THE PREMIER AND THE CONTINGENTS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9815, 26 August 1897, Page 6

THE PREMIER AND THE CONTINGENTS.

(FROM OUB OWN CORBESPON DEHT.)

LONDON, July 16.

When I posted my previous letter the New Zealand Premier was just starting from London for Cheshire, to pay a visit, by invitation, to Mr Gladstone at Hawarden Castle. The visit was entirely quiet and unceremonious. Mr Gladstone was particularly well and in great conversational form, chatting with marvellous animation and power of memory. After inspecting the Hawarden library the visitors retired to the terrace with Mr and Mrs Gladstone, Miss Helen Gladstone, Mrs W. H. Gladstone and Mrs Drew, and had afternoon tea under the shade of a venerable hawthorn. Subsequently, a photographer being present, a most excellent photograph was taken of a group of five, with Mr Gladstone in the middle and two Premiers on each side. In the picture Mr Gladstone wears his hat, his four guests sitting beside him bareheaded. The host begged that his visitors would wear their hats, but one of them replied that if they wore their hats in his presence they could never venture to show themselves among their own people again. Mr Gladstone and Mr Seddon undoubtedly come but best in tha photograph, the likeness of the New Zealand Premier being particularly good. Later in the evening the Colonial visitors proceeded by invitation to Gwydyr Castle on a visit to Lord Carrington, with whom they stayed over the Sunday, returning to town on the Monday morning.

Tuesday Mr Seddon spent at Henley, visiting Mr J. H. Withefprd in the houseboat Rouge et Noir, which the latter has taken for the Henley season. On Tuesday evening Mr and Mra Seddon, the Misses Seddon, and Mr W. Crow travelled to Scotland ;■ they are staying for a day or two at Annan in Dumfriesshire. Thence they go to Dublin, returning to Liverpool on Sunday night and coming back to town on Monday. Practically tlte Chelsea encampment of colonial troops is now entirely broken up ; the European New Zealanders are scattered far and wide, paying visits to friends and relatives, and seeing different parts of the country. Their plans for returning home to New Zealand, to which I referred last week, remain practically unaltered. Some of them will go by the Ruahine, the others by the various later steamers.

The Maori troopere are still quartered at Chelsea Barracks, but as the officers' mess is broken up they'generally go out for their meals. One of them had a rather disheartening experience at ata-tintj. He went to several restaurants for lunch, but he said, he found all the nice places very dear, white at the cheaper places the people were not at all nice. In one case, he said, when he looked at the bill of fare and had added up the items he found to his horror that the lunch would cost him over £3, and in another case a similar process of addition brought the cost considerably over £2. So he fled with alarm. He was very much surprised, and at the same time relieved, when he learned that he was not supposed either to consume or to pay for all the items on the list, which of course were simply optional, and were merely set down with the separate price of each. I should imagine that if that worthy Maori had tried to wade through such a list as he inspected his next experience would have been residence in the hospital under treatment for acute dyspepsia. During the week the New Zealanders have been most handsomely and generously entertained, both at Scarborough and at Croydon, the Mayor and Corporation in each case being the hosts and the public enthusiasm being very great. All the hospitalities were on the most lavish and brilliant scale.