ANGLO-COLONLAL NOTES.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10238, 6 January 1899, Page 3

ANGLO-COLONLAL NOTES.

(FROM OCR OWN* CORRKSPON'DEN'T.) LONDON, November 25. Over £10,000 has now been subscribed for the projected Antarctic expedition, Mr Alfred Harmsworth having presented an even sum to that given by the Royal Geographical Soeietv, namely, £5000. Sir Clements Markham. the President of the Society, who has been an Arctic explorer himself, and who has subscribed £100, has this week issued a general appeal for help. The Admiralty promises a loan outfit of instruments. The total cost of the expedition is put down at £100,000. Attention is now drawn to the resolution of the New Zealand Legislative Council, last session, on the subject.

It appears that- rather a remarkable discovery 4ias recently been made in your colony. The Dean and Chauter of Windsor has just recovered the enamelled escutcheon of Charles. Earl of Leicester, who was a Knieht of the Garter from 14% till 1526, and it has been placed above the stall in the choir of St. George's Chapel, from which it was mysteriously stolen some fifty years ago. The plate was discovered in New Zealand a fewmonths ago, and the finder was good enough to restore it. He will be glad to know it has been replaced in the spot whence it came. What an unconscionable time it takes for London papers to deal with questions brought before them! Last month an article appeared in a financial paper on the "Public Finances of New Zealand," which contained tie following remarks:—"From the annual statement recently made by Mr Seddon; it appears that the aids to revenue from sinking fund debentures amounts, for the last fourteen years, to £3,085,684, while the amount transferred from the revenue account to the public works account is £1,330,000, leaving over £1,750,000 to be accounted for by the ordinary revenue." Mr Reeves's reply, though it is dated the lst inst.,. only appeared in the last issue of the paper making the foregoing statement. The Agent-General now says : —"Those who have read this statement will infer that this balance of _51,750,000, representing as it does debentures, has been (to use the writer's own absorbed in the aid of ordinary revenue ; but this is not the case. The revenue accounts for the past years show thatwhile on the one hand these accounts have been credited (in accordance with the law of the colony) with 'aids to revenue' from sinking fund debentures, on the other they have been debited with £1,851,000, used for the purpose of redeeming the debentures themselves, thus accounting very satisfactorily, from a financial point of view, for the £1,750,000, with more than £100,000 to spare. This is plainly set forth in the published accounts of the colony." Another belated bit of correspondence brought to light this week is a letter referring to the Article (Xub debate on compulsory conciliation and arbitration. Sir Charles Dilke expressed grave doubts as to the advisableness of such legislation, and said that his experience had been that public opinion was generally uninformed as to the real facts of any labour dispute, and that, therefore, any authorities which might be set up woutd unconsciously, perhaps, be influenced by this circumstance.

In j-eply to this, "A New Zealander" says that the details of labour disputes which come before the Courts are published so fully in the colonial newspapers that the public becomes thoroughly conversant vrith the case for both sides; and "the public opinion thus formed, and the influence it exerts, is one of the strongest forces compelling acceptance of terms on the part of those in the wrong, or rather with the weaker case." This "indireot but irresistible influence of pubuc opinion," he holds to be "perhaps the chief good for which Mr Reeves's Act is responsible."

New Zealand is being pretty well advertised just now. On Sunday afternoon Mr .Reeves was giving an address on old age pensions m one of the most thickly-popu-lated working class districts of London. On Monday evening Mr Herbert Jones, who went through the colony a few years ago gave his limelight lecture on New Zealand to the middle-class residents of Brixton The Agent-General assured his hearers that the social reforms by which New Zealand had distinguisned itself had been accomplished without disturbance of trade; indeed, the colony had been more and more prosperous while these reforms were being developed." *ihe scheme," he said, "was only a beginning," and as to this I imagine a good many in the colony will hope he was not speaking "by the book." It was, he added, more difficult to carry social reforms in England than in New Zealand, "because the democracy had not captured the political machine." He laid it down that the first condition for a recipient to comply with was "poverty," at least, so Mr Reeves is represented, and this leads even one of tho most rabid of democratic dailies to the discover" that a definition of "poverty" is difficult.

More than once I have heard the question asked if this lecturing does any good, or serves any purpose ot-her than give a certain set of hysterical social.democrats something to scream over. But I came across evidence to the contrary the other day. Calling at the Agency-ljeneral I met a man making enquiries as to the best way for himself and his family to get to the colony, and as to how a reduced passage could be secured. He was a brisk little fellow of forty-two years of age, and looked and spoke like a fairly well-to-do mechanic or artisan. He was told that he would have to show that he was worth a little capital before he could get the reduction in fares, and he replied, "Is £10,000 enough? I can satisfy you up to that amount?* and opening his pocket-book he showed bank deposits and bearer securities for more than the sum he had named. As a seeker after an "assisted" passage, with £10.000 in his pocket, was a bit of a curiosity I entered into conversation with him. He told mc that he had worked hard all his life, from early boyhood up, had got together a business of his own, and it had prospered. Now .he thought he would give it up, and give his sons a chance of a career under better conditions than he had enjoyed. Being attracted .by one of Mr Reeves's Sunday afternoon lectures he had formed a partiality for New Zealand, and the Waikato in particular. There* he had determined to-emigrate, put his boys at Linc»ln College for about two years; then if he found his opinions had not been overrated, he should'settle down permanently. So it is evident that sensible and successful men are being-attracted! Dr. C. F. Harford-Battersby, Honorary Secretary of the Native Races and Liquor Traffic United Committee, has replied to Mr Moss, late British Resident at Raratonga, who, it will be remembered, complained of a paragraph in the report of the body named, which seemed to reflect upon his administration of the liquor laws in the Cook Islands. In'this reply, the doctor says that the paragraph has not been rightly quoted, but to a casual reader there would appear to be very little difference between what Mr Moss says and the doctor's version. However, be that as it may, the reply throws a little more light upon the question. A certain Mr CrossfieJd, it is said, visited Raratonga, not so very remotely, and the Queen earnestly requested that he and his travelling companion, the Rev. Wardlaw Thompson, on their return, should bring before the people of this country the demoralisation of the native race through,the British protectorate. The Committee, on whose behalf Dr. Harford-Battersby writes, went carefully into the matter, and "they have passed no vote of censure upon the British Resident, but, instead, have drafted a letter to the Queen and the Arikis, telling them that if they will persist, as it is evident they are doing, in encouraging the sale of liquor themselves, they can hardly throw the blame upon the British authorities."

Louis Bceke gives the "Pall Mall Gazette" a characteristic bit of writing on the acquisition, by the United States, of a coaling station at Kinsaie (or Strong's Island), in the Pacific, where he was shipwrecked in the early seventies when occupying the distinguished position of supercargo to Captain "Bully" Hayes. He deplores the depopulation of the group, for, at the present time the natives there do not exceed, he says, 400. This he puts down "to scrofulous complaints, accelerated by the awful theology of the American Board of Missions, which, like that of many of our own missionaries in Tonga and Fiji, in former years, impliedly teaches that the mao who does not wear • shirt sod pants canaot

enter tie Kingdom of Heaven. The disastrous result's which attend this peculiar course of reasoning may be seen everywhere in the Pacific—equally with Micronesian, Polynesian, or Melanesian." Among dividends announced this week, the New Zealand and Australian Land Company recommend a dividend on the ordinary stock of 5 per cent, for the year ending March 31st last, payable one half on December 10th, and half on June 10th. Tlie directors of the New Zealand Trust and Loan Company have resolved to pay, on December 31st, an interim dividend of 2s 6d per share for tie half year ending June 30ti last upon ordinary shares, being at the rate of 5 dot cent, per annum. Messrs Hawthorn, Leslie and Co.'s shipbuilding yard at Newa-sUe-on-Tyne was the scenej a few days ago, of tlie launch of the latest addition to the New Zealand Shipping Company's fleet, a vessel 421 ft by 54ft 6in, by 29ft. * She was- christened the Wakanui, but I gather tbat there is an objection to the name in New Zealand; she will therefore be renamed before being registered, but what that name will be has not yet been decided. Philatelists will be interested in knowing that for the Imperial Penny Postage, which is to come into operation on Christmas Day, it is not intended to produce any special stamp, as Somerset House can meet the demand out of its large reserve. The Controller is authorised by law to keep a stock of ten millions' worth in the various strong rooms on the Thames Embankment, and, lest the outbreak of fire should uy any mischance destroy the stock, they are divided among several parts of tlie great building, just as is usual to separate a stock of gunpowder into several small detachments. The explosion of a powder magazine would create hardly more topsy-turvyising in the world around than a general flare up of our whole stock of postage stamps. Postage stamps are not made at Somerset House, though at one time they were all brought there to be perforated. ' Messrs de la Rue and Co. are the contractors. Our present set of stamps were adopted in January, 1887, and no forgeries have ever yet been known. Business people in this country are giving eveiy encouragement to the new Canadian steamship line from Aiilford to Pesebiax, in Canada, of which I informed you last mail, and particulars of wbich are now appearing in the London Press. The sympathetic cooperation of the Great Western Railway Company is, of course, assured, for the point of departure and arrival is at their Welsh terminus. This Company intend giving through rates. The first vessel, the Gospesia, oaves Milford on December 7th.

The following resolution has been adopted by the Council of the Royal Colonial Institute: —"Tlie Council desire to record the great satisfaction they feel on the outcome of the Imperial Conference on Postal Rates, held in London in July, by which a letter rate of one penny is at the end of the year, to come into force between the Mother Country, India, and various important colonies; and believing as they do that the cheapening of postal facilities cannot fail to strengii&n the bonds which linite the different portions of the Empire, the Council trust that such difficulties as may still exist to prevent the universal adoption of such a rate between all parts of the Empire may soon be removed.' A vote of thanks is appended to those who have promoted this reform, especially to Mr Henniker Heaton, M.P.

A London weekly paper says: — 'The Italian priest who, preacihing in a London church adjured the congregation to beware of the world, the devil, and 'the meat,' was unconsciously on the spot. When foreign mutton was first imported—especially New Zealand—l admired its flavour. Latterly, all the foreign meat I have come across has been hard, stringy, and tasteless. For this unpleasant phenomenon I.am unable to assign either a reason or a suspicion. The fact remains, and the meat is as bad as hhe devil and worse than the world."

C.C. and D. debentures amounting to £5000 have been drawn for payment, at £105, oh January 2nd next.

At the fifty-eighth annual meeting of the P. and O. Company, to be held on the 9th December, the Directors, after providing for the usual dividend of 5 per cent, per annum on the preferred stock, will recommend a dividend on the deferred stock of b_ per cent, for the six months to end last account, making, with the interim dividend of 3£. per cent: paid in June, a total distribution on the deferred stock of 10 per cent, for the year. Last year there was a bonus of 3 per cent, paid on this stock, making a total distribution of 13 per cent.