WELLINGTON NOTES.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 12024, 10 December 1901, Page 3

WELLINGTON NOTES.

[SPECIAL TO Hawke’s BAT HBEALn.

[by tslkgbaph.] Wellington, Monday. Mr Joseph Mayo, of Palmerston North, has called the attention of the Minister

for Agriculture to the tact that numbers of pineapples are now on sale in that town—and no doubt in many others —largely infested with live mealy bug. This pest, Mr Mayo says, is more to be dreaded in grape culture than phylloxera, for the extirpation of which thousands of, pounds have been paid by the colony, and when once it is established in gardens and conservatories the burning of the whale of the plants and buildings is the only safe remedy. Hautvillers, the winner of the A.J.C. and V.E.C. Derbies, arrived in Wellington on Saturday by the Monowai on bis way to South America, whither he will be sent by the Tongarlro, which leaves here on Friday. He is a massive and wellproportioned amimal, and ought to pay his way in South America if all goes well with him. He was purchased on behalf of Mr Sampson, a wealthy shipowner of Buenos Ayres, and cost 3000 guineas. Mr H. H. Ewin, who was formerly in business at Poverty Bay and Christchurch, but who has been a resident in Buenos Ayres for the last 13 years, completed the purchase, and ho is in charge of the horse. Mr Ewin was engaged until recently in newspaper work in the Argentine, and has also acted as handioapper to the Burlington Club in Buenos Ayres. J. F. Giblin, who was a jookey for Quinn’s stable in Adelaide, goes over to ride Hautvillers in his engagements.

The council of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce ia in communication with the various industrial associations of the colony asking for their opinions as to the effect upon trade of our labor legislation, and the cause of the increased importation of foreign manufactures. The information is being sought in order that it may be submitted to the conference of delegates from the various Chambers of Commerce, which is to be held in Wellington early next year. The Post is interesting itself in the case of Trooper Tasker, who was sentenced to be shot and afterwards imprisoned for sleeping at his post, and who, by order of the King, and at the instigation of Air E. G. Jellioee, is to be released in February. Your contemporary aayS; “In the case of Tasker it becomes the duty of our Government to ask the Com-mander-in-Chief for the facts, and these can only be reached by the possession of official copies of the evidence taken at the Court-Martial. Will the Premier ask for these, and if not why not ? We cannot, and do not, assume that Tasker did cot merit punishment, but we have his own statement, which is that of a young New Zealander of good repute who would be accepted as a credible witness in any Court of the colony. His canse becomes the cause of every trooper we have sent to the front, and of every blood relation of thousands who formed the seven contingents who went to fight for the canse of the Empire. The treatment of the lad on the voyage to the Old Country alone, assuming his story to be true, was in itself brutal, and a disgrace to the British army system. If snob acts are to go unexplained, if not unredressed, we for our part will not be so ardent upon the side of more contingents when they are asked for. The British military courts of South Africa may flog young Africander rebels with present impunity, but they will discover, we trust, that a New Zealander is not to be treated as a common felon for a breach of discipline without this country being fully informed of all the facta as disclosed at the trial.