OUR LONDON LETTER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVI, Issue 11052, 2 September 1896, Page 2

OUR LONDON LETTER.

ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES. [From our Correspondent.] LONDON, July 17. THE AGENT-GENERAL. Mr Reeves is certainly doing his best to disarm the critics who continue to attack him for attending the Eighty Club dinner. At the end of this week, the Agent-General attends the United Club dinner. The United, is of course, as representative of Conservatism as the Eighty ■ is of Radicalism, and should Mr Reeves speak there after Mr Balfour, he will certainly have done much to set himself right with his critics. The Agent-General is now quite a noted diner out. Other dinners this week are the Cordwainers’ Club banquet, at which Mr Chamberlain will speak, and the Royal Society annual dinner. On Monday last, Mr Reeves sent an authoritative cable, received from his Government, to all the papers stating that the Bank of New Zealand was “never stronger.” The news that a fresh Committee of Inquiry had been formed was in the same official cable, and has since been favourably commented upon in city and financial circles. Mr Beeves will remain in London throughout August, and well on into September. Mr Kennaway who, I regret to say, has been feeling far from well lately, goes away for his well-earned holiday immediately. Everyone hopes it will benefit him. OLD AGE PENSIONS. The Statist, which takes a keen interest in everything connected with New Zealand, comes down heavily on Mr Seddon’s Bill to provide pensions for aged colonists. I extract the following, remarks from an article in the current issue ;—“ It may safely be said that, whether or not old'age pensions are requisite in old communities where the whole land is occupied and the population is dense, a scheme of old age pensions is extremely dangerous and extremely questionable in very new and thinly-populated countries. * * * If there is any place in the world where a man who is willing to work ought to he able to provide a competence for himself and his family it is surely in New Zealand. * * * If a man is willing to work and can make a competence, he°does not require an old age pension.If ho is not willing to work or squanders everything he earns he is not deserving of an old age pension. * * *:Besides, New Zealand has a crushingly heavy debt already, and if she is now to assume liability for a pension of not less than .£l3 and not more than £26. a year for every person over sixty-five who has been twenty years in the colony, how is money to be forthcoming? The credit of New Zealand will certainly be very seriously affected if this measure passes. We hold ourselves, that the debt of the colony is too great, that her Government and people ought to be warned that they have mortgaged the future as far as is safe, and that the London market is not prepared to go on lending indefinitely. If this measure passes we venture to say that the opinion we hold will be widely shared by the people in the City of London. There does not seem the necessity of old age pensions which may he found in old countries, and the population of New Zealand is too small to boar so heavy an additional burden while the resources of the colony are so little developed.” So far, the other papers have contented themselves with announcing the fact that Mr Seddon has introduced the Bill, and probably most of them will defer their criticisms until they are in possession of the full provisions. THE WAIMATE LAUNCHED. On Saturday afternoon Messrs E. and W. Hawthorn, Leslie and Co., Limited, launched a large steamer from their shipyard at Hephurn-on-Tyne. The dimensions of the vessel are as follow : —Length 435 ft, breadth 54ft, depth 32ft. She has been built to the order of the New Zealand Shipping Company, and is especially fitted out for carrying frozen meat. The vessel is fitted with powerful duplicate refrigerating machinery, on Messrs Linde’s system, and a large iusidated space, having a capacity of nearly a quarter of a million cubic feet, is provided in the holds forward of machinery space, leaving all the after holds available for general cargo. All the accommodation, including the firstclass passengers’ saloon, officers’ quarters, Ac., is provided in a large steel deckhouse on the top of the bridge deck. Her deck appliances include a steam windlass and ten powerful winches, by Messrs Clarke, Chapman and Co.; steam steeringgear, by Messrs Bow and Maclachlan; patent hand-steering year, and seamless steel boats. Throughout the ship the most modern imp M-emuiits have been adopted, and the T we 1 will be one of the most “ up-to-date ” "i. the trade. The machinery, which is being constructed by the same firm, consists of a set of triple expansion engines, capable of indicating upwards of 3000 h.p., with large singleendad steel boilers, working at a pressure of 1601 b per square inch. These boilers are to be worked on Howden’s system of forced draught. On leaving the ways Miss Lawson, daughter of the owner’s marine superintendent, named the vessel Waimate. a colonial’s coup. Last week I informed you that that promising colonial financier, Mr Harrison Davis, had done an exceedingly clever deal in the city, and I believe I mentioned that the basis of the said deal was the Financial News, or, rather, shares in that intensely!: remunerative property. The story of the transaction has now come to my ears. There can be no doubt as to its accuracy, aud it is instructive as well,as amusing. ’Twas as thus; —Mr Harrison Davis, as you are aware, engineered that gigantic Dunlop transaction when the tables of the City office were littered with cheques to the amount of several millions. Naturally the intense anxiety of the public to possess “ Dunlops ” made things pleasant and profitable for the syndicate who had bought the business and refloated it at such a gigantic figure. And amongst that syndicate none had done better than Mr Harrison Davis, who promptly showed his gratitude to Fortune by sending out invitations to a thanksgiving banquet, so to say. To this “ spread ” came, amongst others, the opulent owner of the Financial News. After dinner, when the wine had been round, the newspaper man turned to Mr Davis and said, with Just a trifle of somethinsr irritating in the tone: — “ Well, Davis, what is your next move ? . Who are you going to buy out next ?” 1 “ Anyone that’s worth while,” answered the ex-Christchurch man, briskly; and, he added, pointedly, “you if you iike.” This was a staggerer, and, for the moment, no more was said.

Two or three days after the unhappy ■proprietor met Mr Davis at a luncheon club and again asked if he meant it.. “ Most certainly I do,” said Mr Davis; ■“if you mean selling, there must be no .more shilly-shally. I will sign a contract for the thing at the price If it’s ready in an hour’s time, not unless.”

Well, of 'course it was ready, within half an hour as a matter of fact. Mr Davis signed, and, in consideration of his cheque for .£200,000, became possessed of every share in the paper save 20,000 preference shares reserved for himself by the vendor.

Before the ink was dry on his signature, Mr Harrison Davis was speeding round the city in a cab. Within two hours of luncheon time, when the offer was first made, he was back in his office, having entirely re-sold all the shares save sufficient to put him on the Board of Directors, should he desire tliat honour, making either .£IO,OOO or d 115,000 by the transaction. This is not at all a bad afternoon’s work even in these days of booms and Barnatos. On dit that the original vendor’s comments when he realised how badly, yet how legitimately, he had been “ done ” were unfit for publication. In the City sympathy is, of course, entirely with Mr Davis, whose sagacity'and smartness are much'commended. The colonial’s coup, 'as it is called, is said to be the record of the year for the celerity with which it was effected. PERSONAL. Mr Haywood, of Christchurch, who, with his wife and two daughters, came Home by the Eimutaka a couple of months ago, is enjoying his visit to Loudon immensely. They (the Haywood family) spent a month in London sight-seeing, and then went on to Ireland, where they had a delightful time, visiting Cork, Kennemare, Killarney Lake, Dublin, &c. On the way back to London,

Portsmouth, Plymouth and Southampton were visited. They will now stop in London till Oct. 15, when they return to New Zealand in the Eimutaka. Mr Haywood is very keen on the shortening of the journey to New Zealand by means of faster ships. Till, this is done he thinks the colony won’t prosper as it ought. At the last Council meeting of the Eoyal Colonial Institute, the following New Zealanders were elected Fellows: —Mr Joseph Gould, Canon Stack and Mr James Stewart. The Eev J. J. Lewis, ex-president of the New Zealand Wesleyan Conference, who has been touring in the States, whither he went to represent the colony at the General Conference of the Wesleyan Episcopalian Church of America, arrived in London a few days ago. He is now travelling in the provinces, and intends to be present at the proceedings of the British Methodists’ Conference, which meets shortly in Liverpool. ’ Mr Thomas Eose, who hails from Christchurch, is in London, and is waiting for a berth as engineer on one of the Shaw, Savill boats in order to return to the colony. He came Home on the Kaikoura on her last trip.