Melbourne
31 January 1890
My dear Chris
The chance of selling the Sobraon to the Sydney Government for a training ship has been lost for the present by Devitt & Moore refusing to accede – a great mistake. However Crosby has cabled home urging to see the Agent General on the subject and press the sale if possible.
We find objections made by shippers and underwriters to the age of the ship. Consequently have difficulty in procuring cargo than to take lower than ruling rates. Besides, if the ship was offered for sale at home she would fetch but a small sum.
Archie has just returned from a trip to Tasmania. He had been very unwell before but is now quite well. I have not been feeling very well for some time. The weather has been so intolerably hot for over a fortnight. A moist heat of over 100 in the shade for days takes it out of you pretty well. I wonder how you bear the heat of your climate as you do.
Did Mr Watt correspond with about a partner? He undertook to find one & write you on the subject as I had no time after receiving your letter to do it. I shall be glad if you find one suitable and get away for a time, but still better if you could clear out altogether. I don’t think it would be wise of you to hold anything you can sell at a decent profit with all the excitement in share business that exists here now. I believe and am told by some of the brokers and others that I know well that the whole of the speculative community are as hollow as a reed and the least tightness in the money market will cause a complete collapse. This is really looked for to happen in March as the money market gets tighter daily and there is no chance of a Victorian loan being floated in England at present or for some time to come and this colony cannot go on without they in face of the accosted surplus of £1,700,000 which the Premier stated he had on the 31 December. The Government are borrowing from the banks now and have not a sixpence to fall back upon. If a crash came as anticipated it would ruin your prospects for a long time to come, so if you have half a chance clear out if it is possible in any way to get home for a spell.
These Melbourne people are certainly a nation of born gamblers from the greatest to the least. Men who are in the swim tell me of the almost impossible doing of the young people in speculating. The old are the leaders.
I hope Alec’s photographic case did not get lost in the floods and that he will make some money out of it. Don’t let him fool away his plates by trying experiments or letting others do this for him. He will soon get into the way by a little study to do the thing as well as if he had been taught. Make money by his plates.
Slade is now Chairman of Stock Exchange Committee and has made his mark amongst the men. Had one of the leading men an Englishman named Strange is sending his family home with me and follows himself as soon as he can square up and leave for good. He has got sick of the whole thing.
The ship is about half engaged full of passengers and has cargo enough engaged to fill at low rates of freight. We sail on the 15th February and hope to be home early to get a long summer.
4 February.
The weather still continues blazing hot and although heavy rains have fallen all around Victoria, even to Cape Leeuwin, not a drop has come to moisten the parched soil of this section of Australia. I met a man yesterday who had just come from Brisbane where he says the weather is comparatively cool for the season. I hope you are having bearable heat, the heavy rains that have fallen will no doubt cause a great deal of moisture and render the heat trying for a time.
There is a sort of belief here that the Broken Hill mine is about to collapse, worked out. It may only be a broker’s ruse but the yield has fallen off last week or two. If you get a spurt after crushing sell out for me even at a small profit or no profit. Let me get out of the confounded mine without loss.
Give Alec my loving regards and say I will write to him before I sail. Hope he will make a name for himself as a photographic artist and send us a sample or two home.
Best regards, from your loving Father
James A Elmslie