Notes and Comments.

Feilding Star, Volume V, Issue 1451, 27 March 1911, Page 2

Notes and Comments.

Evfn if one takes into account the uncertainties of cricket, it looks as if the premiership of tho Manawatu is to again be vested in Feildmg, iud<nug by Saturday's game. Ihe champions of Palmerston met the Feilding A team and only succeeded in knocking up 105 in their first innings, a score which Ongley and Irevena more than equalled by themselves. The conditions of the contest are that the game is to be decided on the first innings, if no conclusion is arrived at next Saturday, and as the Feilding team has a lead of 70 with only four wicket's down, it looks like a China orange to Lombard street in their favour.

The ceremony to take place at Apiti on Wednesday in connection with the opening of the new technical school marks another step in the march of progress the Ap_iti residents are noted for, and we doubt whether any other community of the size possesses so many ardent workers devoted to the public welfare as this settlement on the banks of the Oroua river. Half the cost of the building has been raised locally, and the progress made by the local technical classes fully warrants the arrangements made for their better housing. In fact, when xoOOO was granted ■ for a technical school in Napier the total number of students was only about the same as at Apiti. It is very satisfactory to know that the settlers are alive' bo the importance of technical classes, and the Apiti director deserves, well at their hands for the energy and enthusiasm he has instilled into this important movement.

The Lyttelton Times mentions on Saturday that the non-arrival of the Terra Nova must soon become a matter of concern. The boat was expected to reach Half Moon Bay, which is to be the first port of call, nob later than the fifteenth of this month, and is now ten days overdue. The Nimrod expedition was delayed in MacMurdo Sound until March 4, 1909, by the late return of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his party from the march towards the South Pole, and had then very considerable difficulty in getting free from the ice. Open water was not reached until March 10, and the little ship, which is slower than the Terra Nova 3 dropped anchor close to Half Moon Bay on March 22. The risk of their vessel becoming locked in the ice is one that all polar explorers have to face.. If the Terra Nova should not return to New Zealand during the next few weeks it will, no doubfc, be deemed necessary to send down a relief ship next December.

It is pleasant to find a sturdy party paper like the Lyttelton Times speaking well of the Leader of the Opposition. Referring to Mr Massey's speech afc Kaiappi, our contemporary says: Mr Massey may be warmlycon- , gratulated upon the manner of the speech he delivered at Kaiapoi last night. Those of his audience who remembered his first appearance on the same platform seven years ago must have been impressed by the vaet improvement ho had "made as a public speaker in the interval. At times he rose almost to the heights of oratory and he never fell to the depths of mere talk. He was concise, some l times incisive, always "lucid, and occasionally effective, even from the party point of view. Taken altogether his speech was_ easily the best presentation of tho case for the Opposition that we have yet had in Canterbury, and we can heartily join with his more effusive friends in hoping that it will be repeated in the more populous parts of the province before the conclusion of his electioneering campaign. Such good material should not be wastod in a forlorn attempt to oust one of the most popular country members of the present House of Representatives. Tho leader of the Opposition, to do him justice, does not ■trim his- party sails to catch every passing breeze of public oDin-. ion/ and apart from the altered time

and altered circumstances there is no great? difference between his political platform of 1911 and his political platform of 1904. . . . For the rest we are very glad to see the leader of the Opposition in Canterbury again, helping on the cause of Liberalism, as he would say himself, and we are sure that however much the people may differ from him politically they will have nothing but cordial appreciation for his qualities as a man.