ACROSS THE STRAIT

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 57, 3 March 1909, Page 7

ACROSS THE STRAIT

£OSSIP FROM THE EMPIRE CITY.

[fbom our cokresponpent.] !"For way® that are dark and tricks that are vain, IT-he heathen Chinee is peculiar, which the same ' . . J} I am hound to maintain.

So ' wrote Bret Harte close upon half a century ago, and although what the California^ humorist had in the mind was the ease wth which ■"John" could produce a four-ace hand lat poker, there are other tricks than ■card tricks at which the cunning Mongolian is an expert. The revelations made in Sydney as to the systematic smuggling of oainese anto the Commonwealth will not astonish any«oie who has studied the ways ot '"John." It has been known to the New1 Zealand police for a long time that a-iSrisk trade has been going on In naturalisation papers, but the •difficulty is 'to catch the culprits. [Under the new law providing for the reading and writing of a selected passage of English by every Chines© immigrant, it is hoped that the. old dodge ■of wealthy Chinese merchants in Wellington and Dunedin importing young ■"Chows," paying the £100 fee for ifchem, and then making ~ the immigrants "work it out" —at a semiistarvation wage—would no longer he {workable. . But is this proviso exacted m tee base of a Chinaman landing here and producing his naturalisation paperts— fcis own or those of another of the almond-eyed fraternity? Apparently, it is not in Australia, for it has been1 <liscovered that agents go'round buying up naturalisation papers at from dE6 to £15 each, and send them to ; China for the use of new-comers to be smuggled in. It must have been a very "plofitable litttel gamee" for somebody, but apparently the police bave got hold of the right stick. One jof the smart young journalist's, who [write up "specials" for our Wellington papers, might do worse than play ifche amateur detective, and': try and .find out whether the same game is not feeing played here. According to the census returns^ the number _of Chinese in the Dominion is diminishing. This may be so, but it iseems to ime that in Wellington "John" is anuch more numerous than he was a [few yeans back. , Another Australian item of news which interests me to-day is the exiposure by the New Zealand Government agency in Sydney of a discreditable dodge by which so-called "New Zealand flannel" has been offered for ©ale, and found to be mere shoddy, mot flannel at all. If a case or fraud j can be sheeted home to an offender, it is to be hoped that the Government will prosecute, no matter how highly placed in commercial circles the cul}>rits may be. Every year there is a. argely increasing oversea trade in: •New Zealand woollen goods, especially irugs, shawls and flannels. Tourists and other visitors come here and buy a Mosgiel, Kaiapoi or Petone travelling rug, and forthwith become advertisers of the excellence of our manufactures. "Your Own" visited England five years ago, and took with him a, New Zealand irug and a shawl (a plaidie, as our Scot® friends call it). Ifn Canada, in America, England, OEYance and Germany that rug and Tfchat shawl were greatly admired; in•ideed, there was but one opinion: "Never saw such splendid material jbefore; can't touch it here." The trouble was to .reject the tempting offers made for the two articles. But to the traveller they had become warm friends, in more senses than <>ne, and he got them round the world in safety until he reached Sydney, where—in a first-class hotel—the @hawl mysteriously disappeared. But wherever that traveller went he gave the name and address of the makers, iand he has good reason to believe that '"business resulted," as the commercal phrase goes. The same with New Zealand flanSiels and blankets. Everyone who comes here admires them, and it would be a thousand pities df some miserable scallywags in Australia were ;to bring the name of our woollens into disrepute in order to gain a few pounds profit. By all means let these scamps be prosecuted, Si a case can be sheeted home.

Tuesday. The best proof that the Wellington hotels are, as a rule—there are exceptions—well conducted, due attention being paid to a strict observance of the law, is found in the fact that •"the Trade" has allowed the five gentlemen composing the temperance ticket to be elected unopposed. The Trade knows full well that a committee so constituted will insist upon the hotels being conducted decently, that sanitary conditions shall be good, and that reasonable accommodation shall be provided. Evidently it is confident that such conditions are being observed. Of course the fact that reduction was not carried last year has been a factor in this indifference, real or seeming, of the Trade. For had reduction been carried the convposition of the Licensing Committee would have been a matter of considerable moment to owners of licensed properties.

Thfi Times this morning places \n significant pictorial contrast the

Dunedin and Wellington Railway stations, the one a superbly ornate and substantial, almost palatia] building, the second a miserable, one store,,-, elongated wooden shed. The Tim^s admits that it has been said that tlio Dunedin station cost too much, ar.d that the question whether "our national buildings, erected for all time, should be barn-like structures or whether they should combine taste with efficiency," is a controversial matter. But it proceeds to add, with a pithy pungency, that "the point that is not controversial is that a new central station for Wellington is a matter of urgency, but is being treated as a question of secondary importance." Also, it requests the new Minister of Railways to "climb quickly into the band-waggon and call the tune."

This is all very smart, and there is a good deal to be said in favour of prompt action. But the Times should remember that its two contemporaries have been howling for many months for a decreased expenditure on the railways. All round the Dominion the gentlemen who paint Sir Joseph Ward as a species of political monster have wearily whined that the railways should pay 6 per cent. Is it not only natural that the Government should say: ''Very well, you want economy, you want decreased expenditure. You shall have it. No doubt the present station is old and not large enough, no doubt there may be some lvttle public inconvenience, but I'll practise what you preach, and we'll carry on in the old building for another three years or so."' Could anyone blame Sir Joseph if he gave such an answer ?

A case of considerable importance to many Wellington property owners is now proceeding in the Supreme Court. This is that of Field versus Allen McGuire The plaintiff is the wife of Mr W. H. Field, M.P., and the owner of a fine property in Wellington Terrace—on the city side—a property valued at quite £5000. Defendant was the contractor for the new Commercial Hotel oa Lambton Quay, the- back premises of which go right up to the cliff at the back of Mrs Feild's house.

It is claimed by the plaintiff that certain excavations made by McGuire at the foot of this cliff removed the support from plaintiff's property, and that a portion of Mrs Field's land has slipped away, the property being thus, it is claimed, seriously diminished in value. £1500 damages is claimed. The case was commenced yesterday, and continues to-day. It is one which, I have said, interests a great many other property owners in Wellington, and its issue will be awaited with some curiosity. There is a strong bar in the case, and the costs will be heavy. I know quite a number of cases where property owners are by no means easy in their minds as to the outcome of excavations made below the elevated portions upon which their houses are situated, and if this particular case goes in favour of the plaintiff quite a crop of similar actions may not improbably ensue as a result.

When the populace of Belgrade chortled with mirth as the funeral of the murdered King and Queen passed through the streets, Western critics, recalling other incidents in Servian and Bulgarian history, wondered whether there were not some racial taint of cruel and callous indifference to what ordinary civilized people would consider common decency, in the Slavs. As a student of history, I could quote not a few instances to show that this same inclination to tigerish ferocity—where political victims are concerned — animates the Latin races, and the disgusting display at the Lisbon carnival, reported in the cablegrams, does not surprise me greatly. "Masqueraders impersonated the late King Carlos, the late Crown Prince, and their assasins, and simulated the obsequies of the King and Prince. Coffins and skeletons were carried by the masqueraders and blasphemous songs were sung." One would have imagined that such a disgusting display would have caused almost physical sickness amongst the spectators* of the gruesome and revolting jest; but no, the mob stoned the police for interfering. I may be prejudiced, but I would maintain that no such exhibition of public beastliness would be possible in a country inhabited by Germans, Anglo-Saxons, or Scandinavians. It would be an interesting problem for psychologists to study this tendency for the Latin peoples to display such ferocity of political hatred. One reads with horror of the deeds done during the "Terror,", and during the Commune at Paris, but such disgusting exhibitions such •as this by which Lisbon has disgraced herseli were hardly to be expected in the twentieth century. There is evidently a strong Red Revolutionary element in Portugal, and the reigning dynasty is unmistakeably insecure. And this is a matter in which Great Britain, to whom that dynasty has been exceedingly friendly, is deeply interested.

The by-election for the Central Glasgow seat promises to be unusually interesting. How on earth "Tommy" Bowles, a clever but eccentric politician, came to be selected as the Liberal candidate is a mystery. Everyone in England calls him Tommy Bowles. He is a man of money, who at one time owned the weekly paper Vanity Fair, the coloured caricature portraits of celebrities in which are often so amusing. Mr Bowles is also an enthusiastic yachtsman, and has a very pretty, if rather mordant, wit. Formerly a true blue Unionist, he quarrelled with his party over Tariff Reform, and seems to* have gone over to the Liberals. It was probably owing to his Free Trade opinions that his Glasgow candidature has been brought about. But Tommy has discovered the fact that the big Irish vote in Glasgow is a very important factor in an election in the Smoky City, and so he is putting forward the Home Rule card as his trump one. Now the English Liberals are by no means united on the Home Rule question, and it suits the official Liberals far better to put Free Trade forward as an issue, rather than pin themselves down Ito any definite promise about Home Rule." Sooner or later—at the next general election—Mr Asquith will be forced to declare definitely, one way or the other, on the subject, but just now he continues to trim. Hence the perturbation we read of in the cables. Official Liberalism evidently doesn't like "Tommy" Bowles forcing its hand.