CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVII, Issue 11189, 10 February 1897, Page 5

CURRENT TOPICS.

If Queen Victoria has *che queen’s not exactly achieved fame auto- as an authoress, so many biooeathy. pcbple arc interested in the doings of royal personages that she is surd to command a wide circle

of readers for a history of her life which is to be published in connection with the “ Record Reign ” celebrations. In everything hut form, the forthcoming volume will be an autobiography of the Queen. It is announced to appear under the title of “ Queen Victoria,” and is to be written nominally “by Richard E. Holmes, F.S.A., librarian to the Queen,” but will really embody to a large extent matter personally contributed, dictated, and revised by the Queen herself. In this book various miss'atements as to the Queen’s childhood, education, and early years on the Throne will be corrected by royal authority, and the whole story will he told of her Majesty’s reign as her Majesty herself looks back on it. Her Majesty, the St James's Gazette is able to say, is taking the greatest interest in the preparation of the work. She has ordered every facility to be given for the illustrations to be reproduced, both from pictures and from the royal palaces, where in some cases the rooms and furniture are to be specially put back into the condition of earlier years in order to be photographed; and she has consented to examine every detail in the book while it is in progress. The hook gives promise of being an interesting one, if only for the pleasing myths which it is sure to dispel. A well-worn story, for example, has just been repeated in an Argosy article. It tells how a court-martial warrant was presented by the Duke of Wellington to the Queen to be signed. It was her first signature to a death-warrant, and she shrank from the task. “Have you nothing to say on behalf of this man ?” she asked, with tears in her eyes. “ Nothing; he has deserted three times,” replied the Duke. “Oh, your Grace! Think again.” “Well, your Majesty, ho certainly is a bad soldier ; but there was somebody who spoke as to his good character. He may be a good fellow in private life.” “ Oh, thank you !” cried the Queen, as she wrote the word “ Pardoned ” on the awful parchment, and beneath it her signature. There is another beautiful story about an African potentate being presented with a Bible when he asked the Queen to tell him “the secret of England’s greatness.” It will be a shock to find those incidents relegated to the realm of fable; but magna est veritas, and though our fond illusions perish one by one, it is surely something to know that we stand at last on the bed-rock of solid fact.

For many years a strinimmigeation gent law, designed to exlaws in elude “undesirable immithe united grants,”' has been in force states. in the United States; but an effort is now being made to have a more exclusive statute passed, and a cable message informs us that the Senate and House have disagreed over the Bill, and are holding “conferences” on it. The measure, like some that have been before our own Legislature, has many debatable points about it. As originally introduced in the popular Chamber, it was calculated not only to exclude illiterate immigrants, but also to keep out aliens who continue to reside in foreign countries, but go to the United States merely for temporary employment. This feature of the Bill would have excluded many Canadian labourers, who annually enter the United States along the border competing with local workers for a season, and Carrying home with them their earnings. The Senate, which, like our Upper Chamber, has little sympathy with labour legislation, struck out this part of the Bill; in fact a practically new measure was drafted by Senator Lodge, the chief feature of which was its drastic application of an educational test to all immigrants. The proposal was that the inspection officers at the ports where aliens are admitted should be furnished with copies of the Constitution of the United States in all languages, and printed on numbered pasteboard slips containing five lines each. The immigrant was to designate the language in which he desired the test to be made, and was then to draw from the box containing the slips one slip, and read and afterwards write it in the presence of the inspectors. Unless he was able to read and write .the words of the slip so drawn at random he was to be returned to the country he came from ’ at the cost of the steamboat or railway company that brought him. It is, doubtless, over the reinstatement of the clauses affecting Canadian labourers that the disagreement has arisen between the House and the Senate. If the Bill should become law, it will furnish an instance of exclusive legislation more extreme and arbitrary than any that has ever been proposed in New Zealand. The call for such legislation in a vast country like America is a significant symptom of the growing urgency of the labour problem everywhere.

Stoats and weasels were the introduced to the colony ! “natural in large numbers by former enemy.” Governments on the supposition that the rabbit pest could best he coped with by turning loose the “ natural enemy ” to do the work. It is now claimed that these remedies have proved worse than the disease. The stoats and weasels have multiplied, have travelled, and have developed to a degree a kind of destructiveness never contemplated. In the North Island the weasel was supposed to be confined to the Wairarapa district. Without doubt, however, it has made its way into the Auckland province and has turned its attention to sheep and lambs. Settlers have found numbers of their flocks dead, the only visible sign of injury being a small puncture behind the ear. Others, in shearing, have come across sheep with the puncture, the animals, though alive, being in a very bad condition. This mischief has been traced to the ravages of the weasel and stoat, and Mr Frank Lawry, the member for Parnell, who has for six sessions been Chairman of the Stock Committee of the House of Eepresentatives, has been in communication with the Government on the subject. He holds that if these posts continue to be protected by law, all ground game will be destroyed, and it will only be a matter of time when the wingless birds of New Zealand will become as extinct as the moa. Stoats and weasels are now preying on fowls, ducks, and poultry generally, and have even taken to sucking the eggs, which, under ordinary circumstances, form an important item in the settlers’ commissariat. In conversation with a Herald reporter, Mr Lawry said ho would advise Government to take immediate steps to undo the evil, and, in his place in Parliament, would support a largo vote to provide for the total extermination of the vermin. He is aware that this would mean a large sum of money, as poison is non-effective as a factor in their destruction. But taking into consideration the great fact that human infant life is jeopardised; that the sheep, lambs and poultry of the settlers are not safe ; that the native i birds and imported pheasants are sure to

be totally exterminated, he holds that the question of money should not he an important factor in the consideration of the case. He means to bring the matter before the House next session; but fears that southern influence will bo strong enough to prevent the purpose being accomplished.