OUR LONDON LETTER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume C, Issue 11657, 13 August 1898, Page 2

OUR LONDON LETTER.

ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES. [From Our Correspondent.] LONDON, July 2. Your colony certainly means to keep up-to-date in all her industries. Flesh and Harare already represented by Messrs Cameron and Holmes, and last Wednesday fish appeared on the scene in the person of Mr L. F. Ayson, the Curator of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society’s fish-ponds at Mas tcrton, and the Government's Pisciculture Commissioner. Mr Ayson, whose first vis; this is to the Old Country, struck fne a->. a very'level-headed man, whose quiet, tactful ways are, sure to make many friends for him on this side, and enable him to procure without trouble all the latest intelligence on pisciculture and acclimatisation. He is evidently a “ grafter,” as the following short summary- -of his doings, to , date will , show, and intends to make sight-seeing quite subordinate! to', tlm-large amount pf work that his mission will involve. In Melbourne and Sydney he made numerous inquiries as to the market for Now Zealand,.fish, and-found• that, while an unlimited market existed there New Zealand fish-'arrived in an inferior condition, and lost a. great deal of their flavour in the thswing-out process. This he means to remedy if he can, and therefore intends to ascertain how the Grimsby -fishermen manage to keep.their fish fresh in the deepsea steam trawlers that catch their finny cargo' some 1200 miles from port. In Sydney lie interviewed the Inspector of Fisheries, raid found that the water of the New South Wales . rivers bed proved unsuitable for trout; and that therefore consignments of trout from Masterton to that colony had proved a failure. Mr Ayson approved of ti;e development of the marine fisheries in New South Wales, by the Fisheries Department there, and was confirmed in his opinion that the time is ripe for the establishment of a similar department or s- Board of Conservators in New Zealand. He disembarked froin- the Arcadia at Brindisi, and took the ; ppprlunity of, visiting Naples, Rome and 'Fiotcnce before commencing work at Venice, where he prov.hd about for three days inspecting tlie eel and mullet fisheries. The voting fish are run up into enclosures, where they'arc trapped and allowed to grow for the market. There were not many “ pointers,” however, to be picked up there for New Zealand use. From Venice Mr Ayson went on to the Lego di Garda and Breda hatcheries, the latter under Dr Bettoni, the best fishhatchery in Italy. Hero'he scrutinised the rainbow and brown trout, the salmo quinnee, lacustris and csrpio, the latter a fish peculiar to Lake Garda, and considered suitable for New Zealand. As the last-named is netted out of the, lake and the ova procured from the fish, he saw only preserved specimens of it, and had to wait for further informptioh until he reached Huningen, the great fishery of Europe, where Professor Haacke informed, him that the attempts to introduce this fish into the Swiss' lakes, which strongly resemble the cold lakes of New Zealand* had always failed. In Switzerland, by the way, Mr Ayson visited fish establishments at Lake Zug', Lucerne, Olten and Basle, with a view to obtaining information about the Alpine char, the introduction of which into New Zealand is contemplated. On this point, again, he derived most information from Professor Haacke, who was in a position to supply ova, and who thought the fish would probably thrive in the New Zealand lakes, although it. would not take to the German. -Mr Ayson found-his own preference for earth ponds in hatcheries was shared by Professor Haacke, who at., Huningen incubates, some six or seven millions of ova a Compared with the Huningen establishment, Mr Ayson considered the Masterton one well up-to-date. Having studied the habits of. the . alpine char and the salmo quinnee, the latter of which he thinks in no way superior to the New Zealand brown trout, he came on to England, after a day or two in gay Paris. Mr Kennaway has introduced him to Mr Fryer, the Inspector of Fisheries, and in conjunction with those gentlemen, Mr Ayson intends drawing up a plan, of campaign for Great Britain, to include an inspection of the marine as well as the salmon and trout fisheries, the leading hatcheries, an investigation into deepsea trawling, and the distribution and marketing of the fish, an inquiry into the possibility of acclimatising the North Sea herring, turbot and haddock in New Zealand waters, and, the acclimatisation.of certain English birds. Mr Ayson also intends to discuss with the leading pisciculture! authorities here the reason why the salmon never return from the New Zealand sea to the rivers, and,to get,their opinion as to the feasibility of establishing a breeding ground for salmon in the estuary of the best salmon r.ver in the colony, and. liberating the fish just before spawning, time, so that they may go to sea moi£ fully grown than they do .at present. ‘ - . When, Mr Ayson has heckled the fisheries of Great Britain, caught for himself a salmon in Scotland, he,intends moving on to .Canada and the United States, probably about November. There he will discuss the possibility of introducing into New Zealand the Virginian quail and the whitefish, and when he has pumped, the Yankee as to how to breed, catch, cook and eat fish, he will return to the colony, with plans of Abe chief marine fisheries for future use in New Zealand, and as full of information as a roe is of eggs. For the next fortnight he antici-’ pates remaining in London, collecting information.

I will'give a New Zealander three guesses to discover the identity of the following personality, and then lay him odds that he hasn’t picked the right matt: —“A slight man, with a soft manner, a beautiful voice, and tones so rational, so conciliatory, so full of broadness and serenity of view, that you are inclined to think that this, is an escaped scholar, ’ and not one of the leaders of a young and pushful democracy.” Such is Mr T. P. O’Connor’s portrait in the Sunday “ Sun ” of the Agent-General, “ no ordinary man,” but “ the representative of one of the youngest and the most go-ahead of the colonics.” Mr Reeves’s- “ New Zealand” was last Sunday the “Book of the Week,” and received a long and appreciative review, chiefly “ by sample,” from Mr O’Conner, who terms it “a triumph of condensation, united with lucidity,”’and Mr Reeves’s style •‘admirably dramatic.” I hear, by the way, that the title selected ■ ’ ™ves for his larger history of the colony, “ The Fortunate isles,” has, like bis “Story of New Zealand,” been already anticipated in the case of some antique, out of print book on the Canary Isles, and that Messrs Bentley and Son have threatened his publishers with an injunction to prevent the use of the title. Mr Reeves will,' therefore, probably name his book- “The Long White Cloud,” the original Maori name for New Zealand. The blocks for some of the illustrations are being cut already, in Amsterdam, and Mr Reeves is proceed-

ing apace with successive chapters. One characteristic feature of the book" will be the. I extremely apt quotations selected by Mr Reeves to head each chapter. I hear Mr Reeves is also helping Dr Richard Gar-■ nett in “The Life of Gibbon Wakefield,”' which will be issued in Mr Unwin’s “Builders of the Empire Series.” The “ Daily Telegraph ” finds “ something very effective about Mr H. B. Vogel’s New iealand romance, ‘A Maori Maid.’” 'lr Vogel, it thinks, “has a tendency to btrude his own personality too much and ' other the reader with comments and moral;ings, but as a whole the story is quite ;ood enough to make one overlook the .icmentary irritation thus caused.” The “ Newcastle Journal ” is not sweet on compulsory arbitration judging by a recent article on that subject. “ If,” lit says, “ a State tribunal simply means a court to compel employers to give way to any senseless and ruinous demands of a body of workmen, let it be called a ‘ Star Chamber’ or a ‘ Packed Jury,’ bound down to a foregone conclusion, but let it not be: called a legal or a commercial Court of Arbitration, of equity or justice.” The New; Zealand Act, it considers, though compulsory in principle, averted rather than ended strikes, and secured arrangements byconferences and discussions in no , way dissimilar to those by which settlements have been effected in England without any direct or indirect compulsion enforced by Act of Parliament. Clearly the “ Newcastle Journal ” should sit at the feet of the AgentGeneral for a term.

The “Exeter Gazette” publishes a ling letter from Mr C. E. Baker.*an old Oxonian, on New Zealand, in which ho says that there are comparatively few cabs in Wellington. “If you want to go to the railway station, you walk, and an express takes your luggage. The majority of tradesmen do not keep their own. horse and delivery cart, but employ one of'these express carts. This is the system all over New Zealand. At least 75 per cent of the private houses are bungalows. The shops in the principal streets are as a rule one-storey high, though some of the newer ones are now being built higher.” Mr Baker failed to notice that Christchurch was more English than any other town,, but did observe that the railways were owned by the State and mismanaged by the Government, which bundles you out for twenty minutes into a refreshment room “to eat underdone meat off a chipped plate, with a knife and. fork that might be cleaner, and a table-cloth defiled with the stains of many nrevious meals.” There was too much wind blowing to make the climate ideal. The payment of menir hers breeds a class of professional politicians unknown at Home, and log-rolling and jobbery of the worst kind are rampant. Mr Baker did not find colonials display ap exuberant hospitality' towards him,-' but thought they were quite as stiff and exclusive as at Home. When he told people he had. just come from England they looked at him as if he had a stilted way of talking. Business is fearfully hampered by the duties imposed on nearly everything. The only really good word, Mr 1 Baker has to say of the colony is that frozen New Zealand mutton is as good as can be wished for. to , Another New Zealand, campaigner has'departed this life.in the person'of Colonel Patrick Johnston, who died at Bedford last Friday at the age of seventy-six. He served as lieutenant with the 99th (now the 2nd Wiltshire) in several, actions of the New Zealand war of 1845 and 1846, '. and was wounded at the storming of Kawiti’s pah. In 1869 he retired from the 32nd with the rank of colonel. , Miss Hitcbings, of Napier, entered for the Ladies’ Championship All-comers’ competition, at the championship meeting of the All-England Lawn Tennis Club, at Wimbledon, and drew a bye in the first round, but was defeated in the second by Miss E. R. Morgan, of Chiswick Park, the score being 6-1, 6-1.