SOUTH AUSTRALIAN POLITICIANS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 3, 3 January 1873, Page 4

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN POLITICIANS.

The Adelaide correspondent of the Lyttelton Times writes : — I believe 'Sir Jomes Ferguseon to be a thoroughly conscientious man; anxious to amend what he considers to be wrong, but very impatient of being thwarted; ten men like him would be of priceless value as settlers in any new country, but having brains, and not being expected to use them, is one of the many restraints to which Governors have to subject themselves. And this was Sir James Fergusson's first experience of vice-regal life. South Aus- •" tralia was hardly the place to have sent a man of Sir James's stamp as his lirst sphere of office. We are blessed with manhood suffrage; we are a people upon whose heads the " horny hand of labor" has lain very heavily indeed for ' a great many years past; with us nothing is common or uncleau. Jack is so very much better than his master, tbat his master panders to him in everything. No public man ever seems to speak his mind or act independently. There may be a dissolution of the House to-morrow, and our friend and councillor may have to address the horny-handed sons of toil at half the pot- • houses in the country. Talk about immigration or vote for it with that probability banging over you ? The idea is absurd. Fight for the reduction of the salaries of the Government officials, for a vote for the i erection of a bridge or the construction of a road in your own district, and for the giving away of the land to the farmers, and oppressing tbe squatters, and the horny hand of labor willsqueeze yours till you ■whistle, and will spout your praises at every beershop in your district. As the result of this our public men are neither very clever nor very useful. A few monied men with nothing else particular to do, a batch of lawyers hungry for office, a set of men about town with no particular vocation, an auctioneer, a butcher, a jam-maker, a broker, a literary gentleman always being sued for debt; such are the component parts of our Parliament. The half-dozen clever men in it have a strong antipathy one towards another; there are no recognised parties, no recognised head, each man fights for his own hand, and hence the time wasted over mere trivial matters The House, numbering about thirty-six members, has had six ministries and two dissolutions during two years, has been j sitting nearly all the time, has done next -to" nothing except pass a new land bill which it does as matter of course about j every twelve months. Nobody questions ' the honesty of their intentions, but every * body laughs at the time they fritter away, the fuss they make about trifles, the squabbles-, they indulge in, and the singular unanimity tbey display in burking every question of vital importance. Other Australian Parliaments may be as bad, perhaps they are ; I am sure ours yields to none ih honesty and conscientiousness ; but we have a sad lack of able men. Stafford, Fitzherbert, Yogel, Fox, Hall,, Featherstone, would either of them be leaders in a twelvemonth. I believe that fully one half of our M.P.'s would not have the slightest chance of being elected by the most radical constituency in New Zealand. It will not be difficult for you. to understand that a Governor like^Sir James Fergusson would not be a great favourite with the majority of our'public men. • He is not by any means one who would take with a general , public in a country where manhood sufferage and none confoVmaty are dominant. I think he will be more popular with you than he. has been with us, because you are a r much more j conservative people th^ .■''7 .arid because hie''wilV4o!abtiess,prpfii;''byt'thißexperiericefgaihered here. Come what may 7ypu :'7willy!aye -^as*, representative Vof /-herr rgopd bjr^ ■ -bf-iblßm^ will rule. pillSigggl |§gy . * " * '

. ■ -— ■ — Ty The Yield op Gold in Victoria. — Says the Melbourne Argus i" 3 — Whilst brokers growl at the absence of speculation;; and speculators" grumble" at the persuasiveness of brokers, and all agree that there is infinite market dulness, it is anomalons, but encouraging, to find the results from gold steadily increasing. To put this briefly — the mining dividends for 11 months of this year ure larger than the total sum thus distributed in 12 months last year. This is one encouraging fact with which to wind up 1872. The Overland Telegraph. — I am afraid, says a correspondent of the Australasia?i, that our enterprising frieuds in South Australia have their trouble before them in the maintenance of their overland .wire. The construction parties did their best under the circumstances. They were compelled to resort to mere make-shifts. I don't think it is altogether a secret that when poles ran short, or were difficult to obtain, the constructors had recourse to branches of trees on which to hang the wire. Thus there are likely to be accidents, and we must be content if the number be not extreme. Cheap Living. — " JEgles " writes in the Australasian. — I am not partial to greasy feeding, nor is .my experience of the Full aud Plenty dining-rooms extensive. I had a bill, however, thrust into my hand in*the street thojother day, which would, I think, be a capital emigration argument in the black country, or amongst the hedgers and ditchers of t omersetshire. It was a prosaic document, but the facts were'eloquent. Tt was a bill, of fare of an eating-house — all meals sixpence. Premising that a first-rate table was kept, the following was the list of substantial delicacies, viz. : — Breakfast. — Steak and onions, mutton, chops, sausages, liver and bacon, Irish stew, curry and haricot mutton, with two cups of tea or coffe, bread, and butter. Dinner. — Roast beef, roast muTton, roast ox heart, boiled beef, boiled mutton, mutton pie, beefsteak pie, with vegetable soup, and pudding. The supper carte was almost a repetition of that for breakfast; but isn't the whole encouraging to a hungry, hearty man on bad terms with the British Butcher ? I would suggest to those hypercritical people who disapprove of preserved meat that they should make their way to the Australian article fresh. We want tbe double trade — tbe mutton to the mouths and the mouths to tbe mutton. Mightn't a telegram to London, giving the low market price of a good dinner, be of as much interest to English readers as the intelligence that two or three obstinate enthusiasts kept the Legislative Assembly all night in its boots by means of sham motions for adjournment. A Paris confectioner exhibits the following in bis shop window — "Peres Hyacinthe— new sweetmeats for weddings Highly recommended by MM. les. Fiances. " Promotion op the Black Brother. —Things have changed in Washington. A representative said to a person at the door of tbe American Senate. " I want to get shared and my boots blacked. " The man thus familiarly addressed happened to be one of the colored representatives, who. quietly replied, "Excuse me, Ps not a wai tah; I's a membah ! ' Served Him Right. — A miserable boy in Eose-ill found a roman candle in the house on Monday, and chalking it perfectly white, succeeded in palming it off on his aged grandmother as a genuine tallow article. When that excellent lady came to light it the descripton was soon apparent, but by retaining her presence of mind she fell over two chairs without Beriously hurting herself. The author of the mischief now sits down with a crutch. — American paper. The Calcutta correspondent of the Times writes: — A letter signed " Charles B. Inman " has appeared in one of the Calcutta papers, stating that the writer intends to make the voyage from Calcutta to England, by the Suez canal, in a small boat, 22ft long, Bft across the* beam, and about 2f toDS burden, schooner rigged, fore and aft sails, and full deck. When the writer purchased the boat she had been condemned as useless, He had her repaired, and engaged a crew of five Lascars, all of whom deserted him when the time came to make his experimental trip; Left without a crew, he resolved to put to sea himself with a dog, and he now professes to have gone up the rivers into some of the wildest part of the country — in all, daring twelve months, not less than 1500 miles'— 'With -the sole: companionship of his dog. He says, he has eujoyed the life, and, that, to.all his., dog has enjoyed it equally, especially where there was occasion for quiet meditation in lonely scenes. He , voyaged through the malarious Sconderbunds, Without having va day's "illness. He had room, his le^lerJ, -Calcutta 'boatman "at' 'oiace accepted! the offer, and thei two arrtal&to^ for the voyage, * :AAAdZdZZZyy ■ t - . :y.yyAyy^< y. >/-.y,. .