OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4435, 7 June 1875, Page 5

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

(prom our own correspondent.)^ The Government had a decided victory upon the land question, and passed their amendment Act by a triumphant majority of 34 to 7. The Minister for Lands explained that the Ministry would not oppose any reasonable amendment in committee, but nailed the Government colors to the mast with respect to the clauses defining the age for selection at sixteen, increasing the area to 640 acres, and prohibiting vicarious selection. Eighteen clauses have been passed, chiefly "without alteration. An attempt has been made to extend the selection area to 1280 acres, but it failed, and the contemplated extension to 640 acres was carried. Some members also tried to make the age of eighteen a selector’s majority, but, after a short discussion, the clause was passed as originally proposed. To-night the debate upon a proposition to withhold lands put up for survey, from selection, will be renewed, the Government standing out for reservingselected lands from auction, although advertised for sale. The discussion of the Bill in committee has occupied the chief portion of the Assembly’s time, and lasts so long that the new Mining Bill will not be read this session. The motions have been chiefly unimportant, and only two or three “ shindies ” have enlivened theprosaic proceedings of our “collected wisdom.” Once there was a sharp contest. Mr, Parkes, the ex-Premier, made some inquiries respecting the removal of public moneys from the Bank of New South Wales, hinting that the new Treasurer (Mr. Forster) had transferred them in order to favor a bank in which he was interested. Mr. Forster retorted, and assailed Mr. Parkes’s private character, saying the honorable member was as reliable as ever and had started another “ Kiama ghost,” which he would soon exorcise. He then explained that he did not see the force of the Bank of New South Wales having the use of all our large surplus for nothing, and had distributed tho money to the credit of the colony amongst other banks at a fair interest. Mr. Forster also insisted upon having a select committee to inquire into his conduct, and refused to sit on it himself, although elected. He sarcastically reminded Mr. Parkes that he had made political capital out of the City Bank, and had been proposed for Bast Sydney by the manager. It will be seen, therefore, that tho fight has gone in favor of the “ins” this time. Mr. Parkes was likewise unsuccessful with a motion to constitute the Agent-Generalship a political office, no doubt with a view to accepting it himself some day. Mr. Robertson and Mr. Dangar also moved amendments, which were rejected as well as the motion, and things remain in slain quo, Some reform is

needed in our agency at Home ; that is quite evident, for no sooner is the scandal created by the appointment of the late Treasurer’s brother shipping agent in Bngland disposed of, than out comes a gigautic exposure of a swindle by which the colony has been robbed of tens of thousands of pounds. It appeal's that over 6,C00 tons of railway iron, the vilest rubbish ever smelted, have been passed by the consulting engineer at the highest price for best iron, and it is feared that contracts have been let for some 33,000 tons more. It will seem incredible that such a vile piece of jobbery could have been perpetrated under responsible Government, but it is fact nevertheless, and the Herald even has gone in for exposing it. The affair is very black indeed, and the following facts have as yet been elicited ; —When Mr. Cowper appointed himself (as Premier of a moribund Parliament) Agent-General, and went to England, he displaced the consulting engineer there, and appointed a Mr. Shields to act for the colony in the purchase of railway iron, plant, etc. There were very ugly rumors at that time, and it was publicly asserted that iron not worth £5 a ton had been charged at £7 10s., but as actions were threatened, the papers dropped the discussion. The consulting engineer was a Mr. Fowler, member of a large iron smelting Urm, and brotherlaw to our Engiueer-in-Ohlef, Mr. Whitr ton. The gentleman, however, whom Mr. Cowper chose to supersede him, was manager of the Sydney and Parramatta Railway Company when Mr. Cowper was secretary, and to him we have to look for a satisfactory explanation. There can be no doubt that a shameful robbery, which would do credit to an American “ ring ” or gang of “log-rollers,” has been committed, for the recent shipments of rails are of the veriest “shoddy,” and are not worth their freight. Competent judges compute that over .£IOO,OOO has been thus smartly “ conveyed” by some parties at present unknown but well suspected. The affair makes little stir here, for really people seem to get used to these things, and merfly shrug their shoulders. Not a question has been asked in the House although the papers have briefly stated the facts of the case as I have given them. There is, however, a question relating to it on the business paper for to-morrow. The Premier is indisposed, though not seriously ill, and will not be able to take a chance in the fight expected over Mr Parkes’s .motion to expunge some correspondence between Mr. Buchanan and the Colonial Secretary, with reference to his being refused admission to Darlinghurst Gaol, from the records of the House. Of the rest of parliamentary intelligence your readers would not care to know the details. Mr, Dibbs will try to morrow to bring the Education question on the board, but the country is not ready yet for any great or sudden alteration of the Public Schools Act, and his motion will perhaps be negatived without division, or find no seconder. The Medical Bill initiated in the Council by Sir Alfred Stephen stirs up the most violent opposition, though to lay reader's there seems to be nothing unjust about it. The Attorney-General has delivered an important decision with reference to volunteers, that will damp the ardour of our “painted soldiers,” as they are unjustly termed. Mr. Dailey says decisively and unreservedly that no volunteer is entitled to a second land order under any circumstances whatever. In the Queensland Assembly the Payment of Members' Bill has passed its readings after a very hard fight, and the enterprising young Parliament has decided to have its proceedings heralded forth in a daily Hansard, Of course, there are many diverse opinons with respect to the advisability of both these measures ; and the wisdom of those passing them may be gathered from the fact that these paid legislators, who are to be reported with official correctness, the other night called each other “liars,” “political profligates,” “scoundrels,” and other choice names, and the Premier abused the Speaker so roundly that he left the choir an,d sought protection outside the pale of the House. The other political items I have to record are the failures of attempts by private members to subdivide their electorates, and the decision of the Postmaster-General that newspapers printed in the other colonies cannot be carried free in this under the Newspaper Postage Repeal A.ct. The smart Melbourne people proposed to ship their journals in bulk by steamer, and have them dropped in our post-office here for gratuitous delivery. SOCIAL. Gliding almost imperceptibly from political matters to one of almost national importance, the departure of the Chevert for New Guinea suggests itself for notice. ; This event took dace last Tuesday, the 18th ult. Originally i ntended by Mr. Mackay to be a private expedition, for the purpose of adding to his collection, events transpired in connection with .the proposed annexation of New Guinea that invested his trip with such interest that the Government determined to give the party an official farewell. About 200 members of Parliament and of the Lirnioean Society and private citizens went down with her to the Heads in the fine steamer Coonanbara ; bands playing, champagne fizzing, and colors flying. There was a grand lunch jon board, at which the Premier, the Attorney-General, and Mr. Anthony Trollope spoke. The Chevert was towed to sea by the Government steamer Thetis, and went off in a burst of splendor. The expedition will cost the projector from £BOOO to £IO,OOO, but he has already got kudos worth far more than that amount. Following in the steps of the departure, a deputation of about twenty of the most in-, flueutial merchants in the country, headed-by Dr. Lang, the veteran colonizer, and the Mayor, waited upon the Colonial Secretary, urging on him to stir up the Imperial Government to annex the island. Dr. Lang and Mr. Montefiore spoke, and the value of the island was called attention to as an outlet for enterprise and a port for our meu-of-war. This fact they adduced as a rea-' sou for politely seizing - it—clearly a non sequitur, as, if applied to private life, one might appropriate , anything one fancied. Mr. Oakes, a remarkably solemn-looking gentleman, blandly called the Premier’s attention to the immense benefit that would accrue to the Papuans by contact with Europeans. And . this Mr. Oakes said gravely, standing upon soil not many years ago occupied by natives brought under the blessing of civilisation and now not owning a foot of their land, or an existence even. And with all the experience of New Zealanders and other aboriginal races benefited by having their country annexed by Britain before his .eyes, Mr. Robertson replied that he was so fully alive to the importance of annexing New Guinea that he intended (if he could bring his Cabinet into accord with him) to advise the Imperial Government to annex and assume a protectorate over the whole of Polynesia not subject to a foreign power. He then unfolded a gigantic scheme, quite Yogelish in its immensity and daring. He would advocate annexing all these islands, constitute the Governor of Fiji Governor-General of Polynesia, with a floating court, and create all captains of cruisers and men-of-war Police Magistrates, with summary jurisdiction. The breath of the deputation was almost taken away, and they departed to ponder over this magnificent but seemingly Utopian scheme. A great libel action has been hoard in our Supreme Court, and a verdict returned for the plaintiff for £2500. A Miss Lindsay married a solicitor named Thomas Brereton Watson, whose sister inspired him with the idea that his wife; —instead of drink —was poisoning him. Miss Watson told her suspicions to various doctors, arid j/layod strange pranks, insisting upon a post-mortem, at which her accusations were totally rebutted. But the husband had left his money to the suspicious slater instead of to tho injured wife, and the verdict was a compensation as well as a salvo to a maligned woman, and was universally approved of. The month has been relieved by a fatal case of garroting in the heart of Sydney, close on midnight; and numbers of burglaries, none of the perpetrators of which have been secured by the police. A fatality also happened at tho Herald office, where an old and highly respected servant of the proprietors was caught in a wheel by his beard and whirled round till he died. His name was Middcnway.