ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7401, 1 March 1902, Page 2

ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

l/iuapuodsaxioo umo -iao uioj^) LONDON, January 10. Y'know Canon Mac Coll? Anyhow i you have heard of him. This cleric contributes an article to the "Fortnightly" ostensibly on the relations lof England and Russia, but the South African King Charles's head crops up ever and anon, and from the Canon we learn several things. I Annexation is wrong. ("anon MacColl protested against it in the case of Alsace and Lorraine, and therefore he ought to know. He is also certain that peace could have been made after the capture of Pretoria if the Boers had been offered "a modified independence.'' saddled with an indemnity of a hundred millions. Another of the Canon's judgments is that we pay too much attention to the opinion of the colonies. " 'Greater Britain' is a phrase which British patriotism should resent as insulting." ' The League, of the Children of the Empire, whose objects are to impress upon the youth of the Empire the duty of loyalty and patriotism; to encourage and further their training in all matters c"..culated to make them efficient citizens in any part of the Empire; to promote friendly intercourse between children in different parts of the Empire; proposes to have at the Coronation festivities a special stand for the children of different parts lof the Empire, so that they may -watch the pageants side by sid*\ and comradeship be thereby encouraged. The league, of which Miss Melian Stawell is corresponding secretary for Australia, has now some l(3u0 members and 14 branches. It provides children with correspondence comrades, encourages its boys to join cadet corps and boys' brigades, makes arrangements for their joining shooting, riding, grooming, and handicraft classes, and for the girls taking up cookery, laundry, and ambulance work, and expects shortly to produce a monthly magazine. Apropos of the unveiling of the monument to the late Baron Von Mueller, the "Pall Mall Gazette" remarks: — "Australia has some reason to be pi-oitd of her German colonists, and particularly of those on the scientific side. The story of Ludwig Leichhardt and his brother-in-law, Classen, will thrill the minds and hearts of young Australians for centuries. to come. In their enthusiasm for the work of exploration ■these brave fellows were finally swallowed up in the bleaching sands Of the interior desert, no ti-ace of the party having ever been found. Then there was ' Gerard Ivrerit, Curator of the Australian Museum, in Sydney, who did so much for natural history in the new and strange field on the Antipodean Continent, and who becoming testy as years and hard work began > tell upon him. was ignominiously bundled out of his position by an ignorant and ungrateful Government. There was also Sir Julius von Haast, but he settled in New Zealand, and gave his life-work to that •fortunate colony. Baron von Mueller grew testy in his old age, but Victoria gladly bore his eccentricities, and was proud of him and them. Now she. has Übevr.lly marked his memory, and it is money handsomely spent, as is the custom in 'Australia Felix.' " Very appropriately the "British Journal of Commerce" in its number published at the time of goodwill to all, Christmas, to wit, devotes a two- ' page article to the business of Lovell and Christmas, a company which is now just half a century old, which de- : votes special attention to the products ■ of New Zealand, and which, although I its prospectus, when the firm was floated into a company, guaranteed only a dividend of 8 per cent., has paid a dividend of 11 per cent. Sfnce 1896. when the company was formed, it has more than trebled its warehouse accommodation, and has erected large cold stores both at West Smithfield and St. John-street, Clerkenwell. Lovell and Christmas ..are just about to erect some extensive stores with refrigerators in* Montreal to enable them to handle Canadian produce more effectively. The King has confirmed the authority given by Queen Victoria to the Lords of the Admiralty for the issue of a medal to commemorate the operations in North China in 1900. The medal will be granted to all officers, warrant officers, petty and noncommissioned officers and men of the 1 British, .lndian and Colonial naval and military forces who were employed in North China and in the Yang--t.se Valley from 10th June, WOO, to 31st December, 1000. and to all who embarked in India for service in China in the expedition under the • command of General Gaselee. The medal will be similar in pattern Io the silver medal granted for the China war of 1842 and IS6O, except that the obverse of the medal will bear the same effigy of Queen Victoria as the South African medal with the legend "Victoria Regina et Imperatrix." The King has approved clasps being issued as follows: A cTasp inscribed "Taku Forts" to all those who were engaged in the Peiho .River on June 17, "15)00, in the operations which resulted in the capture ! of the Taku Forts; a clasp inscribed

"Defence of Legations" to all who took part in the defence of the Legations in Pekin between June 10 and August 14, 1900; a clasp inscribed "llelief of Pekin" to all those engaged in the operations on shore at or beyond Taku for the relief of Pekin between June 10 and August 14, lT)00. The medal will be issued by the Ac- . eoimtatn-General of the Navy to all officers and men of the Royal Navy, and Royal Marines, and Coloniul Naval Forces who are entitled to it. Sir Sandford Fleming, in a letter to the Canadian Postmaster-General on New Year's Da.y, urges the importance of a British State-owned Atlantic .cable to the north of the zone of the existing- trans-Atlantic cable. •• estimates the cost of such an undertaking- at £400,000, and the annual' cost of maintenance, includingcharges for interest and sinkingfund at £33,200. With the duplex method the cable Avould be capable of transmitting more than twenty paying words per minute, or a maximum of ten million paying words a year. This at 2 cents a word, or onetwelfth ol ! the rate charged hy the existing cable lines, would give a gross return of £40,000, and make the cable if employed up to its maximum limit self-supporting 1 . He regards the Atlantic cable as an indispensable to the Pacific one, and thinks that four million paying words, one-half of the estimated gross volume of Australasian business on the Pacific cable, would be drawn to the Atlantic cable from that source alone, and that one million words between Canada and Great Britain would at a charge of 5 cents be transmitted along the State Atlantic cable. There would, he anticipates, also be a large overflow'from the U.S.A. Sir Sandford proposes a tariff of 5 cents per word for ordinary messages, and 25 cents for urgent messages, and thinks such a reduction would so revolutionise trans-Atlantic correspondence that such cables would soon require to be multiplied. But what about the wireless? Before we commit ourselves further we must "Eead Marc-oni and inwardly digest." At the eighteenth annual general meeting of the N.Z. and River Plate Land Mortgage Coy, held last Tuesday, the chairman, in moving the adoption of the report and accounts, expressed the hope that the result presented would be regarded by the shareholders as satisfactory. They were in the position of being able to pay the same dividend as last year, and could cany £15,000 1o reserve. The net profit for the year which ended on October 31 last (excluding the sum brought forward from the previous year) was £31,573, and compared with £30,426 for the year ended October 31,. 1900, being an increase of £1.140. The addition of £916 brought forward made the balance to the credit of profit and loss £32,489. Out of this sum an interim dividend of 2A per cent for the halfyear ended April 30 . was paid, am-* ounting to £0,993, leaving a sum of of £23,439, which the directors recommend should be applied as follows: first, to the payment of a dividend of 31 percent on the £1 per share paid up on 279,74S shares (making with the interim dividend of 2} per cent a total distribution of 6 per cent) £9,791; second, to reserve,, (making the reserve £158,000), £15.---000; leaving to be carried forward, £704. Since the last accounts the final instalment of 10s per share on the 102,0(>3 new shares had been paid, and consequently a larger amount of capital now ranked for dividend; but Ihe company had not had the full ■ advantag-e of the earning- power of the new capital during 1 the whole of the year. The new shares were issued with a view to eliminate the uncalled capital on the old shares, and the debentures which the company was now issuing were subject to the condition that when the paid-tip capital of the company and the reserve together amounted' to double the amount of the debentures, then the uncalled capital might be entirely written off. Dealing- with the loans on mortgage in the River Plate, a total sum of £433,290. he pointed out that the value of that item might be realised, from the fact that, the amount of overdue interest on October 31 last did not amount to £5. In New Zealand the company's loans on mortgage were £11,259. or only £789 less than la;st year, while the properties taken over had been reduced from £12,908 to £7400.