ACROSS THE STRAIT.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 109, 9 May 1908, Page 3

ACROSS THE STRAIT.

[from our correspondent.]

Friday

The police are to act in the Elliott case, but not until they have made investigations into definite allegations made by certain persons in respect of the bankrupt It is to be hoped that: no time may /be lost, for already the bankrupt has got a good start. It's long odds that by this time he has got away to the East or to the Islands. Meanwhile all sorts of curious stories are in circulation' concerning the fellow. It is alleged that he; had a great weakness for the fair sex, and kept up a luxuriously furnished establishment in the suburbs where ne entertained certain female friends. If all accounts can be believed, he was a veritable Bringham Young. Perhaps he has scooted to Salt Lake City, being attracted by the polygamic institutions supposed to flourish there, I say supposed, for polygamy is now sternly suppressed in Utah by the Federal authorities, and no Mormon can have more than one spouse—that is, openly. ._ ■ . •It can hardly do the reputation of Wellington Harbour much good for, the report to go abroad that two Union steamers smashed into the Queen's wharf on one and the same day, and in Auckland I suppose the cry "Oh, those Wellington gales," will once more be heard. But as for the mishap in which the Maori was concerned it was hot the gale but the vessel that was to blame. True, there was a fairly strong southerly blowing, but the turbine "flier" is notoriously difficult to manoeuvre, at close quarters, and on several occasions accidents similar to that which occurred yesterday have been but very narrowly averted. It was a bad smash, for the stringers and decking of the wharf were crushed, and the- hydraulic derrick water pipes were cut in halves— this disabled all the cranes along Jervois Quay for some hours. The Takapuna also did a bit of wharf ramming, but in this case the' accident was due to the steam steering-gear getting temporarily out,of order. She ■was so injured, that she has been laid up for repairs, but the Maori suffered no serious damage.

Wellington, as you may remember, elected not to place its fire brigade management under a Fire Board, the ■Corporation retaining control. A ''forward movement" has, however, "been decided upon by the Council, one important innovation shortly to be Initiated being the substitution of motors for horses. The many steep trades in and • about the city are readfully trying to horses, and it is ■claimed that" the coming change will not only result in greater speed for the engines, but that the new system will be more economical.

The tram which runs at present only as far as the Karori cemetery is to be •extended another mile and threefiarters, to the foot of the Makara ill. This will be a great boon to the large population now resident in the lower part of Karori, and incidentally it will largely increase land values in that neighbourhood. That is the worst of these suburban trams. They do not all pay, but they put money into the pockets of the land speculators and jerry builders, who have so diligently worked up the recent land boom. This is an excellent thing for the speculators, but not for «ne ■ratepayers as a whole. The Wadestown people are also to have tramway connection with the city, but they -continue to squabble amongst themselves as to the exact route to be adopted, and so there is delay. The Council has decided that the licensed public billiard salloons are to keep open until 11.30, instead of, as in the past, closing at the same hour as the pubs. A good deal of nonsense was talked about the liberty of the subject, and the necessity for allowing the young men of the city more scope for amusement, but personally I cannot help thinking a mistake has been

made. What will result is that men who have been ' turned out of the hotels at 10 o'clock will flock to the billiard rooms, and why & man should be allowed to. play billiards in one place up to 10.30 when he is'prevented from playing in another place ..'.later than ten o'clock is beyond my comprehension. It is not often I side with the "goody goody party," but in uiis instancee I feel convinced the early closing advocates are in the right. Palmerston North is hungering and thirsting after such an extra allowance of Government loaves and fishes as the citizens imagine will fall to their lot should the Railway Department decide to erect workshops in their town. The Palmerstonian appetite for State enterprises being located in,the town' has no doubt been whetted by the recent decision to place the new Dairy School at that centre. It is extremely doubtful, . however, that workshops will be erected "there. It is more probable,l should say, that the shops will be placed at some much nearer the half-way point on the Wellington-Auckland line, which is to be opened at the close of the year. Taumaranui, Hokopito, Ohakune, Taihape and Marton Junction have each been mentioned.; The railway

workshops at Aramoho, close to Wanganui, serve the Palmerston-New Plymouth section, and personally I should tip either Taumaramii or Taihape as being more likely to be chosen than Palmerston, which is too near to _the southern end of the great trunk line. Already, so I hear, land speculators have been. buying up blocks of land adjacent to certain stations, on the chance of tTiat particular piace being chosen, and some of them will be badly sold. Taumaranui would, I think, specially appeal to the Government in that the land there belong almost entirely to Natives, and could be bought at a much cheaper rate than land at the other locations I have mentioned. But up to the present the Eailway [Department remains as mum as an oyster as to its exact intentions. The general atmosphere at the Reform and National Liberal Clubs just now must be one of depression and grave anxiety for the future. After Peckham and South East Manchester, now comes yet another smack for. the Government, for although a Liberal had won, the drop in the Government majority at Wolverhampton, is, I notice, no less 2857 votes. Whether this be the result of the Licensing, or the Education Bills, or the Suffragette agitation, one cannot say, but '.there<it stands, a result which must seem like the "writing on the wall," the warning of the approaching doom. Mr Asquith has got his Licensing Bill through its second reading by a very substantial majority, but these Liberal defeats and set backs in the country, may encourage the. Lords ,to throw the Bill out, and then what will happen? An appeal to the country, and then what? Victory or defeat? The country, though it often sneers and jeers at the Lords, doesn't always insist upon a measure which the Lords have rejected. The Lords threw out the Home Rule Bill twice, and twice did Gladstone appeal to the country and denounce the Lords. And yet the Lords are there yet, but where, oh where is the Home Rule Bill? No, Mr Asquith and his friends may well feel anxious to the future. One swallow doesn't make a summer, nor one by-election.upset a Ministry, but when several by-elections swiftly follow each other and when the result;is nearly always a defeat, the position of a Government becomes very seriously shaken.

The people who rushed to applaud "Mr Keir Hardies wild talk when he was-here recently are, I hope, perusing with care and thoughtfulness, the recent cablegrams from Calcutta. Mr Hardie wanted us to-believe that the highly educated Hindoo was always a gentleman, a very decent fellow, who, although he might agitate for a wider" ( measure of selfgovernment, was at heart quite loyal and totally incapable of anything like mischievous sedition. .And yet we have news of "prominent Bengalis" being implicated, in the plots to murder British officials, and of highly educated students indulging in the nideous industry of bomb manufacture, and also—please specially mark this— of one at least of Mr Hardies dear friends, the much persecuted editors of the vernacular press, being amongst the prisoners, most of whom, by the way, admit that they were induced to conspire by the inflammatory articles they had read in the very same native press which Mr Hardie blamed the British officials for suppressing. Were it not that /the sort of people who swallow the Keir Hardie nonsense as a kind of modern Gospel are generally so eaten up with ignorance and selfblindness one might expect them to be feeling ashamed of having made a little tin god of such a mischief-mak-ing, sedition applauding agitator, but that would be too much to expect. After events have proved that the Indian Government would have acted wisely had it shipped Mr Hardie out of the country after the very first speech made in favour of the disloyalists.

The burglar is with us just now, and a resourceful impudent rascal he is, too. In one house he' had the cheek to enter a bedroom where man and wife were in bed, and calmly annex watches and Jewellery."' In another instance he entered a house were there were quite a number of dwellers. It is a great pity that the law will not allow a householder to use a revolver, save in actual self-defence. As it is if a man enters "my house and I catch him red-handed at his evil work I must not fire at him. If I do, iand kill him, I may " go up" for. five years or so for manslaughter. I am only allowed to fire in actual selfdefence, but if I meet a man in the dark and run up against him, the chances are that he can bludgeon me on the spot, and I shall have no chance of using a pistol. All the same I know of several people who have purchased revolvers, and mean to use them, should occasion arise. And I am, afraid they won't wait, law or no law, for Mr Bill Sykes to fire first. They mean to get the "first leg in." Once again, I notice, has the question of the poor supply of Anglican clergymen cropped up. There axe three or four parishes in the Wellington Diocese which have no curates, nor apparently much chance of getting them. The real reason is the detestable stinginess which is dL-played by so many Anglican parishes with regard to their clergymen. Stipends are so smallthat it is practically impossible for a curate to dress and live decently upon the scanty amount. A bare living is the most that can be oxpected, and yet the curate is supposed to dress and live respectably, to keep a horse, to contribute to local charities, and to be at the beck and call of every individual member of the congregation. All the churchma.ii thinks he is called upon to do is to drop a miserable threepenny bit in the collection plate once or twice on a Sunday. And yet for a stipend of £150 or £200 (less money t\-n is gained by an intelligent artisan) the parishes expect to get a University graduate, a gentleman of decent birth and -breeding, a clergyman ' who will devote^ his whole existence not only to the spiritual care of his congregation, but to their social exigencies and requirements as well. No other church in the Dominion treats its parsons so meanly as does the Anglican communion, and yet people profess to be astonished that young New Zealanders do not come forward in greater numbers to enter the ministry. "The labourer is worthy of his hire," and until our country parsons are better paid there need be no wonder that the ranks of the clergy are not rushed.