ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 116, 17 May 1902, Page 3

ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

..LONDON, April 11.' COLONIAL CORONATION STANDS

At last TYiday's meeting of the Agents-General, after discussion, the matter ox stands to view the Coronation, was left in the hands of Lord Strathcona, who, with Sir Montagu Oinmaney, the Permanent Under-Sec-retary at the Colonial Office, will confer with the authorities at the Office of Works. It has been settled that the limited number of seats allotted to New Zealand wil be available only for those who are boria-fide visitors from the colony, and the Assent-Gene-ral is sending intimation of this fact to the many New Zealanders resident in England who have registered their names at his office in the hopes of getting seats on the colonial stands. CORONATION AKCHES. So far no, steps have been taken with reference to the contribution by New Zealand of an arch to the Westminster decorations. The Canadian grain arch is to cost £600, and to be erected opposite the Home Office in Whitehall. New Zealand's attitude to the decorations will probably depend oh that of the Commonwealth. If Australia' decides to erect an arch, doubtless New Zealand will follow suit. A definite decision will have to be arrived at in any event very soon, for ii New Zealand is to make a symbolical display, money will have to be voted by the Government, the scheme of decoration evolved, a consultation with the artist responsible for the Westminster decorations as a whole will have to be held in order that the New Zealand arch may be in harmony with the rest of the decorations, and finally the arch erected, each of which steps will take time. WAX OFFICE BUNGLING. "Damn the red tape of the War Office," writes a Manchester man from Wanganui to the "Manchester Courier." A similar sentiment will no doubt be expressed by the manufacturers of tinned meats in the colony when they get particulars of the tenders which the War Office invites lor the supply of 900,0001bs of compressed corned beef and 300,0001bs of compressed corned mutton. The War Office sent to the Agent-General's office this week six tender forms for despatch to New Zealand. The earliest mail by which they could be sent is due in Wellington on May 21, and the last dale for the acceptance of tenders is May 26. The Agen*»General has pointed these facts out, and asked for an extension .of time. Even if full particulars are cabled out, and the New Zealand tenders cabled Home, the time allowed tenderers to consider their sources 'of supply and formulate their offers is none too long. A further order has also been given for oats. OPHIR LIBRARY GOES BEGGING. The Ophir library, consisting of 112 volumes, one-half works of reference, and the rest general literature by Lecky, Kings]ake. Kipling, Tolstoi, Mahan, Rossetti, Hare, Anstey, "Gyp" and others, with two library chairs, rugs and sundries thrown in, was put up for auction at Stevens' saJe rooms last Tuesday. But though the books lad apparently had a very easy time of it during the trip, of the Prince and Princess, and some of them contained the former's autograph, the best bid was £20, and the property was withdrawn. It is sad to think that in a wealthy and "loyal" city like London such a thing could happen. The owner of the library, however, was ill-advised to try to sell now. He should possess his soul in patience till the Coronation is at hand, and American plutocrats plentiful. The much-travelled "royal" library will then, I do not doubt, realise a handsome sum. THE EMPIRE'S COALING STATIONS. Sir John Colomb, M.P., read a 'paper yesterday before the Royal United Service Institution on "Garrisons for Coaling Stations." On any distant navalBtation the outbreak of war should not find the British Admiral without a force at his disposal and available for general service afloat or ashore, exclusive of the complements of his ships. We should look to the colonies for producing such a force in war. Tfie Australian naval contingent for China, under the Commander-in-chief of the station, illustrated on a small scale what could be done on a larger one by a process of development. He advocated the garrisoning of two naval biases in the other hemisphere as a step in the development of a policy of embracing Colonial Auxiliary Reserves for general service in war under the admirals. This policy, if carried out, would produce a Colonial Auxiliary Naval Force, homogeneous and associated with the Navy, which would be available for the release of the peace garrisons of coaling stations—the real reserve for the ships or the station in war. AN INTERESTING RELIC. The convict hulk Success no longer lies off the Thames Embankment, flying the Commonwealth flag, and giving country cousins all sorts of horrible notions about "blood taint." The Thames Conservancy have told the Success she must move on, land it is hinted that the authorities .wish t^ spare the susceptibilities of the Australian visitors who are beginning to put in an appearance for the Coronation festivities. The hulk is being dismantled, and will be towed down to St. Katherine's Dock, where, after another week spent in the re-erection of rigging, she will be again thrown open to the public. In about two months the Success will sail for New York, her voyage to which is expected to last CO days. DEFENDING THE COLONY, Mr. He eves keeps a watchful eye oh all press articles calculated to injure his colony's credit. The latest instance of his solicitude for her fair fame and of his conversion of an attack into an advertisement, occurs in the "Boston Herald." Last December that journal published an article disparaging the financial standing of New Zealand in London by contrasting the price obtained for former loans of the colony negotiated in London -with that quoted for the loan raised last November. Mr. Beeves, in a letter to the "Her-? aid," explains the drop in the price of the loan by the heavy fall in the price of all British government and corporation stocks. Consols, he points out, which were 114 a few years ago,

fell to 9' a couple of months ago. The borrowing for the African1 war, he says, has upset the market for giltedged securities, and the surprising thing is not that New Zealand has had to take %\ per cent, less than three years ago, but that the contrast is not greater. After giving a table showing the comparative effect of the fluctuations cif the money market upon representative public stocks and New Zealands, Mr. Reeves concludes with a long table showing the colony's industrial progress during the past decade. AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND MORTGAGE. Mr. Arthur Flower presided last Monday over the twenty-third ordinary general meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Mortgage Company, and in moving the adoption of the report and accounts said it was a matter of much regret to the directors that the accoxmts showed a deficit on the year's working of some £14,500. The sum of £7500. had been transferred to the credit of" profit and loss account from the reserve fund' making, with a balance of £217 brought forward from last account, an amount of £7717 towards meeting the deficiency, and leaving a debit balance of £6820. After references to the continued drought in New Scmth Wales, Mr. Flower said the policy of the Board, briefly summarised, was \i. gradually and judiciously bring about the liquidation of the company. Considerable progress Had already been made in the direction of reducing the liabilities. During the past year the amount of debenture, slock and debentures had been reduced from £830,000 to £619,000, and loans on mortgage in the colonies and interest thereon accrued to date, and properties in hand, balances of accounts advanced, from £878,000 to £649,000. They looked for an ultimate realisation of the properties at the value at which they stood in the books of the company. The report was adopted. SUGGESTED COLONIAL LOYAL DEMONSTRATION. Certain Antipodeans and Canadians in London desire to mark the Coronation with a "great colonial demonstration of loyalty." At present the idea is an iaea and nothing more, but the suggestion is that the King and Queen and the Royal Family should hold a sort of colonial "durbar" in the Albert Hall, to which all good colonists, headed by the Premiers of their respective States, should repair to do homage to the King, present him with an address from "my people beyond the seas," and generally manifest they1 fervent loyalty to the Throne. Something of the kind took place at the Albert Hall in 1886, after Queen Victoria had opened the Colonial and Indian Exhibition. The representatives of the colonies then paid her homage in an address, which the Prince of Wales, now King Edward, presented in their name. Her Majesty sat on an historic Indian chair, which Lord Gough captured from Runjeet Singh, when he overthrew the power of that Sikh ruler. An ode specially written by Tennyson was sung to music composed by Sir Arthur Sullivan. This ode closed with the lines, now so familiar— One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne. Britons hold your own. Possibly the "durbar" may eventuate, though I hardly ttiink King Edward needs any Albert Hall demonstration to convince, him of the loyalty of the colonies. '■ His people beyond the seas have been giving for the past two years far more effective evidence of their loyalty than mere lip and parchment service. LEYDS' CALUMNIES. Dr. Leyds, who for some months seemed to have lost his faculty for inventing slanders on the British troops, has taken advantage of the half disclosures in connection with the Handcock-Morant murders to prove that in f etility. of imagination he is by no means a man who was. His favourite publications are. now regaling the Continent with new calumnies which surpass in audacity many of his earliest and most iniquitous efforts in perversion. They purport to be based on a report received from General De la* Hey, and their value as evidence may be gauged to a nicety by the fact that among other monstrous charges i« ocie accusing Lord Methuen cf having ill used De la Rey's wife. Now, as p. matter of fact, General De la Rey, when holding Lord Methuen-a prisoner, gratefully thanked the British general for the courtesy and kindness he had shown to Mrs De la Rey and her family, and we know for solid facts also that though Mrs De la Rey objected strongly to certain restrictions placed upon her movements she could not otherwise find any fault whatever with the treatment she had received from the British authorities from the time she fell into their hands. But though Britishers can estimate these Leyds lies at their proper value there can be no doubt that their publication —coming as it does red hot on the heels of the news of the murder perpetrated by a few isolated irresponsible blackguards fighting on our side—will be eagerly seized upon by our clear friends of the Continental press to revive the dying embers of the rampant Anglophobia which prevailed in Europe until a few weeks ago.