OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2640, 13 June 1889, Page 3

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

(riiOM OUII OWN COUHK.SI'ON'DIiNT.) THE WKATIIKU. Tin-: heavy rains and violent storms of Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, completely spoilt the holiday on Queeu's ]»irt;iday. Some seven inches of rain fell in Sydney and all along the coast the fall was very heavy. Considerable damage has been done by floods, and nianycontiding purchasers of allotments at fancy prices have found their possessions several feet under water. In low lying parts of the suburbs where houses have been built on these "splendidly situated" sites, the disconsolate possessors have in many eases been compelled to make their escape in boats. The rain was badly wanted but we didn't want quite so much of it. It is curious to note that the weather affords us almost an exact reflex of the moral state of mankind in the mass. They are always in the extremes—either stupidly apathetic or madly speculative ; either hopelessly indifferent or furiously fanatical. So with the weather. It is nearly always a drought or a flood. Seldom, indeed, is the golden mean reached. Men persist in courses which they know to be foolish and wroDg, wit' 1 the habit beccmcs so firmly rooted that. ething like a moral convulsion— almost exactly corresponding to the storm which follows a drought—is necessary before they can tear themselves away. One thing more the storm has done for us. It has shown us the unreliable character, of much of the work upou which as a commercial community we prided ourselves. Like " company manners" which are so apt to vanish in the stress of actual conflict with the difficulties of life, all our fine weather arrangements have been tried, and fouud wanting. Telegraphs have been blown down, mails interrupted, or altogether stepped, railway lines washed away, harbour steamers damaged, and compelled to cease running, anil a general paralysis of business has resulted. However, the weather has now cleared, and the w : eak spots disclosed by the fury of the elements will 110 doubt be repaired in a more solid and substantial manner. Business will once more resume its wonted channels, luit with a sense of the unforeseen dangers to which it is subject, and which will no doubt make themselves felt in the future in somo other form. Quo little lessou, i thiuk, has already

been learnt by a good many people who needed it. The unwonted difficulty in obtaining supplies has caused a rather general reflection that society is not half as grateful as it ought to be to those Who' supply its needs, from the publisher of the local paper' downwards. It owes them a great debt, and an honest recog nition-of the fact would do much to establish good feeling, and consequently t6 promote the general spread of prosperity. 1 How great the debt is, it doesn't know, because the services are so regularly and -faithfully rendered-that they have come to be.looked upon as a matter of course— very much as some people regard the rising of-the sun in the morning. Yet this very-regularity and faithfulness involve benefits which afo not rind cannot -be reckoned" in the bill, and it is only when some untoward circumstance prevents their exercise that their value is recognised. Another reason why so little account is taken of the multitude of countless services by which society exists is that it has suited certain illustrious writers to put. these down, as the mere outcome of sordid self-interest, and therefore as deserving of no acknowledgement. But .this basest theory of utilitarianism doesn't cover the whole of the facts in the Indeed it leaves out. of. sight those which are. the most vital .and potent. Imagine, if possible, that from the body politic are eliminated all actions and activities which spring from a love of usefulness, or a love of duty, and that', only those are left to winch men are bribed or driven.' ' Should we not be deprived of the best work and the best workers, and would not the residue contain all the most worthless and unreliable elements? All these things, and a good many more, come to mind when wc receive services for which we instinctively feel that we can render no adequate payment. Therefore, I conclude that it is good that, once or twice, in a way, we should be reminded of them.

Turning to the other side of the question, it is certain that the rains will do much more good than harm. They have fallen over a large extent of country, on which they will produce abundance of grass for tho winter. This, in its turn, will be converted into our staple pastoral products, and add to the wealth of the country. coastal steameks. It has often been said that men follow one another like sheep—blind. It now seems that coasting steamers do the same. One dark and stormy night last week, so dark that a skipper could not see a ship's length ahead, the Duckenfield, a steam collier, started from Sydney to Newcastle. She steered the course she had been accustomed to steer, but on this occasion it didn't carry her far enough from the land, and she struck on Long Reef, not far from Manly, one man being drowned, I must not comment on this case, as it is sub judu-c, but the remarkable feature was that another steamer was following the Duckenfield. The captain of this craft does not seem to have set himself any course at all, but was steering by the stern light of the vessel ahead. When the latter struck the other still came on, and, being of lighter draught, passed safely between the stranded ship and the shore ! an almost miraculous escape. But how graphically it exhibits the fatal habit of blindly following those who are as blind as ourselves.