MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

Waikato Times, Volume 2656, Issue 2656, 20 July 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

(FROM OtTlt OWN CORIIKML'OXOKNT.) Tim thrifty housekeepers of Melbourne ami elsewhere have reason t0 , Kite themselves upon having fitted then preserving jars before the recent nso in ■ the price of sugar took place. As it is, they aro sadly exercised in their minds over the increased price they liava to pay for the article for ordinary domestic purposes. The general public have held the field long enough, and it is tunc toe sugar planters hud their turn, Sugar making from canes has been a losing came quite long enough. It is now ,1101 ' c than six years since beet crippled the cane grower, and many of them hare gone to the wall since that time. It is a pity, however, that our neighbours in Northern Queensland are not likely to derive much benefit from the good time that now appears to have set hi. Ihey have been crippled by competition against the beet grower, and now they are likely to be killed outright by the labour that sugar can be profitably . crown wiMi white labour is purely nonsensical, and I do not know of any place outside Australia where such an attempt would be gravely contemplated. W hat is required in Queensland is a well 01ganised scheme of Coolie immigration from Bombay or Madras. Demerara, the West Indies, Natal and Mauritius each have admirablo systems, any of which might be copied. Or. what is still better, the good might be extracted from them and the faulty parts might be rejected, or improved upon. It must he assumed that the semi-tropical portion ot Australia is not intended to be left a ansert; it must likewise be assumed that the good people of Brisbane do not pietend that they can turn Nature aside from her plans, and force her to grow wheat and barley in spots which she has evidently designed for canes and other tropical products. And this much con- ] ceded, that other fact must be accepted, j namely, that if she is to have her own way with soil or climate, she will indicate which men have constitutions adapted to the climate where the soil lies that has to be tilled. European constitutions are not those which will long sustain the wear and tear of outdoor labour in cane fields. And, what is more, Australians would not continuously pursue that form of labour, if they could do so, for the wages at which sugar growing could be :nado remunerative to the planter. It therefore follows that sugar-making must either be abandoned in Nothern Australia', or else coloured labour must be applied in its production. This is a question in which all the colonies are interested. They all need sugar, and they must draw their supplies from Hie cheapest market. The cheapest market is evidently that which lies nearest their own door —in their own territory. Until quite recent years Australia has been the best customer, save one, of Mauritius. Lately, however, the quantity of sugar Mauritius has sent here has been gradually contracting year by year, and the planters of that colony have resigned themsclve to the prospect of this market being closed to them altogether a very few years hence. People in Australia do not know the amount of uneasiness caused in the island of Mauritins by the gradually extending cane cultivation in Queensland. But they may easily understand the pleasure that will be felt when they learn that the introduction of Polynesian labour is to cease. For they know—if certain of the Queensland people do not —that white labour never can compete with coloured labour upon sugar plantations. The wisest thing the Queenslanders can do, however, is to inaugurate a system of C'oolie immigration from India. The planter pays the cost of introduction ; the Coolie contracts for five years' service ; and the Government sees that he returns to India at the end of his term unless he agrees to re-engage for a second term. In either case, however, the Government look 3to his safe return to his

country. I road an advertisement in the Age a few days ago, purporting to have been inserted by a gentleman who, if his own description of himself be correct, is a very extraordinary person indeed. S«. extraordinary, in fact, that if he would consent to place himself in the hands of an experienced showman for exhibition, the fortune of that showman would be assured, as well as his own. This is his own description of his person :—" Lost, a rep silk umbrella, by a gentleman with an ivory luiob." Now, 1 maintain that a man with a head made of ivory—for I assume that by the term " knob" lie means his head—is a phenomenon worth looking at. Men with wooden heads, if we are to believe their traducers, are common enough. So common, indeed, that one never finds a specimen advertis ing his top story as a wooden structure. Jsut the lucky possessor of the ivory head, wisdom teeth included, has a right to be vain, and lam only surprised that he has not drawn attention to it in a 20ft. x 50ft placard, instead of through a modest two-line ad. in the Age. Passing along Spring-street yesterday, I found that the statue of General Gordon had been place npon its pedestal, and will soon be ready for the ceremony of unveiling. The sight carried me back to the day, not so very long ago, when I mot the man whose life was soon to be extinguished in a blaze that surrounded his own figure with an imperisable halo of glory, whilst it left a cloud of infamy hanginH over the name, of Gladstone that wilflie * equally lastincr. It was oil a Saturday afternoon, in I 'ort George, when General—then Colonel—Gordon was in command of the Royal Engineers at Manritin. There were athletic sport?, and 1 was with a group of ofliccrs and visitors looking on, when a quiet, unassuming man strolled across to the company. lie wore a plain tweed suit, a shirt with a turn-down collar, a wide-awake felt hat, and was smoking a cigar in the leisurely manner that indicated a man who was never in a hurry about anything. That was Gordon Pasha, the irresistible leader of the Chinese Army, and the future hero of Khartoum. During the three years he commanded the Royal Engineers at Manritin, I met him very frequently, for we lived within three hundred yards of each other. He was indefatigable in the performance of his military duties ; but was so quiet and unostentatious with-all that it was hard to connect such a man with the indomitable and fearless soldier he was known to be in battle. On Sundays he would assist some hard-worked clergyman in his duties, or take entire charge of a service in some distant part of the island. VVhon Lot so employed l.e was amongst the boys ill a Sunday School. He was fond of boys. A son of a friend of mine was attending the hospitals, and Gordon would often waylay him on their way to town in the morniug, talk to him, " draw him out," and give him much good advice regarding his future surgical career. He was a noble fellow, was Gordon Pasha. The latest new thing in " Protection" is an application from certain \ ietoriaii artists, who ask for the imposition of a ,ClO duty upon every imported painting. They think that, if the artists of the other colonies and foreign painters were handicapped to that extent, the public would l»e obliged to purchase third rate daubs of local manufacture. There ia not much .loiile emulation to be expected from the quarter in which this bright idea was conceived. Fortunately for the future of Victorian art, there are painters in the colony who have souls above the manufacture of "pot-boilers,'' and who have no desire to ally themselves with the politicians of the Trades llall. Mr. Patterson curtly told the deputation who waited upon him that he " had no sympathy Willi them.' I'or oneo, Mr. PaUeison, £ agree with you.