long been obliged to estrange themselves from him, and hope that in the place whither he is going he will do more good and less harm than he has here. Mauritius should suit him to a T; he was always fond of sugar. There is one now in the Melbourne gaol undergoing a sentence of four years’ imprisonment for “ embracery,” it having been proved that he endeavored to influence, by means of bribes, men whose 3names were on the panel from which a jury would be called to try a cause in which he was interested. So far, well. The fount of justice must not be polluted, &c. Bub the moral lesson which this man’s misadventure teaches ia not of much value. Ho was, while still at large, a money-lender of no very good repute, and it was simply in his nature to believe that money is everything, and that every man has his cash price. Now that he is painfully disentangling the intricacies of old tarred rope with fingers that were engaged a few short weeks ago (while loaded with diamond rings) in the more grateful task of signing distress warrants, his ultimate decision upon the whole facts of bis own distressing case is, no doubt, that he did not offer the jurymen money enough, and he will daily curse his own folly in trying to buy a man for a new hat when he should have offered him a £5 note.

It is a quite different affair, however, when men occupying positions of honor and responsibility, are found to palter with honesty and truth, and of such paltering her Majesty’s Ministers now holding office in Victoria, to its grief, are said to be guilty. They have “embraced,” and habitually “embrace,” more and worse than ever King did. They suppress and suborn evidence exactly as suits them. Take an instance or two, which so far as I have observed have not yet been made public in this colony except in the way of trottoir gossip, but which are nevertheless unquestionably true. A committee was appointed to inquire into the alleged gross misuse of the State railways, by granting passes to travel over them for electioneering and other political purposes. An important witness was a clerk who had been in charge of the free pass department for years, but who had been dismissed on Black Wednesday. On this man’s way to the committee room to be examined he was waylaid by an emissary of the Ministers, and informed that he would be restored to his office on certain conditions. To what extent he modified or suppressed his evidence in consequence of this intimation, I of course do not know. But he has not been reinstated. He was meanly “bilked” by the Q-overnment. He was used for an ignoble purpose and denied his reward. Some few weeks ago a drunken engine driver ran his locomotive into a bank 10ft. or 12ft. higli and killed his stoker. At the inquest held upon the body of the deceased it was fully anticipated, on sufficient grounds, that a good deal would be brought out which would reflect discreditably upon Mr Woods and his management. But, behold !no risk of that kind was to be incurred. The coroner’s jury must consist of men of correct opinions, and it was accordingly duly packed, a well known Government supporter being its most prominent member, and he, properly instructed, put such questions to the witness as were considered conducive to the whitewashing of the department. As a consequence the inquiry proved abortive, and the travelling public continues to be exposed to risks which a full investigation of the affair might have aught us how to avoid.