NEW SOUTH WALES.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1785, 10 November 1879, Page 4

NEW SOUTH WALES.

[j-EOH OTTB OWN COEEE3PONDHNT.] SYDNEY, 28th October. To-day the formal re-opening of Parliament took place with the customary ceremonial. There is not ony considerable interest in the event. After about eighteen conaecutive years of personal struggles between the parties headed respectively by Sir Henry Parkos and Sir John Bobertson, for the possession of power, during all which time practical legislation was subordinated to party exigencies, the two loaders last session not only proclaimed a truce, but made an alliance, alarmed that the country, weary of their endless jars and contentions, had at length thrown both aside, and preferred to either a third party which had no claim to hold the reins other than their declared purpose of driving straight. Each of the knights having been followed into the cold shades of exile from the Treasury benches by a faithful following of their ablest adherents, their agreement to sink their differences, and to join forces to wrest the spoils from the interlopers, has rendered them for the present politically invincible. The Opposition can scarcely be said to have a raison d’etre, or a place in the thp recognised politics, recognised by long habit. Henco the dearth of interest in the -re-opening of Parliament. Twenty-eight members seated themselves on the Government benches in the Assembly, while on the Opposition side there was a sorry array of eighteen. Mr Combes, the newly-elected member for Bathurst, but an experienced and knowing politician, who has long sat in the Assembly, left the Chamber immediately on being sworn in, and may be regarded as open to engagement. The six recent new appointments to the Legislative Council may be regarded as probably swamping the adverse majority which last session troubled the Government in that Chamber, and everything being in appearance reduced to a foregone conclusion, it is not remarkable that public interest in the proceeding is somewhat languid. Personally, I take different ground. The Government is so omnipotent that their responsibilities are enormous. I look with intense interest for indications how they are likely to avail themselves of the exceptional opportunities forbsnofioial legislation which are at their command. The Governor’s speech, on the whole, announces a satisfactory programme. Like all such speeches it leaves much scope for such variation in detail as the exigencies of the session may render convenient, but if its letter be not broken to the sense and honest determination to carry out in a straightforward spirit the intentions it conveys, the session should prove one of exceptional value to the oolony. Experience of a long series of such speeches, and _ of regularly succeeding shortcomings in making good their promise, warns me against being sanguine, and accordingly I am the reverse of sanguine. First among the measures promised is the (apparently identical) amending Land Bill which was last session patched up in the Assembly and thrown out by the Council. This means that the Council is to be coerced to swallow the leek, and no doubt the new members are expected to be the executioners of the old ones in this respect. With regard to the Bill itself, I remind your readers that its main feature is simply retrospective legislation, providing for the surrender by the State of half the required value !o£ improvements up to this time required to be effected by selectors, and such waiver is to be made applicable not only to future selections, but to all current selections. It will probably fall to my lot to dilate upon the significance of this provision when the measure is brought forward, and till then I defer commenting upon its tendency. An Electoral Amending Act is promised, and greatly required. For twenty-one years there has been no important alteration in the apportionment of the and it need scarcely be said thatjthe distribution and concentration of population is vastly different now from what it was when the existing arrangements were devised. There is probably not another British colony where similar inequalities in the distribution of the electorates exists. The number of electors who return a member varies from one hundred (the Sydney University) to eight thousand. Ho better opportunity for a fair redistribution is likely to offer than the present. How that Parkes and Bobertson have struck up an alliance, parties in the country are extinguished, and the inducements to manipulating the readjustment of electorates for party purposes is reduced, for the time, to a minimum. The tendency of tho Bill promised to repeal the present Education Act will bo understood by what I stated in my previous letter. The Government may bo subjected to the disappointment of finding tho enactment of this measure too easy, and of consequently being deprived of an excuse to economise the rest of their political capital for subsequent sessions. I trust this may prove the case, for although the present intention involves, to my thinking, a certain amount of intolerance and oppression as regards the more earnest among tho Boman Catholics, it will inevitably be carried into effect sooner or later, and it would bo a misfortune were a vain struggle respecting it to obstruct progress with the useful measures on the Government programme. Chief among these are Bills to deal with water supply and the sanitary improvement of the metropolis and other towns. The latter is urgently required. The condition of Sydney as regards cleanliness and drainage is something frightful. There are alleys, courts, and tenements hero which rival in filthiness and overcrowding any places of the kind I have ever read of as existing in London. Imagine a court with two storey tenements enclosing it, facing inwards on all four sides, and the cesspit convenience common to all the inmates, standing in tho centre, within half a dozen yards of every door and window in the court. I have myself seen this, and arrangements as frightful from a moral [as this is from a physical point of view. I don’t expect that any radical reformation will be wrought by the Legislature in regard to such abuses. The landlords of such places are in many instances wealthy and inflnontial men. The owner of one of the vilest backslums was repeatedly Mayor of Sydney. Another is churchwarden of a place of worship within sight of a rookery he owns, which is inhabited by habitual thieves and criminals, and the lowest class of harlots. Any measure which would strike radically at abuses of this nature would he not reformatory but revolutionary, and Hew South Wales is not all a revolutionary community at present. Something may however be done respecting the drainage of the capital, which at present discharges into the harbour and converts one of the loveliest estuaries in tho world into a reeking abomination. I cannot describe the present condition of tho inner bays of Port Jackson. I have abjured bathing in the enclosed baths. I have found the practice the attended with incidents altogether too horrible. At low tide the entire foreshore smells odiously. You sea there is no tidal scour in this Seep indentation. Almost everything settles to the bottom or on the banks. Another promised Bill is to provide for reclamations of shallow frontages which will do some good. Then Parliament is to bo invited to create a Licensing Board for superintending the liquor traflio and so forth. No Bill is offered. The subject is a ticklish one for politicians The publican and spirit-dea'ing interest is'powerf ul, and the tee-totallers are extremely earnest and active. Tho Government therefore abstains from committing itself and therein discloses its own character. With tho strength at its command it might have overborne all opposition to wholesome and much needed reforms. But such an effort might and probable would have given it a shaking which might shorten its tenure of office. It seems probably that in the absence of any tangible measure to rally round or assail, the Assembly will merely waste a quantity of time in wrangling over generalities respecting tho rights and wrongs of the publicans, and possibly como to no conclusion at all—effect nothing. In addition to these matters Parliament will bo asked to approve of plans for railway extension, especially to the western interior, to consider what can be done for the miserable remnant of the aboriginal tribes'still remaining in existence, and, finally, to approve of several additional lines of tramway. The Government, however, has, ridiculous as it may appear, a competitor in the field for the right to construct tramways. The last Government Gazette contained a notification of the intention of “ The Sydney City and Suburban Tramway and Omnibus Company” to petition the Assembly for leave to introduce a private Bill to authorise that company to construct and work an extensive network of tramways in the city and suburbs. This petition really has something in its favor. The

company has long been striving to obtain Parliamentary sanction for the construction of tramways. They had a Bill introduced laat session, but could not carry it through. Hon. members and tho old-fogy element which is so powerful in Sydney would not believe that tramways could bo adopted without awful consequences of some kind or other. They remembered that the now notorious George Francis Train was allowed to lay down a tramway along Pitt street, of which tho rails projected several inches above tho street level, and occasioned inconvenience and accidents to tho ordinary vehicular traffic ; and they could not be persuaded that tramways with flush grooved rails would not be open to the same objection, and require, like Train’s tramway, to bo removed after causing a nuisance. Tho almost accidental introduction of the short line now in use, and its remarkable success in every way have converted most of these bigots from insensate opponents into equally insensate believers Sin tramways. Converts are generally rabid. Tho consequence will bo, I anticipate, that the 'Bus Company will now have to whistle for leave to make the tramway, an exaggerated estimate of tho profits likely to accrue from them having taken possession of the persons who so recently wouldn’t hoar them spoken of. The cabmen’s strike continues, and apparently occasions no inconvenience. Tho city proper of Sydney is not so very extensive, after all, that people cannot walk without discomfort all about it, and tho suburban passenger traffic is excellently served by the 'Bus Company already mentioned, and various opposition ’bus proprietors, so that inconvenience is suffered only in exceptional cases. The correspondence in connection with the recall of the Agent-General has been laid before Parliament, and can be summed up in a couple of sentences. Mr Forster, the Agent-General, an old and bitter political and personal antagonist of Sir Henry Parkes, replied to a reasonable enough and not very important official communication in an insubordinate and unsatisfactory tirade, and when censured broke out into unrestrained offensiveness. My only wonder is that, instead of being merely recalled, ho was not ignominiously dismissed. But Sir John Bobertson had been his colleague and chief, and doubtless softened the blow. One irrelevant cablegram sent by Mr Forster cost over £9O. The suggestion in favor of the Sunday opening of the Exhibition is not likely to be carried out. Clergymen of all tho Protestant denominations have met to protest, and will interview the Colonial Secretary, The foreign exhibitors and commissioners are favorable, but the Sabbatarian party is powerful in Sydney, although the crowded excursion steamers which visit all the show places in the bay indicate that there is an anti - Sabbatarian party of considerable proportions. In connection with the discussion relative to this suggestion, there has been a very neat passage of .arms between the Bev. Zachary Barry, D.D., and Mr Ohas. Bright, the lecturer on Freethought. Dr. Barry had written to tho “ Herald” a letter on Sabbatarianism generally, and adverting in somewhat inflammatory terms to the necessity for forming some permanent committee to prosecute offences against tho law by itinerant lecturers, who open tho theatres for sensational tirades against religion, charging so much for admission to pit and boxes for the entertainment. The Bev. gentleman referred further to tho lectures in question as “the lowest and vilest trash.” Of course when a man descends to abusive terms in public print he places himself at the mercy of any antagonist who understands how to make use of his advantages. Mr Ohas. Bright, the reference to whom was plain, was down upon Dr. Barry immediately. The point of his reply is contained in the following :—“ The only fitting reply is to revile Dr. Barry in return, but I must decline to descend to this controversial Billingsgate. lam prepared to argue with Dr. Barry, either upon the public platform or in print, but in a competition of bald abuse I at once yield him the palm.” The steamer Strathlevon, fitted with Bell and Coleman’s appliance for preserving meat in a cold chamber, has arrived with a large number of immigrants. Same disappointment is felt that tho proclaimed intention of bringing out in the meat chamber a quantity of English beef, game, &o, as a preliminary test, has not bean carried into effect. Tho machinery was tested once or twice during tho voyage, and again as the steamer approached Fort Jackson Heads, and on eaoh occasion was in perfect order, and, it is to be presumed, frezo the passengers’ luggage which occupied the meat chamber. A meeting of gentlemen connected with pastoral and commercial affairs has been held, and a committee formed to collect by public subscription £IOOO to defray the cost of a small shipment of beef in quarters, and carcases of mutton for the homeward voyage. Several small rushes have taken place to localities up country, where new discoveries of gold have been made, and there are general indications of a revival in tho gold-mining interest, while tho rise in tho price of copper has occasioned the smelting furnaces at Lithgow to recommence operations on an extended scale. Another small railway accident, and a lire confined to a single building, a mill in Sydney, but destroying produce, &0., to the tune of £9OOO, are among tho minor incidents of the week.