WELLINGTON NOTES.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13738, 20 May 1910, Page 10

WELLINGTON NOTES.

(special TO "THE press.") WELLINGTON, May 19. A number of horses aro being taken to the East by the Union Company's steamer Aparima. which has arrived here. Fifty were shipped at- Auckland, and another twenty-two will be taken from Lyttelton. Most of the animals are of the hack variety, for cabs.and expresses, there being a considerable demand for these in India at present. Writing from the Navy League Sea Training. House. Lieutenant Knox, in a letter to the local hon. secretary of the League, says:—"Before I leave. I am to give the boys a lecture on New Zealand. I much enjoy lecturing on tho country which was co kind to mc, and do not set half as many opportunities of doing so as I should like. I attended the debate on the Naval Estimates in thc House of Commons, .and sat through seven hours of it. The programme on paper is fairly good, but as 1 have said on the platform, and in the Press, it is not this yeax's programme at all, but next year's, as out of its total, only £1,429,040 is to be voted for this year, and not one of the five battleships is to be commenced till January, 1D11." Speaking of the dullness of the iron and engineering trades in Wellington, which was dwelt upon at the recent conference of ironmasters, a Wellington master engineer, who has lately spent some time touring the country, stated to a "Dominion reporter that there was work in plenty awaiting the arrival of better times. He instanced several <rase* where new machinery and boilers were badly needed, but owing to the uncertainty as to the trend of things and the inertia of trade, the owners, while admitting that their plant needed repairing or replacing, were content to potter along or close down until tho prospects improved. This applied, he continued, to some of the Haxmills, which were running with machinery that in a more or less degree was in neer 1 of attention or replacing altogether. The excuse given by the owners for not keeping their plant tip-to-date was the uncertainty of the market, or a shortage ot money as the result of the recent wpakness in the market. "They all seem to be living a hand-to-mouth existence," said the '•Dominion's" informant, l, and as long as that continues, there will be a dullness in the iron trade in New Zealand."