WELLINGTON ITEMS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 9700, 14 April 1892, Page 6

WELLINGTON ITEMS.

~ [rEOH OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT, j WELLINGTON, April 13. - MIDLAND RAILWAY. • The two engineers who have reported on the Abt system for the Midland Railway Company Are Messrs Maxwell and H. P. SRgginson.' The former is the well-known Railway Commissioner, and Mr Higginson is the engineer who, after serving for several.years under Mr Carruthers, became chief instructing engineer to the Manawitu Railway Company. The ability of both, gentlemen' is undoubted. The nature of their report I have not been able to ascertain. All I can discover is that the Government has it under consideration. ■ RAILWAY REVENUE. ■ The railway revenue has, as you have been- informed, turned out well,_ and the Expenditure side of the account is, I hear, ▼Ary-satisfactory indeed, so that the Comriieisionecs will have a remarkably good rtjaort to present to Parliament this year. T& current year has, I am given to undereUtnd, begun remarkably well. The experts anticipate iu consequence that it is f anticipate the biggest revenue the railways have as yet paid in any given jfear. LAND AND INCOME TAX. . About the Land and Income tax embroglio you have been fully informed. The SOljcitorrGeneral has given his opinion, and it is entirely r eposed to the opinion which Mr Bickerton Fisher has buttered the dovecotes in your city. The 'EUWes this' morning took the line very decidedly that the Act came into force is soon as it was assented to hy the Govhinorj that regulations were made under it which being gazetted have the force of law, and that Section. 17, Sub-section C, so far -from having no -meaning, prevents the regulation* from being ultra vires. The Pest, while thanking Mr Fisher for %is industry and acumen, advises the iiiblic not to be led away into kicking •gamat the pricks. It is apparently of the dptaion .that the Department has acted ttlfrdy within the law—it would have ' better if the law had been more iriore in its terms—and it urges that. any error . would' be certain to be validated by Parliament at its meeting in accordance with its own evident intention in passing the Act last year. _ Cuibono to reiist and provoke an' expensive and involved process, when that can put everything right by a turn of the word, as it wOre ? lam not quoting the words of your contemporary, but giving as fair a version Ofltd linG of argument and very sensible - « * native Affairs. - Mr Carroll’s mediation in the Uriwera land dispute has been-the.big thing of the list few weeks.. His tact Mid ability in calming the excitement indulged in by-’this most turbulenttribe, and its submission, • are • considered to have fully justified his appointment. You are not/ perhaps, aware of it, hut Mr Carroll, being A member of the Executively entitled for that reason to the title of “ Hon.” He has gOae north. by special request of the Government to attend the great meeting atWaitangi, at which the tribes will be all represented, at the invitation of the Ngapuhis. : It is a historic place, and the iftOfeUßg-. is expected to have an historic interest, for all the questions in which the Native .race is concerned are to ■ be dismissed. Wi Parata and Kemp have gone up, and with them every chief of note in tbo Island. It will be a big thing. Mr Cadman would have been present, but his fgfcent- painful bereavement has prevented him from attending to business. The meeting will begin this week.

BETIKE3IENTS. i l-hear that the father of the Civil Service, Mr G. S. Cooper, ia retiring on hia and with him will also retire on !his pension Mr Brown, tne Registrar* General, whose name is a household word &*, this time throughout, New Zealand. JJr Gooper;will probably be succeeded by who is hia next in command, iflcS- who #ill probably be Under-Secretary, the "equivalent for the Home Department. Mr William Dadelezen, Mr Brown’s second, willi succeed him. Thus the usual principis of . promotion has been adhered to. Mr Cooper has been connected with the Ci&l Service for forty years. As a boy, arriving from New South Wales, he entered m 1841, rose rapidly through natural capacity, became Land Purchase Commissioner in Taranaki, andsubsequently in the Waxrarapa. Private Secretary to Governor Grey, IH. at Napier, and held other offices. In 1868 he was Native Under-Secretary, succeeding Mr Kblleeton, and in 1573 succeeded Mr Gisborne as Under-Secretary for the Colony. His career since then has tiien one good record.He retires at the age of sijcty-seven with a well-deserved pension. Mr Brown came to New Zealand ift 1855, and settled at Johnsonville, near Wellington. He wias in those days a J.P. and Captain of MiliMa. His best experience of the public service was in the B.M.'Court. In 1860 he became Clerk of the District Court, and later became Inspector, of Bankruptcy and Curator of Intestate Estates in Wellington. In 1869 he Vis Secretary to Mr Fox, who beMae' Premier in that year, and Secretary

to the Cabinet. Soon after that (in November, 1873) he became RegistrarGeneral, and has held the post ever since with much kudos, . EARLY SETTLERS’ ASSOCIATION. When the Bou W. P. Reeves was last in Christchurch a deputation from the Early Settlers’ Association met him and made a request that the. Association might be allowed to use the old Provincial Council Chamber for a limited number of their meetings. Mr Reeves promised to sea what could be done, and on his return to Wellington ha laid the matter before the Public Works Department, ia whoso charge the Provincial Council Chamber now is. As a result, the Department has informed Mr Reeves that the Association may have the use of the for monthly meetings on the usual conditions, viz., that the room is left in order, and that any gas that may he used is paid for. This will, no doubt, be satisfactory news to the members of the Association.

[Pm Press Association.] RAILWAY LEAGUE; A public meeting convened by the Railway League was held this evening, at which Mr S. Nelson, the Mayor of Palmerston North, who came specially for the purpose, presided. Resolutions were unanimously passed in favour of the central route, and opening up lands alongside the line for settlement.