[FROM OUR CORRKSPONDENT.]

Melbourne. December 22. There are a, number of financiers bo be found in the columns of the Melbourne newspapers who know far more about the proper way of settling our bnl-incj sheet than these who have the work to do can pretend. All those gentry are qui'e certain that Mr Munro is going to ruin all present bondholders and all future chances of raising a loan by obtaining per mission to issue Treasury bonds to the extent of'two millions at four ar.d a half per cent. No doubt if he were to float a permanent loan to that amount at such a rate of interest three and a half per cents would drop in price considerably, bub the truth is of course that the bonds are merely short dated.bills to be issued in small parcels as wanted, a hundred thousand, pounds at a time, and in no case have they long enough to run to give the most speculative financier any temptation to tamper with his permanent investments to buy them. If, as the London stockbrokers pretend to expect, £8,000.000 in treasury bonds were sud denly asked for by the colonies in the London money market, there would no doubt be a great financial disturbance, chiefly because London has not just now much disengaged money, bub the truth is that in the first place the total sum required is little more than half the amount, and in the second it will be wanted, if at all, as far as Victoria is concerned, by such gentle instalments that fehe last batch will nob be floated until the June of 1898, to pay contracts then coming due. The agitators practi cally pretend to say that London could not lend us a hundred thousand pounds a month without disarranging everything. Even so late as this (Tuesday) morning it is by no means certain that the proroga tivn ot Parliament will take place before Christmas. The truth is that the Legis lative Council are making a quiet but very decided encroachment upon the powers of the Assembly, and the Ministry have no intention of letting the movement suc ceed. One amendment in * the Local Government measure may possibly en danger that important Bill. 