THE SHOPS AND FACTORIES BILL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIV, Issue 194, 18 August 1890, Page 2

THE SHOPS AND FACTORIES BILL.

To tiie Editor of the "Evening Mail." "It is a maxim of our land that an Englishman's house is his castle. Not tha. ifc is surrounded with walla and battlements. It may be but a straw-built shed— every wind of heaven may whistle around it, all the elements of nature may enter, but the King oannot, The King dare not."

Sir,— These are the sentiments of the great Lord Chatham, and are worthy of tho study of all who love liberty in these days of degenerate statesmanship. Then the greatest men of England were struggling to apply in practice the maxims of the Great Charter. We to-day in this colony, both in Parliament aud out of it, are trying our utmost to destroy their work and de« prive men of individual liberty, "of the right to do as he will providing he infringe not tha like liberty in others. " It is amazing that suoh a Bill as that beforo Parliament, with a clause in it to force freemen, under pains and penalties, to olose their businesses at specified hours, should ever get npon the table of the House. It ia an entire reversal of a liberal order of things, a going baok into the dark ages, to the days of sumptuary laws, eto. May I ask, if the United Tradesmen are so enamoured of Government _ regulations, whether it would not be quite in accordance with their present desire to insert a clause in the Bill that aU lights should be put out at 8 o'clook by the sonnd of the curfew bell. lam &0., Merely an Onlooker. P.S— To ba consistent I think hotel, should be closed at 6 o'clook in common with olher businesses.

The unhappy Czar, who has lately enjoyed a long spell of comparative immunity, and was on the point of ordering the ; attendance of bis armourer with a tin-opener to release him from his last bomb-proof suit, has onoe more had to seek seolusion in the family well. The faot that only two of his officer, have committed suioide on this occasion fails to allay his anxiety. The daily train to Siberia will be longor than usual for a week or bo. A . a meeting held in Melbourne to promote a frozen moat company in Queensland, soma interesting particulars were given as to the initiation of the frozen meat trade in New Zealand, the opinion baing expressed that it had helped New Zealand to tide over its financial troubles, if it had not absolutely saved the colony from bankruptcy. The trade was of greater value to that oolony now than silver mining was to parts of Aust tralia. Its cessation would be a blow only less disastrous than the stoppage of the wool trade.