"ON PERSIAN SOIL."

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 148, 23 June 1906, Page 15

"ON PERSIAN SOIL."

There must be a .panic among Ministers of State at Teheran (says St. James's Budget). The Shah- has placed orders for the supply of several pairs of moton skates. Locomotion is too serious a matter with the Shah for him rashly to venture upon these alarming engines ; those mysteriously capacious boots of his would be in danger. It is a law of the land that the Shall shall not quit Persian soil. 4 ,He does not quit it ; ho . takca/ifc ivitli him-— a nice - ltttlo plot of best Jer.sian.. mould stowed between hia soles. and uppers, so that, go whero ho may,. he is literally on Persian soil, even though that soil .bo superimposod upon that of Londbn or Paris. No, the Ministers will have to do the skating. They •lid when Sir Mortimer Durand introduced ice skates, to Teheran. The late Shah caw and was delighted. Ho bor-j-owecla dozen pairs of skates, clappoa them on hjs Ministers, and sent them staggering madly,' .over the ice. Such wholesale, upsetting of Persian dignity there never before had been ; such unastronomical stars those wise men saw. But to have refused to skate would have been to sacrifice their heads.

In Auckland (writes "Artizan" in the Weekly News) tho wharf labourers arc in many instances better paid than tho ruling rote in the South. A union was formed in Auckland some few years ago, but it was found that tho men had more to lose than to gain in an appeal to the Arbitration Court, judging through tho results attained by the southern unions. In fact preference to unionists was about the only thing that could bo asked for, so after duo consideration it was deemed advisable to cancel tho reg istration of the union and keep on under the ruling conditions. -Speaking from experience, I can say that the employera deal fairly and justly with the men nnd there ia an absence of that feeling of antagonism that is eoniewhat noticeable in several of the trades.

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