THE MELBOURNE PRESS AND THE MILITARY. [From the Sydney Morning Herald, Oct 30.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 760, 13 November 1852, Page 4

THE MELBOURNE PRESS AND THE MILITARY. [From the Sydney Morning Herald, Oct 30.]

A few day* ago we had to announce, that a reward of two thousand poaodis had teen offered by the Government of Victoria for the discovery of the perpetrators of one- of the moat daring outrages ever committed in a civilized community. The state of crime in that colony is such that even m broad daylight, and in the most crowded thoroughfares of the very metropolis itself, robbery and personal violence aie*f daily occurrence. In a Melbourne newipaper of tfae 20th instant, there appears a letter containing the following statement : — 1 "If tbebovernment of this colony do not come

forward boldly, and at once organise a sufficient i police force, mounted and on foot, to parade tbe streets of Melbourne night and day, to punish offenders and depredators, we shall be witnessing a greater amount of crime than was ever perpetrated in any country or in any age but this, * * * The outrage committed in open day, in Bourke and Queen-streets, witnessed by some of our leading merchants, will show the state we bare arrived at. • * • Talk of California ! Ours is a pandemonium in comparison." Deeply as this stale of thing* id to be deplored, it cannot be wondered at. Considering tbe maddening effects produced throughout the entire community by the enormous quantities of gold which are incessantly pouring down from the mines — considering the torrentsof population which are every day rolling into the city from every part of the world — considering, especially, the thousands of hardened villains, expirees and runaway convicts, who are incessantly arriving from the penal shores of Van Diernen's Land, raging with tbe lust of gold, and reckless of the means Whereby their lust may be satiated, — it must be admitted thai the social disorders of the colony are only such as might have been expected from the first, and such as a prudent Government was bound to be prepared for, to tbe utmost extent of its resources. It .is just the state of things which, sixteen or seventeen months back, was expected in our own colony. It was foreseen by tbe thinking colonists generally ; it was foreseen; and vigorously prepared for, by our vigilant and cautious Executive. So far as our own interests are concerned; we have reason to rejoice that the more attractive shores of Victoria have served as a barrier between us and the impending deluge ; so far as our neighbours are concerned, we are far more disposed to commiserate their sufferings than to envy their country's fame. And when tbe intelligence reached Sydney that the Home Government were about to send out a reinforcement of troops, tbe prevailing feeling here was one of satisfaction that two-thirds of them were destined for Victoria, and only one-third for New South Wales. Not that we vfrere unwilling to receive even the whole of them, but that we were convinced they were more urgently required there than here. Hence we were glad that, in so far as tbe faithful services of British soldiers could afford protection to life and property under the extraordinary circumstance's of the times, the sufferings of the neighbouring colony were to that extent about to be alleviated. The troops have arrived. They entered fort Phillip just as the alarming state of tbe colony called most loudly for their services. One would have supposed the event would be hailed with universal joy — or at least that the only exceptions would be found amongst the thieves and cut throats whom the bayonet was intended to overawe! No such thing. We have before us a Melbourne newspaper, the Argus of the 20th instant, the very journal from which we took the quotation given above, whose leading article expatiates on the event in tbe most disgusting terms of seditious and inhuman ribaldry. The shipping intelligence of tbe paper announces, first, tbe arrival of H. M. steam-ship Vulcan, 1748 tons, Commander Donop, R.N., with 596 men of the 40th Eegt., Lieutenaut-Colonel Vaillant in command, from the Cape of Good Hope ; and,, next, that tbe troop- ship Vulcan had been placed in quarantine, there being a case of small-pox on board. So far the chronicler of facts. Now for the sentiments oif the editorial commentator. " Tbe soldiers," quoth be, " are come at last. The Vulcan steamer anchored yesterday in Hobson's Bay, freighted with a cargo of two kindred evils, — two malignant diseases, which have, perhaps about equally, desolated the world, — the red jacket and the small pox. True to their nature, while shut out from inflicting their woes upon mankind, they Have waged war upon each other ; and for the present we ore to be precluded from the satisfaction of actual contact with either of them." What heartless stuff is this 1 "What gloating over tbe afflictions of fellow creatures — -what wanton, cruel, malignant insults to the brave men wbo, at tbeir Sovereign's command, had votoe to shield the innocent from the guilty, to put down crime and outrage, and assist in giving efficacy to the laws, and tranquillity to the whole population? , ",The world is old enough," proceeds this Melbourne sage, " for man to have learned by this time to be governed by brain and not by muscle. It is the function of tbe baton to protect — the function of the bayonet to coerce." It follows, too, that since the baton also has signally failed as an instrument of protection, it might not be amiss to try what can be done by the bayonet, forsooth, to coerce/ And what is tbe whole fabric of civilised society, what tbe whole system of law and government, but an instrument of coercion ? What is the intention of tbe civil power, but that it should be a terror to evil doers, while it is a praise to them that do well ? And for what purpose has the bayonet been sent to Victoria, but that it 'might enable the civil power to fulfil the purposes of its existence? But to meet such pitiable sophisms as these with sober argument, is a waste of words. They ought to be met by the tribunals of tbe country. The Attorney General *f "V ictoria ought to raise the question at {he bar of the Supreme Court, whether such wholesale attacks on the constitutional safeguards of the country as this writer indulges in are within the limits of fair dia- | cnssion, or whether they do not breathe so much ,of the spirit of sedition as to call for a prompt arid vigorous check. It is quite enough for the peaceable inhabitants of Melbourne to have to bear op against the masses of turbulence wbich are everywhere pressing upon their persons and their homes, without having to endure the extra danger kindled by the firebrands of a demagogue and seditious press.