THE NEW ZEALAND ASSOCIATION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 72, 28 March 1910, Page 8

THE NEW ZEALAND ASSOCIATION.

ANNUAL REPORT. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 11th February. At the Westminster Palace Hotel, next w.eek, the annual meeting is to be held of the New Zealand Association. The business wilJ be followed by a whist drive. The annual report, which is signed by the hon. sec, Mr. J. P. Whitelaw, says the committee arc in the happy position of being able to announce the fact that the association has now turned the corner with regard to finance. For the first time since the initial year of its existence the association has a credit balance, all outstanding liabilities having been wiped out. This is all the more satisfactory when it is remembered that for the past two years the association has had to struggle under a heavy burden of debt. The year was started with a deficit of £87. To meet this, Mr. C. Wray Palliser (hon. treasurer) advanced £85, and the repayment of this timely loan has _ been the first call on the association's revenue in the past twelve months. The committee report that since the close of 1909 the balance of the debt owing to Mr. Palliser has been repaid, and a credit balance of £24 19s 5d has accumulated. As the subscriptions for 1910 come in this balance will be considerably increased. From the social standpoint, the association has once more proved its usefulness as a means' of rallying the New Zealand living in Kngland or visiting the country. In February a teception was given in honour ot the High Commissioner and Mrs. HallJones. The whist drives have proved popular, and the annual dance in January is now a well established feature. Now that the association is clear of debt it should be possible to enlarge the scope of its social usefulness, and to that end suggestions from members are invited. Thanks to the financial help and services of Mr. Wray Palliser and to the loyal co-operation of the members, the association is now safely launched on the way to prosperity ; but it is not too much to say that without tho guiding hand of tho hon. treasurer it might easily have come to an untimely end.

A sinister clue to the terrible fate which has evidently overtaken two German tourists who were missing in the Alps is reported in a Zurich cablegram. The two young men, student*, named Walter Spohr and Km.st Russian, started with a third student on a feki tour from Liuthal, via Clariden hut, and over the Claridcn-firn and the Hueti hut to Am«teg, in the Maderan valley, a trip which in often undertaken in winter. When the party were half-way to the Clariden hut the third student turned, back, thinking th© vealher too threatening. Two or thiee days later, having heard nothing from his comrades, he gave the alaim, and two beaich parties went out. Alter » long and aiduouii journey one of the parties 1 cached the Huefi hut, wher» they found a diary and two letters lelt by the misting men, but no other trace of them. The diary contained the following entries :— "18th January. — Arrived at Hueti hut. Heavy snowstorm. LTreat danger fiom avalanches. No chaucb ot returning or going on." "19th January. — Food very naice. Tried to descend, but after two hours' terrible march thiough deep miow had to return, being unable to find right direction. Cold intente. Hope help will come soon, or it will be too late. "20th January. — Avalanches thundered close by throughout night. Our fate in sealed. Accompanying letters diiect our relatives what to do with our belongings if fo.md dead." "21*t January. — Made another atttnipt to leturu to Linthal, but failed, ;md leturncd to hut. Food at an end." "22nd January. — Snow wow than ever, but must make another attempt — probably our last — to get back to Clariden hut." It i* feaied (adds the nitfccage) that in making this attempt both the btudents perished. The people of .the Middle Weft are in levoll against thr high pi ices of food (wrote the Chicago coriespondent of the Manchester Guardian in tebruniy). This revolt has taken a practical form, and will have far-reaching and benofuifll eQectft upon v situation which is fast becoming intolerable to people of small and moderate means. A meat boycott has been established, and tho move* meat, which started in Cleveland, Ohio, with a few thousand pledging themselves not to eat meat until the pike charged by Iho .Betf Trust was loweied to a leasonable n'gure, has spiead to a number of other cities, taking the definite shape of a pledge not to buy or cat meat until Ist March. The cities joining in the movement are Cleveland, I'ittsburg, Toledo, Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, Denver, and St. 1-oiiis. It is mainly tho labouring classes who have adhered to the movement, though numbers of families whose breadwinner* are clciks and shop assistants have also subscribed to the pledge. Tho labour unions have taken it up, and it is estimated now that more than 500,000 heads of families have joined the boycott, which means on a conservative estimate that between 2.000,060 and 2.500,000 persons will nbstain from meat, for forty days. The labour unions also started d movement in lonuection with the boycott to send v petition to Washington asking for the abolition of the tariff duties on meat, so that meat may be allowed to come in duty free from Canada, Argentine, and Mexico. It it also proposed that the Government and municipalities should take over the ownership of the present packing-houses, or else establish slaughter and packing-houses of their own. The boycott toon caused a reduction in the prices of meat, and in some of tho cities where tjie boycott is strongest many retailers closed their doors. In America the adhei?uts of political and other movements wear buttons as distinguishing marks, and in this case hundreds of thousands of boycott buttons have been turned out, and aie being worn with the inscription "No moat for me until Ist March." Senator Brislow, of Kansas, one of the most aggressive of the progressive Republicans in the Senate, approves the movement, and hones that tho Beef Trust will be brought to terms. He declares that the Trust "has run tho prk» of beefsteak up to 16 6d per pound in order to roll up the immoral pion'ts of the combination to 35 per cent, during the la»t year on tome - J6.4, 000^9©,. oil