OUR MELBOURNE LETTER. THE COAL FAMINE. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 298, 12 September 1888, Page 4

OUR MELBOURNE LETTER. THE COAL FAMINE. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

' Skrve us right," said the member for a Gippsland district known to be coal-bearing. " If Melbourne were to be plunged in Cimmerian darkness for twelve months, it would be only what she deserves. Here we have coal deposits enough for all practical purposes if opened up, and we rely upon a place six hundred miles away. Talk of protection and looking after our interests ! Bah! the Government will protect a man who wants to make patent pills, but an industry like coal-mining can go bogging for want of a little interest." This tirade, uttered in the House a few days ago, was of course a proj'oa of the miners' strike at Newcastle, and though my friend was rather " quick i' the mouth," 1 think ho is not far wrong. The coal famine we are now experiencing in the metropolis will without doubt bear fruit. A qiielque chow mal/ieur cm 1 bon — "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good ;" and if it results in the opening up of our Gippaland coal-fields, the present inconveniences we are undergoing may well be looked upon as blessings in disguise. So far, indeed, we are not put to any very great trial of our patience. Coal and wood have risen greatly in pi;ice ; and the gas is at half pressure ; bub I am greatly in hopes, before anything more serious intervenes, that the strike at Newcastle will have ended, and nothing will be left of it but the incentive on our pait to make ourselves secure for any future crisis by developing our own resources in Gippsland and elsewhere. In the meantime Melbourne folks of course rush to anticipations of the darkest hue. The papers seem to foster the scare, and draw lurid pictures of the city being given over to Stygian darkness and desolation. One religious priest has taken the novel course of declaring it a " visitation, even as the Egyptians of old were punished," whilst a comic paper on the other hand says the public should not make any outcry about it, for they are bound " to keep it dark." The only people who are really pleased are the makers of "oils" and the impoiters of kerosene. l< My boy," said a well - known merchant to me in Collins-fetreet yesterday, slapping me exultantly on the back, "I've got eight hundred ca&es of kerosene landing now, and it's going up in price every day. Come and have a drink on the strength ot it,'' which I did. It is a lucky thing the cold weather we havo been having has come to an end, otherwise we should feel the scarcity of coal much more. As it is, by the aid of gas-stoves and candles jdu* a little patience, we shall not suffer very much at the hands of the recalcitrant and arbitrary Newcastle miners.

A COLONIAL AUTHOR. I went to the forlorn-looking and barnlike Alexandra Theatre on Saturday evening to see the first performance of young Fergus Hume's "Mystery of a Hansom Cab," and didn't enjoy it very much, the acting not being hrst-class. Feigus' navellette, however, makes a good play, and it is a pity it should be biought out under such poor auspices, being a Melbourne play written in Melbourne. New Zealand may be proud of young Hume, for he certainly has made a name tor himself at home. Uis people tell me that 300,000 of the "Mystery" have been sold in England. Unfortunately , here, in Australia, there is an injunction against its being published just now, theie being pome quan el about copyright. He is ju&t publishing his second attempt, " Madame Midas,"' a dealing with mining lite at Sulky Gully, on Sir William Clarkes estate. " •• adame Midas" is Miss Cornwall, a wonderiul woman, who has simply made the Sulky Gully district. A dramatised version of the novel, the joint work of the author of Phil Beck, has been produced, and 1 hear, a hundred thousand copies ot the novelette have been ordered before publication. So I take it, fame and for. tune aie now in the grabp of young Fergus, the former Dunedin "dude" and exquisite.

A NEW EVENING PAPER After numerous unsuccessful attempts to establish a second evening paper in Melbourne, I hear in press circles that this will bo shortly accomplished. Mosc of my readers will remember Mr James Thomson, whom we sent home as our Victorian representathe to the Indian and Colonial Exhibition — otherwise the " Colinderies." Well, this is the gentleman who come? forward, with a stroncf directorate and plenty of money, to publish about" Cup time the first issue of the " Evening Standard." It has always been a puzzle to pressmen how it is that Melbo jrne could not support two evening papers, but such has been the case. Theio have been many trials, but not one has been successful, and the " Herald '" has practically ruled the roast alone for a long time. It is not in any way a brilliant jourral, an 1 often contains tisque matters not always the best reading for the domestic hearth. I hear also that we are to have a new weekly society journal. It will emanate from a Hrst-class office, and be well conducted, and I shall be glad if it takes the place of the feeble weekly that now pretends to be a reflex of Melbourne fashionable doings.

THE EXHIBITION. Nothing new has transpired in regard to the Exhibition. Completion is still going on, notably in the French and Machinery Courts, which are the ra'ost backward of all. A great scandal has occurred in the New fcjouth Wales Court". It seems that for a long time past tins of preserves, preserved meats, and other goods have been mysteriously disappearing ; it has been discovered that two prominent officials of the N.S.W. Commissioners are the rascally thieves, more shame to them. They are to be dismissed, I hear, but further than that '•he affair will be hushed up. I noticed, Dy-the-way, that the Commissioners at their last meeting decided that the attendants employed by them should work fiom 7 a. in. to 6 p.m. on one day, and 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. on the next, so that they have to work 11 hours one day and 15 the next, or an average of 13 hours all through the week. It strikes me, in a country where eight hours constitutes the day's work by Act of Parliament, this is a direct infringement of the law. By-the-way, I think the advertisement of a certain brewpry here reaches the climax of bathos. It is to be seen in the Exhibition in the shape ot a large placard. Sir Henry Loch is shown with one leg thrown on the counter of a bar-room in the free-and-easy fashion peculiar to vice-royalty. Sir William Robinson is pictured in a listening attitude, glass in hand ; whilst Lord Carrington, sitting in slate on an upended beer barrel, appears to wait with some impatience for the order to "fill 'em up again." It is a scurrilous placard to place in auch a prominent position ; but, as a friend of mine said, looking at it, " Who will say now that Governors have not their uses ?" '