ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 19, 24 January 1898, Page 2

ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

LONDON, December 10. THE WANDERINGS OF THE

BAKERS

Tew colonials that I know of, and my experience in the matter can hardly by any stretch of the imagination be called limited, have taken so comprehensive a route in coming1 to England as Mr J. H. Baker, of Wellington, and his family. Mr Baker resigned Ms position of Commissioner •of - Lands and Assistant SurveyorGeneral at Wellington in October Ot last year, and although with Mrs Baker and their daughter he lets almost immediately, he has only been in England comparatively a few weeks, and the interval lias been filled with wanderings in many countries. I did hot know when I asked Mr Baker what steamer they had come home by the nature of their tour, but his answer that a list of their boats they Had travelled by would probably weary me, as they were seventeen in number, gave me an inkling that they had not come by the fastest or the most direct route. When Mr Baker briefly told me where they had been, I was not quite sure whether it would .not be shorter for me .to mention where they had not been. However, on consideration, I give as nearly as 1 remember his brief statement as an illustration of what can be clone in II months in the way of globe-trot-.ting: — 'I, with my wife and daughter, went over to Australia, and remained awhile in Sydney to visit the Blue Mountains, and after a short stay in Melbourne we joined the Orient ■ line s.s. Ophir, and went in her _to Colombo , when we landed, spending some time at Kandy. The plague prevented tis going -on to Bombay as we had intended, and so we took a P. & 0. boat via Madras to Calcutta, visiting Darjeeling to see the Himalayas, and afterwards going to Agra, Delhi, Lucknow, and other cities in Central In¥.ia, spending a very pleasant two months in doing so. Returning to Calcutta, we took a British India boat to Rangoon, and went Tip to Maridalay, the city of Pagodas, by sail returning by one of the river boats. Then joining another P. & O. steamer we journeyed, via Penang, to Singapore, where we had to wait a week for a P. & 0. boat to Hong Kong. Here we broke our journey again to visit Canton, one of the most interesting cities of the world. Afterwards, whilst waiting for our steamer, we made a trip to Macco, the Monte Carlo of the East, where the Chinese gambling game of fan tan is carried on all day and the best part of the night. Joining an oriental boat, Shanghai was our next stopping place, and then we crossed over to Japan. Calling at Nag-asaki, we landed at Kobi, and visited Kyots, Tokio, and other cities in. Japan, besides going to the great Nasa Temples and other places of interest, spending with our jinricksha journeyings nearly two months there. Leaving.with considerable regret Yokohama in another P. & O. steamer, we crossed the Pacific to Honolulu and 'Frisco. In Alaska We Saw the Yosemite Valley, Yellowstone Park, and the great glacier. ■We returned to Vancouver, and crossed.-the, American. Continent .(by the Canadian-Pacific Railway to Lake Superior, where we took the steamer plying across that lake and went on to Detroit, thence by sail to Toronto. After visiting Niagara \we proceeded by steamer down Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence, past the celebrated 1,000 Isles to Montreal, reaching Quebec by sail, and. after a short stay there, crossed the Atlantic by one ©f the Allen liners to Liverpool, which we reached late in September, after travelling nearly eleven months on »ur journey home. We could not get in time for the Jubilee without cutting out more of our tour than we cared to do.' And so ends the first chapter. Mr, Mrs, and Miss Baker winter in Clifton, and afterwards come to. London to reside, at any rate, for a time. THE MARQUESS OF HERTFORD. The estate to which the Earl Of Yarmouth is heir does not promise very big things for that young man. This week his father, the Marquess of Hertford, had to inform his neighbours that he was unable to keep up "the family seat, Ragley, as it should he kept up, and consequently had had to let it. Fortune has hardly been kind to the present line of the Hertfords. When the fourth Marquess died he stripped his successor of everything he could touch in favour of the late Sir Richard Wallace, and now the income is insufficient for so costly a place as Ragley. The Earl of Yarmouth, who some months ago was electrifying Australia with his acting and skirt dancing1 in the cause of charity, should have accepted the offer of £300 a week for a season Of eight "<veeks, which rumour says Was made him in Melbourne. It would have been a material help to the family finances.

'WHAT PRICE EABBITS?' New Zealand rabbits have of late "been at a discount in the London market, and the prospects of the colonial rabbit exporter are not what they were last season. During1 the 3ast few weeks things have been particularly bad, and for the large numbers of rabbits coming forward it lias been difficult to obtain a market, even at the low price of 7^-d. It is really an important question, as the sum of £100,000, or thereabouts, at "which New Zealand rabbits have appeared in the list of exports 6f late years is widely scattered in the colony, and althoug-h at first it was thought in many quarters that the trade.would be a bad one to encourage, it is now pretty generally recognised, lam told, that it does a great deal to keep the rabbit nuisance down. The present depression in prices is, perhaps, not the greatest difficulty that the rabbit people have to face, for it may be temporary, and is, I believe, this season due to the absence, so far, of any very cold weather, and the consequently small demand for hot soups. Two much more serious difficulties are the treatment of the rabbits on the New Zealand railways, and the rebates claimed by purchasers at this end of the world for the article contracted for being- under weight. The remedy for the former lies in the colony. A van could be put on the trains in which the rabbits could be hung up on nails instead of being dumped down on the floor in heaps, and generally so roughly used that before they reach the freezing works they are considerably injured. There would be some littie extra expense, but this need not come off the profit made by the Government, for a slightly increased freight would doubtless be .willingly paid by the exporters did it ensure them getting their rabbits in good order for freez-

Ing. With the carriage by steamer no fault, it seems, can be found, and it is Hot till they are in England that the most serious difficulty arises. Contracts are made with London houses to take so many thousand at a certain rate, the lot to average, say, 2£fts In weight. Now, there is scarcely a shipment gets through without a' rebate being demanded on the grounds of under-weight. A big agency company has just had to pay ill this way £800 on two shipments Of a South Canterbury exporter, one lot being at the rate of 2id a piece, and the other about lid. This will take absolutely all the profit off these shipments, if it does not mean a dead loss to the shipper. Another arbi- | tratioil is pending, in which a firm claims from Mr W. J. Tonkin £360 on 30,000 rabbits for light weight.. Mr Tonkin informs me that he lias g-ot off-lighter this season than most people, and this he attributes to his presence at the time of discharge of his rabbits at the London docks. If it is a fact that no proper tally is kept when the cases are weighed on discharge, half the remedy lies in exporters seeing that the weights are correctly taken and not too much •made of a couple of pounds shortage on lots of 30 (the number in which irabbits are packed in lots). The other half of the remedy lies entirely with those in the colony. If such heavy sums have to be paid for shortage, shippers should be careful to leave a slight margin on the heavy side. I am informed that a large contract has been made to supply at 3tbs weight next season. This, in my opinion, is a mistake, as it is extremely hard to average this weight. ■I would suggest that in making contracts separate, weights be made for from Z\ up to 31t>s, and though for the former a lower price would be obtained, it would be better policy than trying to average the 2| pounders up to 2?Tbs with heavy rabbits, the course which is largely responsible for the heavy rebates now paid. New Zealand hares are practically unsaleable at the present time, largely owing to the fact that New South Wales is able to sell in the London market at a price below the cost of landing in England Canterbury hares.

THE SHIPPING- RING. MERCHANTS SCHEME TO FIGHT

The Shipping Ring, which rules the freight markets of the port of LondOn, is a mighty, powerful, and, on the whole, justly run organisation against which merchants and shippers have hitherto proved powerless. Just at present the latter are groaning specially loudly beneath its exactions, and there has been talk of an appeal to Mr Chamberlain for arbitration, or, should that prove futile, Parliamentary intervention. A large section of Australian and New Zealand merchants are, however, more favourable to counteracting the great shipping companies with an opposition merchants' ring. Mr JR. D. Galbraith, of Gracechurch-street, is the patentee of the idea. Interviewed on the subject he remarked practically enough:

'Shipping companies exist to make money, and when they are down the merchants have no mercy on them, and they show no mercy when things are good. I have had the P. and 0. begging for freight at any price, and J_haye had them refuse it at any price. The ring has its advantages for merchants. Steady freights, that is to say the same rate to all comers, are good, and rebates are liked by many merchants, as they are a 'picking,' and help to keep the pot boiling.

'The P. & 0. is a wonderfully well managed company, and fast boats and regular sailings, full or not full, cost a lot of money. When homeward freights are at zero, outward freights must go up, steamers cannot be run at a loss.

'All the same, any ring will get out of hand and abuse its position unless there be a counterforce to keep it on the rails. Let some influential individual forthwith form a merchants" ring of defence, 1o be contributed to by all who care to join. If the African ring requires the whip, the whole funds of the defence will apply the whip on the desired point. If the Australian apply the whip there, if China do the same, if 5,000 merchants and manufacturers join at £20 each per annum, you will get an income of £100,000, and what ring will stand to lose £100,000 per annum?

'Any of the rings would quickly come to reason on any point at the very threat of the whip. I know them. They dread the very idea of a powerful ring of defence. When the defence ring took action to punish they would put on boats on the route, they would, have the support of their combination, they would pay all lost rebates out of their income, and also loss on the steamers they chartered. As soon ; as the shipping ring gave way on the matter in question the defence would withdraw.

'To run a steamer a month to any-

where and. back would cost the ring a l&ss of £1,000 to £2,000 per trip, or, say, £25,000 a year. But no matter. The defence exists for the pilrpdse of having money to lose.

'To prevent the defence taking action and throwing away money when every individual trader had a pet grievance, action would only be taken when say, three-fourths of the defence membership voted for it. That such a defence ring is possible I fully believe.'

THE SECOND MRS SALA

The older one grows the more convincing becomes the adage that a petticoat will be found either intimately or remotely concerned with every bad quarrel, no matter how improbable the contingency seems, on the surface. Take, for instance, Labby's row with the African editor Hess. There didn't appear the smallest hopeful opening for the inevitable woman there. Yet, sure enough, she turned up in the engaging person of the second Mrs Sala. It seems that whilst rummaging amongst 'my beloved husband's' correspondence, the lady found a number of letters addressed to him by his friend Air Labouchere. The idea that G.A.S. might conceivably strongly object to these epistles being resurrected to his old chum's detriment did not enter the disconsolate widow's head. She had herself no grudge against Labby. Oh! dear no. But the letters would afford Mr Hess good 'copy' and she— well, she—parted with them. Whether material considerations influenced the action did not transpire. Unfortunately both Mr Hess and Mrs Sala reckoned without their Labby. He invoked the law to protect his youthful and probably indiscreet correspondence from publicity, and the High Courts—after long arguments pro and con—injuncted the two of them from using their find. Not even Labby's enemies sympathise cordially with Mr Hess' attempt to overthrow the member for Northampton with financial follies or worse of twenty years ago.

If he alleged improprieties to-day, or even since Labby entered public life, 'twould be different. But all the world knows the editor of 'Truth's' parliamentary and journalistic records. Few men in the latter capacity can indeed claim to have done the community greater service.