Notes and Comments.

Feilding Star, Volume V, Issue 1404, 31 January 1911, Page 2

Notes and Comments.

We noted in ojui , leading article in Saturday's issue on Clause 13 of the new Shops and Offices Act that a storm of protest was brewing over not only the . restrictive legislation, but upon its too-hasty application— before persons concerned in it could get copies of the Statutes. Our forecast of trouble for the Government has been quickly confirmed. Dr. Findlay, Minister of Justice, stated at Wellington yesterday that a good deal of pressure was being brought to bear on him to submit proposals to the Government that in future all Statutes, excepting those of which operation was urgently needed at once, should not come into force earlier than March 1 after the session in which they are passed. The reason urged was that the legal profession and public should have a fair opportunity to study the laws before they took effect. The Minister expressed sympathy with this request, and said 1 lie was carefully considering the matter, with a view to ' bringing it before the Government. No such action, however, could bo j taken in regard to the Statutes .>f last session. .

*i cable message received from London last night announces the death of Mr John Lockwood Kipling, father of tlie famous Aiigio-Indian author. The late Mr Kipling made frequent appearances on the lecture platform, and he was wont to get wrath whenever he was introduced by chairmen as ''the father of. the famous Rudyard Kipling." On one such'Ocasion he retorted, "It must be remembered that before Rudyard was, I was." J.L.K., who evidently was not of those who ' ; live again" in their children, was doubly a son of the manse, for his father was a clergyman and in 1865 ho married a daughter of the Rev. G. ii. Macdonald (Wesleyan). So that, on his wife's side the late Mr Kipling was related to those two famous artists, Sir P. Bur«ne-Jones and Sir E. J. Poynter. Mr Kipling, who was born in 1837, spent a great deal of his life in the educational service of India, and was created a Companion of the Order of tho Indian Empire (C.1.E.) in 1886. He was architectural sculptor at the Bombay School of Art from 1865 to 1875 (at which time Rudyard was ten years of age), and for the I next eighteen years was- Principal of the Mayo School of Art and Curator of the Central Museum at Lahore. Then he retired to England, residing at Tisbury, Salisbury. Mr Kipling, who the author of one book,

"Beast and Man in India," survived his wife only a few weeks.

On page 4 of to-day's issue of the Stab we publish in condensed form the late Sir Charles Dilke's description of a visit to Parewanui Pah in company with Dr. Featherston in 1867, when the Wellington Superintendent secured for the State that great rich area of land which runs from Bulls to the sea coast. We have reprinted this article, firstly as a tribut to a gifted man who has jiist passed awa.y—a. man who might have done great things for the Empire overseas with which he was so familiar had he not been broken upon the wheel of the unforgotten and the rniforgiven; secondly, because of its literary -merit and accuracy as a bit of early history; further, because just now"there is a large and special gathering of Maoris at the Parewanui Pah; and yet again because it is well ihat our memories should be revived upon historic events in a young country that has" so little history. Considering that Sir was a young man when he visited New Zealandhe was not then 25 years of age—his impressions of its people were wonderfully accurate, and so was his spelling of our very difficult names of men and places and things. We are sure our readers—of the risen as well as the rising generation will read the story of the Parewanui Pah with deep interest, and if it drives them to make; a full acquaintance with "Greater Britain," then that will be of more interest to them still.