Untitled

Bruce Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 2264, 12 May 1891, Page 3

The licensing election and local option ! poll for the Borough of Milton take place to-day. Rabbits are so plentiful at Cromwell that the Corporation has decided to call for tenders for destroying them within the borough. The ' Wanganui Herald ' says that the Government has decided to institute a penny postage in the colony. The ' Herald ' should know, being Mr Balance's paper. Messrs Hutchison, Fish, and Pinkerton, Ma.H.R. have been addressing unionists in Duuedin and exhorting them to stick to their colors and all that sort of thing. If is calculated that the Tasmanian orohardiflfcs will this year realise a net return for fruit sent to London by the P. and O. boats alone of fully £70,000. MeOabew, R.M., gave judgment yeaterdsy in the angling dispute case, Fraser v

Thompson, for the plaintiff, and ordered the defendant to give up possession of the AndersoH medal to plaintiff. He aßsaesaed the value at £10. Defendant to pay costs, £4 3a 6d. The supply of Koch's tuberculine at the Dunedin hospital is almoßt exhausted, and consequently no fresh cases can be received for this special line of treatment at present. The two oaßea— lupus and lung disease, are showing improvement, but as yet no definite opinion can be founded upon them as to the value of the remedy. Our New Zealaud old soldiers are like the survivors of the American Civil War, there is no finality to t'teir claims. Our very economical Government is said to be preparing a bill to ex'eod the privileges of the present Act to all whose claims have been favourably reported upon by the Royal Commissioners. According to the ' Dunstan Times ' the sbeepowners in that district are rejoicing because the boom in sheep has pretty well cleared everything off. The worthless old crawlers are gone and a lot of good money left in their place. The prices given in some cases were far and away above local ideas of value. The other night in the House of Commonß Mr Labouohere made his 201 st speech on the Egyptian question. This will, we should think, almost deserve to be bracketed with the number of times Sir George Grey has addressed our House of Representatives on the " one man one vote " question, or has ahed tears over the fearful impending fate of the "unborn millions." The Federal Convention Bill drafted by Sir Samud Griffith was so perfect in substance and in form that the Convention could make no amendment on it, with the exception of one two slight alterations of no importance. To its astonishment the Convention found ita work finished, and that there was nothing further to be done but congratulate the author of the bill and dissolve itseif. The Rivertm people are just now in a state of great excitement about their harbor, which they want made the seaport for Southland. The local paper, and the In vercargill papers, w hich naturally take the other Bide, are full of articles and correspondence on the subject. One of the beet things said was by a writer to the ' WeEtern Star ': "The Almighty Engineer created this port and left very litt'e for us to improve on." A singular statement is published in an Australian paper, to the effect that the Victorian Department of Agriculture having sought information from farmers relative to rust in wheat, 125 replies, with one exception pronounce in favour of undrained land. Whether the farmers mean that draining promotes rust, or object to draining for other reasons, is not stated. It is generally understood that draining is in all cases an unquestionable advantage. The following paragraph, which concludes the annual report of the Council of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society, cannot fail to prove of interest :— " The coastal waters of New Zealand are rapidly becoming atocked with sea-going varieties of trout, the effect of which on our New Zealand fisheries will no )n be felt. Your Council have in the past endeavored to avoid drifting into a mere shooting or fishing club— a rock on which so many similar societies have been wrecked : and, before concluding, would urge upon their succes3or3 to pursue the same line of conduct and strive for the public interest." Sir Charles Lilley, Chief Justice of Queensland, received a letter from the Australian Socialist League thanking him for his recent address " supporting the shearers in their attempt to resist the tyrannous oppression of the Queensland Government and the organised forces of unscrupulous capital." Sir Charles has replied to the effect that his remarks were either misreporfced or misunderstood. Of course, no judge would so express himself from the Bench unless he intended to resign his office immediately oa the rising of the court. The Dalkieth (Scotland) Agricultural Society has decided to ask the landlords for permission to have 24 hours' continuous firing, so that rooks may be kept off their eggs, on account of the destruction they do among the crops. This seems a very strange thing to do, and can oDly be accounted for on the ground that the rooks have changed their habits of late. Twenty years ago an Engliah farmer regarded a rookery on his farm as a mo6t valuable institution, and would have been very indignant if anybody lifted a gun to the birds. Even the dictionary describes the rook as a bird feeding on worms and insects The annual report of the Australian Mutual Provident Association gives the new business during the year as 12,272 policies, equal to £3,797,000 producing premiums amounting to £129,679. The revenue from all sources was £1,741,000. The accumulated funds have increaaed by £825,000, and now amount to over nine and three quarter millions. Toe stringency of the standard valuations of securities hae been increased. The amount available for distribution in bonuses is £467,000, showing a marked increase on previous years. The report stateß that their assurances in New Z3aland amount to nearly fire millions. Mr E. Stewart is the local agent The other day Mr L. Nelson was treated to a supper by the proprietors of the ' Stirling Journal,' t-> commemorate the completion of seventy years of service in the office of the paper. Just imagine, Beventy long years of standing before the case and picking up type. Seventy years of any calling would be terribly monotonus. The incident; may by noteworthy on account of its exceptional charact3r, but the inference is that the man must have got mighty poor pay, or been very careleßS with his money, or he would not need to be hard at work right up to the fourscore years which is the allotted age of man even when lengthened by an additional ten. . ,;: •Punch' 'had -a cartoon the other day on the subject of colonial federation. It is fchttfl

described and oritioiaed by a London daily :— "Mr Punch could not have blundered more awkwardly than in making ' Victoria ' row atroke to New South Wales's • seven ' in his otherwise clever boating sketch, in which he figures Australia's progress to Federation. Good gracious ! To put New South Wales, the mother and premier colony, second to Victoria is enough to smash up the whole scheme of confederation and send Sir Harry Parkes sulking to his tent. It is precisely New South Wales's recognition of the claims of the Federation movement, and her subsequent headship of it, which has made the thing possible and practicable. Victoria alone never oould have done it." An act called the Contagious Diseases Act, which practically legalises what is called the social evil, was in operation in Cbristohurch for some years, but sometime ago its provisions were repealed, that is to say, the Christchurcb. authorities decided that it should no longer be operative in that city. Whether this was a wise thing to do we oannot Bay, but Mr Beetham, the R.M. there, does not appear to think so. In dealing with a case in which the license of a hotel was forfeited for being improperly conducted, Mr Beetham said the state of things disclosed was the result of the work of the goody-goody people who had advo« cated the repeal of the provisions of the Act. A magistrate who will make such remarks from the Bench ought to be severely reprimanded by the authorities. The Government Insurance Depirtment brought an action into the Magistrate's Court yesterday afternoon (says the Wellington ' Post ' of Tuesday) to recover a sum of £22 Os lid from Wm. John Dyer, insurance agent, of Oamaru, J. L. Gillies, of Dunedin, and S. V. Dyer, of Invercargill, the two last named being sued as bondsmen. The sum stated was claimed to have been a debt contracted during the time the defendant, W. J. Dyer, waa employed as travelling agent for the department. It waß contended by Mr Hislop in defence, that the defendant was entitled to commission amounting to £21 7s 6d upon proposals received by him but not completed until after his retirement from the service of the department ; and as a further defence on the part of the sureties that there had been an improper diversion of part of defendant's earnings for the purpose of paying off an old debt of £20. Judgment was reserved. A North Island paper describes at length an incident in " the burlesque on retrenchment " which is now being carried out in such style by our Whig Government. A Miniater went to one of the chief officers of his department, got a list of all the officials employed, drew his pen through a number of them and ordered them to be retrenched. This was done in due courße, and the discharged officials received compensation. Shortly afterwards the Minister wanted some returns prepared, and being in a distant part of the colony, telegraphed to that effect. He received a reply asking how the work was to be done without the necessary officials. After some parleying, the officer in charge of the department waa instructed to employ the old hands, as they knew the work, at 103 a day. But the eld hands stood on their dignity and refused to come back except at the old rates of pay. There was no help for it, and they had to be engaged on those terms. The English in the United States own more than one billion dollars' worth of property. So says the ' New York Commercial Advertiser.' A billion dollars is equivalent to two hundred million pounds Bterling. Senator Hawley asked " What are you going to do when you find British warvessels in the harbor of New York 7" and the journal referred to replied, "With the first gun fired by a British cruiser we are going to confiscate every dollar of property owned by Great Britain in the United States." These are brave words, and the States have two, just two, war vessels to back the threat up with. Of course these are only words. Before there would be time to begin the work of confiscation New York would be in ruins, every port would be blockaded, and the Union Jack would be flying over the Capitol. Such a thing will never come to pass, but the Yankees might be a little more circumspeot in their language when talking about an empire which dominates the world. Concerning the Lovells Flat committee election, " Civis " writes in the ' Witness ' : "The Bruce Herald, missing the philosophy of it all, wails over ' local quarrelsomeness ' and ' personal spite and spleen.' Nothing of the kind. Rightly regarded, it is the healthy expression of the exuberant energy of a people who are wrestling with the monotony of their environment. (Neatly put, that, I flatter myself.) Of conrse it may be that the Education Board will not look at it in this way, but the board never did possess much philosophy." We thank "Civis " for that neat phrase, " wrestling with the monotony o' their environment." It may be useful to explain the little games of the Russian nihilisto, the Mafia people in the States, and Plan of Campaign men in Ireland. All of them, aa well as the Lovells Flat people, are just " wrestling with the monotony of their environment." If Professor Drummond should read this paragraph, he will be able to found upon it a sequel to his wonderful book 'Natural Law in the Spiritual World.' Lord Salisbury is a very shrewd man, and his opinions are worth the most careful consideration. Iv the course of a recent address before the Associated Chamber of Commeroe, in London, he had something to say about trade unioniam. The following extract from bis speeoh ought to be printed in letters of heroic size, and copies hung up in the meeting room of every trades union in the colonies. After expressing his opinion on the right of men in various trades to combine for the conservation of their own interests, he said ;—" But the co-relative of unions was perfect freedom net to have unions. ' The corollary of liberty of uniting was an absolute liberty of refusing to unite, and the State— all who bore office in this

country — were bound to do their utmost that' each man in his own discretion might use his own liberty to dispose as he thought best of whatever commodity, including that greatest of commodities, his labour, according as he might judge to his interest. In the long run facts would be stronger than sophistries or theories, and the f aotß would require that men should work as they pleased." ' l For good quality of Furniture and best value for your cash visit J. Bremner's ( Union-street, Milton, before purchasing elsewhere. — Advt. !