OUR VICTORIAN LETTER.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5706, 14 July 1879, Page 3

OUR VICTORIAN LETTER.

(KBOH OUB OWN COKRESPONDENT.) Ballabat, June 30.

The event of the fortnight has ‘been the reception of Mr. Berry, and the reception is not half over yet. The vast concourse of twenty nr thirty thousand who followed Ulysse< up Collins-street, and saw him appear in all the wierd glory of the electric light, and heard (or thought they heard) his grateful acknowledgments of the princely reception awarded him, have dispersed, and now comes the homely task of attending Cabinet meetings, and attending to the half-year’s arrears of departmental work. But there is to be a feeding match on the Ist of July, and politicians are speculating as to how little the Liberator will have to tell, seeing that he has announced bis intention of “letting out’’ fully only in FarlLment. A deputation representing over a thousand of the unemployed have already waited on Mr. Berry with a view to ascertaining what the “ People’s Ministry” were able to do in the way of furnishing employment. Mr. Berry contended, and rightly, that it is no part of the duty of a Government to find or make employment for men, and intimated his belief that the movement was encouraged by the Conservative party, purely for the purpose of putting into the mouths of the laboring classes a cry against the Government, as being not only the cause of the scarcity of employment, but as being a set of selfish political adventurers who cared not whether the working classes had food or not, so long as the Treasury benches did not change occupants. Mr. Berry did not, however, score a point when he urged, as another strong argument against Government employment, the fact that he was taxed to the utmost extent of his bodily and mental strength over the Reform question. The unemployed have been inconsiderate enough .to say that they preferred work to reform, and that it was a greater object to them to get food tlian to see a perfect'Constitution. After letting off steam, however, Mr. Berry ■ promised to appoint a board to enquire how far the alleged scarcity of employment was real, and in the meantime the Commissioners of Public Works and Railways are taking on a few hundred married men as laborers. There is one reason for the alleged scarcity of employment which I have not seen referred to, but which is one of the greatest curses in all colonies--the determination of so many men ,to live in large cities. Many would rather starve in Melbourne than roll up their swags and travel up country. The election for Fitzroy last Week resulted in the defeat of the Ministerial; candidate, and the Opposition are in great; over what appears to -be a turn in the tide. ; Especial umbrage was taken by the electors at the attempt ou the part of a few busy-bodies of the Reform League in trying to force on them a candidate possessing no qualifications for Parliament beyond the fact of his swearing thick and thin for the Ministerial programme. There is a good reason for the policy of a Ministry in invariably using their utmost strength in the interest of blockheads. You can do what you like with them when they are in Parliament, and they are nor ambitious. To be a smart man is ample reason for opposing him. Blockheads vote straight, but smart men want office. Retrenchment or new taxation will be the first thing for the Treasurer to consider. The Ministerial organ (the Age) advocates fid. a lb. more on tobacco, but the other Ministerial papers oppose it. Ministers, however, are determined to get £200,000 from the land tax in place of the £IOO,OOO it has hitherto yielded. There are only two ways of-getting it—either the large estates will get it hotter, or the smaller holders will have to pay it. It is quite needless to say which is likely to be the proposal, when we remember the relative voting power of the two classes. The new quartz ventures in Ballarat West continue to show splendidly, but the “ jumpers” have been at work, and the lawyers will have the.firat dividend,. To give some idea of the nature of the expectation of shareholders, I have only, to -record the fact .that a Sydney shareholder arrived in Ballarat last week and deposited £IO,OOO iu a bank as a provision for the .preliminary expenses of the trial. The Band and Albion Consols,-the first mine in which the reef was, struck, is the first in trouble, and to further complicate matters, the Loudon Chartered Bank has suddenly recollected having advanced money to some defunct company which held the ground years ago, and the bank now quietly notifies its intention to sell the claim. .:

Five severe frosts have crushed the hopes of the graziers, who had thought their troubles, over .when the drought broke up, and were cheering themselves with the expectation of a big clip for the fine prices lately quoted from England. A certain celebrated German musician who * had taken up his residence in Manchester, recently, gave it as his decision that people who hold the divine art lu~lowr-catim»tion have little grounds for hope in the.next world. He entered a drawing-room muttering strong language in high German. His pupil asked what was the matter. He had just met a wealthy Wesleyan, who had asked him to give his daughter a course of lessons, but who, on hearing his terms - five guineas a quarter—had walked away in high dudgeon after remarking that he thought three guineas a quarter was ample for any music teacher. “Mein Gott,” be said, “ dese Vesleyans dink Heaven is deir own private property, but, mein Gott, dey’ll vied when dey puts de key in de door dey can’t put him in for de dust ”