OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2855, 30 October 1890, Page 4

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Sydney, October 18. Osce more the week's record contains more misfortunes than anything else, The biggest fire known in Australian history has swept away one ot the most valuable blocks in the city. The dogged Obstinacy of the strike leaders has compelled the Government to take into its own hands some of the functions which are ordinarily performed by private enterprise, and, to wind up all, tho eight-hour holiday was marked by an unpreeedentedly disgraceful riot, which resulted in about 10 holiday-makers finding their way to gaol. Add to this two or threo terriblo and fatal railway accidents and deaths by drowning, and it fnrnishes a sufficiently forbidding list of casualties, However, lawlessness is so rife, and a vague undefined discontent with existing conditions so rampant that it is not surprising that calamities occur but rather that there are so few of them and that society ao soon recovers itself.

As regards the fire, which swept away the stocks of warehousemen and others and wrecked the premises of bankers, clubs and a host of smaller fry, the damage done is about a million. I fancy that many who gazed upon the scene of devastation which stretches from Cribbs , uud Shatlard's to the City Bank, begin for the first time to have some practical conception how much is needed to make a million. Yet for years past we have been implicitly assuming that certain holes in the ground out of which there has never come enough to pay for digging them are worth each a million or so. In the last four weeks, the ten leading Hilver mines at the Barrier, only one of which is paying agood dividend and only three of which are paying any dividend at all,'have increased in nominal value (as assessed by the market price of their nhares) by three millions, and their total value is estimated at about eighteen millions. Eighteen such blocks as that which was burnt down last week would leave very little behind of the cream of mercantile Sydney. But, in the estimation of the wirepullers and marketriijgiTS, the ringe and bulls and bears of the big gambling hells, a much bigger fraction than that would kick the beam in comparison with those holes and burrows at the Barrier. However, great as was the misfortune it seems to have well-nigh passed from the public mind. How to retrieve it is now the questiou. Almost before the fire was beateu back, and long before the embers had done smoking onr colouial were busy with their scheme of reconstruction. Tho lire h hailed as a blessing in disguise, because it affords an opportunity to the Koverimient to continue I'ost-office .Street to Castlorcagh Street. Indeed 1 believe that auother fire is secretly prayed for by many enthusiastic* if it would only furnish a pretext for continuing the postoflice approach to Maequarie Street.

However, theso amicable roconstructors are not quite so bud as those who recently issued their manifesto from tho Maritime Labour Hall. Tho one only propose to deal with inanimate bricks and mortar in furtherance of their beuovolent iiloal.i and asthetic fancies. Tho other propose to take tho sentient throbbing form of society itself, and cut and curve it, iu Procrustes fasbion, according to their notions of what it ontflit to be. But I fancy that us soon aa the rucking beyins, if it war d<»\s bojjin, society itsolf will have a few definite and pertinont remarks to make. "Friend, t.heo art not wanted hero," says tho Quaker in Uuclo Tom's Cabin, as ho pushed the sliivohunter over the precipice. We lire beginning vairuely to wonder whether the Labour agitator is wanted. He bring* discontent and idleness, discord and poverty whero there was before steady work and sood piy. Ho grows fat by work which makes others slave. Ho gets fleek and insolent by their misfortunes and hounds them back and forth hither aud thither to do hi.s upstart bidding as thongh he were tho rightful monarch of all be surreys. Even if employers were as tyrannical as they are said to be, tho wisdom of inviting , an additional tyranny, much more unscrupulous and pxHctinir, is very questionable, to siiy tho least of it.

The shearers' strike has ended. The raeu having , dem'justratod their obedience to their self-appointed slave-drivers, by breukiuur their airroeinents, the latter suddenly discovered, as they had iu fact been told all along, that they were making a gigantic blunder, and thoy forthwith professed themselves satisfied with this display of allegiance, and ordered thorn back again! The miner.", especially thoso of the West, are beginning to auk why they cannot demonstrate their loyalty iu n similar way. All tyrannies boijiu to totter its soon as the subjects of tliem begin to ask questions. Iu thin cane the unreasonableness of the strike leaders must beuoiuo manifest to tlio men themselves as soou as the mists of passion clear away. One jjlnarn of sunshine shows itself Ihrimulmut this miserable) all'air. In MolljiniriJ') ii movement ban bi'en set on foot to t'stiblish r.iy. operative industries by which tho meu nun in some measure tn their own i.'mployi'r--. Tho least movement towards n'<n>.rpr:t.inu is more proriiWna , Umti any c-mri-ii'iblc iimount of destru'eti h>. Any fool oiiu destroy if h ' is only sntli'iioutly violent and misorupill..u , "but construction demands the (!>cproi.i< of. virtu.v, instead of vices. T'-o c i-operators will find t.ln-y can only *uc-o-i;d by tin' exnrcis.; of solf-deniul, patient Hpplifation, civility,and adaptation to the re.juiriiiuents of tho public. But if they had put iheaa into juvictioe before striking tlniy fionld not have failed to bettor thoir positional, wherf!:if by striking they hive exposed thcin"elveH to pro-it hardaiips and are now considerably worse o ! f than when they coininonced.

This is evident from thoir own utatulnoiito. Although uo employer has nu-id a word airuinvt Ihu of tlio men t'.i combine or Ims expressed uuy intentiou to increase the hours of labour or reduce the rato of pay, the strike orators now declare they are litrhtiutr for the very existence of Unionism find to prevent u jrojioral lowering of wages. The steamshipowners, ax a mutter of f.iot, are nrt'oririg the same wngos ami tlie sumo hour* of work as bnfore th-> atrilrc Wo nil know that Unionism or warrcs wore not considered in nny d.-injror before the trouble began. The wtimen's Union engaged in the combat with as light a heart as Louis Napoleon, in the conquest of Germany. "We mean to have I'eter Mngun back in the Corinna, or Captain Sharpe shall never ship another crew." This waa the burden of their cry. So fir from Unionism being in danger, it thought itself powerful enough to npset the existing conditions of social life, and to dictate its own vagaries as irrefragable laws, not only to individual employers, bat to the community itself. What,

then, has brought it iuto danger? Wlia!". indeed, but tlic rash folly of its leaders '! They can see. cluirly enough that they have inflicted such a blow upou Australasian iuJuiitry and uommoru", that it is doubtful whenever they may design to permit their deluded followers to i»o to work, wlißtlior employment can be foil nil for hilf of tli'iin. Tbe. remainder will constitute the greatest, dauj;t:r to Unionism, and to tli<! cmrrmit rate of wnge>\ Tn thoir fid'ortn to obtain employment tlioy will consider hall a loaf hotter than iir. bread. Thus Unionism nivl wanes will ])■ in dauber, from the. •■oin)it:litiGu of it-i O»vn members, through the incapacity of ita own leaders. As a mere matter of tactics, when they found themselves ■ confronted by a solid combination of employers, instead of by a single firm, they should have recognised that their customary weapons were pointless as arrows against an ironclad. They might have retired in goxl order, have cxrumic'l and consolidated their organisation, and in a ehort time might have been able to make some headway against opposing forees. As it is, they have failed to move them one Imir'.-i'ijriv.dth. Howov.t. [think that society nmy congratulate itself that the

attack was premature, and will therefore prove abortive. That old Latin maxim, so often quoted by the organs of disaffection, seeins specially applicable to the conduct of their own leaders. Qncm Dens vult perdere primus elemental;.