NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 206, 2 September 1886, Page 1

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

» TnE Benovolent Society have bean ratlnir nonpluseed by an intimation received from the Charitable Aid Board to the effect that the Board is advised by ita solieitora that the Act does not contemplate claims being made for subsidy on tho subscriptions of such societies. The Executive Committee have, however, resolved to lay the matter before the Government for decision, setting out the facts of the case, and forwarding the claim in due form. The Society seem to have proceeded eimpiy on the faith of Colonel Maultain's opinion expressed at the first meeting of the subscribers that they could claim 24s per £1 on their subscriptions. It will, of course, be a very serious blow to the usefulness of the society if this anticipated source of revenue is cut off. However, as was pointed out to them by the Secretary of the Hospitals and Chariatble Aid Board, the course is atill open to the Society of becoming incorporated as a separate institution in terms of the Act, and this course they should, we think, follow. The Drapers' Early Closing Association will soon be placed in funds by getting handed over to them a sum which has been lying dormant in the Auckland Savings Bank for many years. The sum in question was,the accumulation of an Eur ly Closing Association that, flourished more than a dozen years ago in Auckland, and, with interest, now amounts to about £27. The association to which ie belongs, like many others, had ita day and ceased to be ; but the money, banked in the name of a einglo officer of the defunct organisation, remained secure at the bank. The officers of the recentlyformed Early Closing Association applied for this money, but the gentleman who had so jejlously and conscientiously guarded it all these years declined to hand it over. The bank officials, however, declared their willingness to pay the money to the new Society, on condition that the surviving subscribers to the original fund gave their sanction, and by dint of hard work all. the siguatures have been obtained, with the sole exception of that of the gentleman who had the bank-book, and who, from a strict sense of his duty as a trustee, does not see hie way to joining in the transfer. It is said now that he will be allowed to keep the book, but that the £27 will be paid over to the officers of the present Early Closing Association. Such, at uny rate, would seem to be the common-sense course to pursue. Tho old subscribera laako one condition, viz, that the raonoy be not applied to tho ordinary expenses of the Association, and alternative proposals are mooted for handing tho money over to tbo Benevolent Society or making it tho nucleus of a Drapers' Benefit Society. Either way would bo bettor than having it buried as it has been for twelve or thirteen years past.

Tho narrative of a Wellington miner returned from Kimberley, which appears in another column, gives some valuable information with regard to the position and prospects of that goldfield. His statement is the moro to be trneted because he did not, like many, turn back from Cambridge Guif or Derby, but went right on to the goldfield. After givitg the place a fair trial, he came away assured that the goldfield was a " duifer." His report confirms what has been stated before upon tho authority of official reports that there ie no defined goldfield at Kimberley, but that prospecting is being pursued over a very wide and untried area of country. We imagine that miners, who have such excellent fields for proapecting within our own I borders, will hardly think the chance of finding gold in tho wilde of Central Australia attractive enough to allure them in very Jitrge numbers from a country _. like New Zealand,