OUR SYDNEY LETTER

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2802, 28 June 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

OUR SYDNEY LETTER

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT). Sydn'uy, .Tune 11. The Federation debate still blocks tho way to more matter-of-fact legislation Iu view of the urgent need for vigorous measures in so many different directions, public indignation is beginning to make itself heard with no uncertain voico, aud I should not be surprised if public meetings were held to protest against the unwarrantable delay. Now that members of Parliament are tho paid servants of the public, their employers have a better right than ever to expect faithful service. But instead of honest work they seem to have given themselves over body aud soul to useless chatter. Their speeches already fill sovcral hundred columns of Hansard, aud a mau with a mania for calculating has ascertained that they coutaiu over a quarter of a million of wotds, words, words. Among all this mass of rubbish thoro is hardly a senteuco which could have kwy influeuce on the judgment of an ordinary sane man, who was called upon to decide whether there ought or ought not at; some future date to be a Federation conference. The question is simple enough in all conscience. Why smother it in a flood of useless drivel? Yet member after member insists on his right f.o maunder on for a fow hours and unloads himself in the process of every foolish notion whioh he has managed to gather together. " Fadoration," iustead of federation, the weary reporters in the gallery have christened it. How many more faddish orations they will have to listen to before the division is taken, time alone can tell.

But, as every cloud has a silver lining, so it is just possible that some compensation may be discovered for this one, and Parliament has wasted five or six weeks in talking instead of legislating, and by all appearance is prepared to vvasts five or six weeks more. But then, if it were to legislate, would its legislation be to any purpose ? In the past they have legislated a good deal on the land question, and now the land laws are in such a condition that the Supreme Court judges themselves, men specially trained to master legal difficulties and thread their way through verbal mazes, cannot decipher their meaning. The Chief Justice declared from the Bench the other day that it was impossible for any bench of judges to be certain on any of the points raised either by the Land Act of 18S4, or by any subsequent measures. However ardently we desire social reform, which shall abolish poverty for the induc.ious and deserving, and make the social conditions of this fair land something like what they were intended to be, we must remember that the legislature is the only body by which measures intended to produce the desired end can be conceived or brought into effect. But if their incompetence is such that they reduce to a worse muddle the questions, which they nndertake to settle, it may be just as well that they comh'ne themselves to talking instead of working.

Parliament finds fitting coadjutors in the departments. I cannot resist from quoting the subjoined e-tbmple of the manner in which they do their business : —" A teacher in a State school became ill, and applied for leave of absence. Getting worse, he eventually left without leave, and soon afterwards died. After he had been dead a month—after his executors had obtained probate of , his last will and testament—a letter was received addressed to the dead teacher, informing him that the Minister, ' in view of the circumstances of the case' had acceded to his request, and the applicant had been allowed a mouths' leave." I commend this to tho consideration of the numerous body who hope for social salvation through the multiplication of boards, inspectors, and the like kind of official machinery.

The silver bubble continues steadily to diminish in size. The capital value of some ten mines at Broken Hill, as estimated by the market price of their shares, is shrinking at the rate of about a million a week. Indeed, on Tuesday last there was a drop of over a million in a day. Of course, this means ruin to all weak holders who have bought on margins, trusting to a rise in the scrip to enable them to meet their engagements. If it were possible to estimate the intrinsic value of the mines themselves such ruinous fluctuations would be impossible. When the market value rose above the generally estimated value there would be great alacrity to sell; when it fell below there would be equal promptness in buying, and the market would be kept fairly steady. In the case of goods which are in general demand every merchaut knows that an opportunity of purchasing them under thuir market value must not be despised. Now, although it is not possible to estimate the value of a mine as accurately as the value of merchantable products, it is possible to inako some rational approximation. If a mine is worth a million pounds one day, and its prospects ever since have remained equally good, or have gone on steadily improving, it is palpably absurd to say in six months time that it is only worth as many shillings or as many pence. But the fevered speculators who operate on change laugh to scorn the idea of taking any thought of intrinsic values. If they think the market is going up there is no limit to thoif folly in buying , . If they think it is going down there is no bottom to their terror. Scrip is all that they have any eyes for. As for mines themselves they might almost as well have no existence. It is not to be wondered at that a market which finds its only foundation in the minds and feelings of gamblers who are at one time insanely elated and at another time insanely depressed should be absolutely unstable and untrustworthy, and should threaten ruiu to all who have any dealings in it. Apart from these general considerations there are the ODerations of interested wirepullers, who at one time inflate the market in order to induce the credulous public, to buy shares at prices absurdly high, and at another depress it in order to frighten them into selling , «t less than they are worth. As the support which has kept the market up hitherto has now evidently been withdrawn it may fairly be assumed that "the ring :, are now on the otbep tack. When they have absorbed a few good blGokti of shares at bedrock prices, the inflation policy wiil bogin again, and so on ad inflnitnni. It ought however to be pretty evident to every man who wishe3 to go through life without robbing or being robbed that the mining sharemarket under the present conditions is best left alone.

The Royal Commission, which is sitting in England to enquire Into the subject of vaccination, and its enforcement by Act of Parliament durinor the past 36 year?, has had sufficient evidence to explode the claims of the practice. But, although some modification will probably be made in the direction of alleviating the tyrannical rigour of the law, it in to be feared that the doctors and their vested intev rests are too strong Lo admit of its total abrogation, and Dr. Ureighton, author of the article on " Vaccination " in the new edition of the Encyclopaedia Britanmca, has cf.ourn that the claims usually made for Mm poisonous scratch, ape baseless, anil his evidence has been supported by other medical witnesses. Professor Crookshank, an eminent authority of King's College, London, has mercilessly exposed the quackery of Jenner, who obtained an enormous sum of money for bringing into prominence a milkmaid'a superstition. Herbert Spencer, John Bright, Joseph Arch, Professor P. W. Newman, Alfred Russel Wallace, Henry Pilman, and a host of other celebrities have placed on i'eeord tiheir sweeping condemnation of a law which compels parents to have their helpless infants eowpoxed, syphilised, or infected with any other animal poison that may happen ,to be found in the virus and hapless parents jyhose children have been killed by the operation, have told how some of them became covered with loattisoae sores, how some swelled up and became masse? cf livid corruption, and how otheni

just dwindled and pined away from tho time tho product of the diseased cow whs forced into the vital current of their innocent life Citizeus of Leicester have rold how in a town of free men the law bus broken down by its own weiirht, how the Courts aro '1000 cnses in arrear, how the practice of vaccination has almost ceased amongst them for years, and yet how, through efEeotive sanitation they have enjoyed greater immunity from small-pox than almost any other town in the United Kingdom. Br.t I fear it is a foregone conclusion that tho cumulative force of all this testimony will be as nothing boforo the almighty guinea and the prestige and stimulus of official position. Tho world is advancing it is true, but it has not j'et advanced to the point at which, truth, honesty, and commoDsense liud it easy to make their way against active peenniary interest aud the intcria of self-satisfied stupidity.