OUR MELBOURNE LETTER.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4473, 21 July 1875, Page 3

OUR MELBOURNE LETTER.

(from our own correspondent.) Melbourne, July 10. The proceedings" in Parliament during the last ten dayß or a fortnight have been marked by little worth noting, unless the personal bickerings and recriminations of such men as Mr. McKean and Mr. G. P. Smith. These gentlemen do their best to render the Assembly contemptible and puerile in the eyes of the community. They bandy the lie direct, and resort to a vulgarity of language that it would i be charitable on the part of the reporters to suppress. The Amended Land Bill is dragging wearily towards its third reading, but little real interest is manifested, either within or without the walls of Parliament, as to the fate of the measure. The land laws have undergone so much tinkering for years that it is difficult to define sometimes under what tenure a selector or purchaser holds his land. An attempt was made during the week by one of the most intelligent and crotohetty of members, Mr. Godfrey, to put a final stop to any further sale of unalienated Crown lands. The proposal was that the State should become landlord, authorized to let or lease, but not to part with the fee-simple. The proposition received a large measure of support and sympathy from the Chartist sections of the community, embracing generally the laboring and artizan classes, with a few such republicans as Mr. George Higinbotham for leaders. A considerable majority decided against Mr. Godfrey's motion, and there the matter rests for the present ; but it is anticipated that the Opposition will endeavor to provoke a struggle over the Land Bill before it leaves the Assembly. After several years of fruitless efforts to suppress the evils produced by the rapid extension of the Chinese lottery shops, the Government have introduced a short Bill of two clauses, by which they hope to lay a firm hold of the Mongolian gamblers. The ■ great difficulty with the police has always been to show that tho Bellers of the tickets had a " beneficial interest in the lottery ;" and as it is next to impossible to show this, Mr. Kerferd, in the new Bill, proposes to Bhift the onus of proof from the Crown to the accused, so that instead of the police being compelled to Bhow that he is beneficially interested, the summoned party will have to demonstrate that ho is not so. This is rather an un-English kind of proceeding, and savors of the French system, where the accused is called on to prove his innocence, the guilt being always assumed by the Crown.

Public attention haa for some clays been directed to one of the most marvellous pieces of kidnapping ever laid bare in a, British colony. It appears that a woman named Bates died recently, leaving two orphan children. It is alleged by one of the Jesuit Fathers, Mr. J. Dalton, that Mrs. Bates died a Roman Catholic. The Rev. Mr. Wollaston, a Church of England Minister, however, maintains she died a good Protestant. One declares her to have been a married woman, and the other affirms that she was never married. Both, for reasons which are not obvious, desired to get possession of the orphans, and Father Dalton" up to the present has been eminently successful in his efforts. He tried to obtain authority from the city magistrates for removing the children. Failing in this, he persviaded a city missionary and a policeman to accompany him to the house of Mrs. Bates. Here, by the expenditure of a little cash, threats and cajolery, Mrs. Smeaton.the guardian of the children, was induced to part with them to the reverend father, who there and then put them into a cab and conveyed them to the Catholic Orphan Asylum, where they now are. The matter has occupied considerable space in the public press, and is now before Parliament. That an outrage on British liberty has been committed is undeniable, but it is possible that when the full facts of the case are revealed it may be found that the children are better provided for than is supposed. The agitation of the Roman Catholic body against the present Education Act grows daily in force and concentration. Meetings are being held in all parts of the country, at which petitions to the Legislature on the subject are adopted, and funds raised to carry on the suppressed Catholic establishments. On the Bth inst. a number of delegates from the various Roman Catholic congregations assembled at the Archbishop's palace, to give vent to their alleged wrongs, and a line of action was agreed upon, which if persevered in will, it is feared, seriously impair the utility of the Education Act as a public boon. It is quite manifest that the repugnance of the Catholics to our education scheme is both deep-rooted and determined; and it is further evident that unless some concession be made towards them, we cannot count on securing their children as "State School" pupils under the " free, secular, and compulsory" system.