ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 78, 31 March 1908, Page 3

ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

(From Our Special Correspondent) LONDON, February 21. "A TRIP TO NEW Z_____ND.» An interested audience of children and grown-ups thronged the large hall of the Polytechnic in Regent-street, last evening, to hear Mr. Joseph Feil, medallist and prizeman oi the Society of Arts, describe "A Trip to New Zealand." The High Commissioner for New Zealand presided, and introduced the lecturer in a neat speech. This was, he said, the 127 th time that Mr. Feil had delivered a discourse in England on New Zealand. That was pretty fair evidence that what he had to say was found pleasant and interesting. But while giving Mr. Feil every credit for being an able and pleasant lecturer, he himself, as a New Zealander, wanted to say that some credit was due to the subject on which Mr. Feil talked. In his opinion you could not have a better subject to lecture about. New Zealand was a most delightful country when you had got there, and it was not at all a difficult country to get to. Some people seemed to think that getting there was a terrible undertaking, because the sea voyage was a long one. Far from it. A long sea voyage was not an unpleasant voyage. It was the short sea voyages that were terrible (laughter). After the first three days sea-travel had no terrors; it was the first three hours that were the trouble (laughter). And when you had got to New Zealand, by universal agreement there was not a more delightful country in the world. There were other places where by frugal living a "man could live a healthy life, but New Zealand was a country where it was a positive pleasure to live, a country where an industrious man could do well. It was a small country, but they must remember that the pleasure of living in a country had nothing to "do with the size of the country. When it was romantic, beautiful in its scenery, healthy in climate, with a population sufficiently thick to give you pleasant neighbours and good society, sufficiently fertile to enable industrious people to do well, then it was a country- for Englishmen to go and settle in, be it large or small (applause). Mr. Feil then took the platform, and conducted his audience, with the aid of a splendid collection of 150 lantern slides, on his trip to New Zealand and back. He showed them the good ship Turakina, of the New Zealand Shipping Company's fleet, leaving Old England. He described the life aboard ship, the sports and games; looked in at Capetown and Hobart, and landed his audience at Auckland. Under his guidance they x-isited the beauty spots of the North Island, and had a look at its principal industries, the mines, the timber trade, the kauri gum fields. They were shown the glories of the New Zealand bush and the wonders of the Hot Lakes, and they applauded vigorously when a fine portrait of the late Mr. Seddon was shown on the screen, and when the lecturer declared that '"the policy of the New Zealand Government is first of all to attract people to the land and then to offer them every possible inducement to stop there." There was a perfect furore of enthusiasm amongst the juveniles in the gallery when Mr. Feil concluded the first half of his lecture by going toi the piano and playing the New Zealand anthem. "God Defend New Zealand." After the intervalthe lecturer conducted his audience through the South Island, and gave them many glimpses of the agricultural and pastoral industries, and many beautiful views of the Sounds, the Southern Lakes, and the West Coast coaching route. Finally, he embarked them again at Wellington, and brought them back via Cape Horn and TenerifFe to the familiar scenes of Gravesend, the Royal Albert Docks, and Liverpoolstreet station. The route of the NewZealand Shipping Company's boats, he added in conclusion, is the longest stretch of navigation of any ocean-going company in the world.

ME. BEEVES ON OLD AGE PENSIONS. The Hon. W. P. Reeves lectured before the Fabian Society last Friday evening on "Old Age Pensions." Mr. Sidney "Webb was in the chair, and Essex Hall, where the meeting took place, was crowded to the doors. Mr. Reeves began by observing that on the last occasion on which he went to address the Fabian Society the cabman, struck by his appearance, drove him to Exeter Hall. That was ten years ago, and Exeter Hall was now no more; but the Fabian Society was still to the fore, and its members, he understood, were as eager, enthusiastic, inquisitive, and unsentimental as ever. Mr. Reeves proceeded to describe the various old age pension systems in actual operation in New Zealand and Australia. The experience of New Zealand, he said, had proved:—(l) That financially an old acre pension scheme is not impossible; it does not impose an intolerable burden on the taxpayer: the old age pension Act. are more popular now than fhey were in their first year. (2) That fraud and imposture can be dealt with effectually. There is nothing approaching the amount of fraud, even relatively, to compare with the fraud produced in this city of London under a system of charity instead of pensions. (3) That discrimination in the granting of pensions is possible. When the New Zealand law was first introduced the cry for universal old age pensionwas very strong indeed; bat it would be impossible to get anything like half the House to vote for a universal scheme now. He doubted whether 25 per cent of the members would support such, a scheme. (4) That open inquiry into character, is not impossible and not tyrannical, and that people are not afraid of it. (5) Th,_t so far as national thrift and prosperity are concerned, old a°_ pensions have done no harm at all. .6) That the pension scheme is doin°solid, visible good in relieving human hardship and brightening aged lives. That is the greatest argument for the continuance of the system in New Zealand. NELSON BROTHERS. Presiding at the 24th ordinary <»eneral meeting of Nelson Bros., Ltd., Sir E. Montague Nelson (chairman and. managing director) stated that the net profit for the year amounted to £42,547, showing an increase of £14,812, which, he thought, the shareholders would regard as satisfactory. At the end of 1906 and in the early part of 1907 the stocks of New Zealand meat were low, and there was a good deal of speculation, prices rising to a very unusual figure; but this year there had been no such excitement. Prices had not gone up; indeed, they -were fully Id a pound less than they were a yeax ago, representing a considerable amount on the large stocks c& frozen meat ____. Since their ,_a___wg * $eax affh —as_&- —si _—» _»-

siderable agitation in some of the London newspapers with respect to the meat trust. He did not say that it would be a good thing to impose a duty, but it seemed to him that that was the only way in which they could control or do anything with, a foreign trade which obtained such a hold on the trade of this country as the American meat trust had secured, not only in respect to importing, but also in distributing the meat. At their last meeting he stated that 1,000,000 tons of meat were imported into the United Kingdom in the previous year, aud that, out of that quantity, only 25 per cent came from British possessions, while 75 per cent came from foreign countries. He thought it must appear to the ordinary observer that if anything could be done to assist in removing some of that trade from foreign countries to the outlying portions of the Empire, nothing but good could result for the British Empire as a whole. (Hear, , hear.) He was, however, happy to j say that, without any preference at all, 1 there was a tendency for the imports into this country from British posses- ! sions to increase, with a corresponding ' decrease in the imports from foreign countries. He had the figures for the last six years, and he found that in 1902 20 per cent only came from British possessions, while SO per cent came from other countries, whereas in 1907 29 per cent came from British possessions, and 71 per cent from other countries. Those figures related to dead meat, and there had also been a falling off in the importation of live cattle. Last year we imported 472,000 cattle, showing a falling off of 89,000 compared with 1906. This in itself meant a good deal of beef, and the quantity required had been made up either from British possessions or from home-grown animals. He had no doubt that these figures would be used by opponents of colonial preference as showing that we were doing what we wanted to do without any preference at all, but he was inclined to think that, although these figures were satisfactory in themselves, they might be vastly improved upon by 'a little agreement with the Colonies and the Mother Country. He afterwards referred to the Land and Income Assessment Act, which was passed last year by the New Zealand Government, and which would come into opera-1 tion in April next. What it enacted, he continued, was a graduated land tax, and such a tax, he assumed, was for the : purpose of breaking up large estates and encouraging smaL' holdings. In the company's case, at any rate, the Act had had the effect for which it had been designed. They had sold land to the amount of about £180,000 or and the directors had decided to pay off all the debentures, which amounted to £147,000 odd, but which had to be paid off at a premium of 10 per cent. He concluded by moving a resolution for the adoption of the report and the payment of a dividend of 3 per cent on the preference shares, making 6 per cent for the year, and of 4 per cent on the ordinary shares, tax free, making 7 per cent for the year. Mr. W. J. Taylor seconded the motion, which was carried unani-, mously after the chairman had replied to a few questions.

THE EMPIRE IN FIGURES. Some figures showing the vastness of the British Empire are given in a statistical abstract issued by the Board of Trade this week. The volume relates to the year 1906, and in the absence of a census of the United Kingdom since 1901, contents itself with the figures of the latter year so far as the population is concerned. The total number of people living under the protection of the British flag at that date was 385,000,000. New figures are, however, furnished from the great towns of the Motherland and Colonies, based upon an estimate made in 1906, and they disclose some interesting variations since 1901, 'the most striking fact being that Bombay has superseded Calcutta as the second largest town of the British Empire. It may be interesting to set out the six biggest towns of the Empire in their new order, giving the populations in 1901 by way of contrast with the latest returns: 1906. 1901. London ~-..„ 4,753,000 4,536,000 Bombay , 982,000 776,000 Calcutta 955,000 847,000 Glasgow _ 847,000 761.000 Liverpool 746,000 684,000 Manchester 643,000 543,000 Next in order come Binn_ngh__a (553,----000), Madras (548,000), Sydney (538,000), and Melbourne (526,000). The total import and export trade of the British Empire in 1906 was of a value of £ 1,526,018,000 —an enormous increase over the £926,000.000 recorded in 1892. The division as between foreign and inter-Imperial trade is shown in the following table: — FOREIGN. 1892 1906 Thousand Thousand Imports ...-.,£395,337 £610,079 Exports »..- 302,253 519,699 Totals 697,590 1,129,778 I____R-r__PEKIA__. ,' 1892 1906 Thousand Thousand Imports . ,£_37,731 £243,647 Exports . 91,251 152,593 Totals - 228,982 396,240 Of the entire trade of the Empire, 74 per cent was with foreign countries, and 26 per cent was _f aa inter-imperial character.