OMAHA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5743, 14 April 1880, Page 3

OMAHA.

A soirei in conneotion with the Presbyterian Church was held izi the schoolroom, Omaha, on the Bth instant. The tables were presided over by the ladies of the district; The soiree waa very largely attended, and there were several relays of tables. When tea was over, and ample justice had been done to the good things provided, the Sabbath-school children of the district sang sweetly a selection from the hymns of Moody and Sankey. The Rev. K. McKinney, pouter loci, then took the chair, and among other said, that the people in the Omaha district knew him very well, aad knew that he waa no political parson, and that he had no taste for political parsonism. .Nevertheless, he sometimes felt that they would not be the worse in this part of the world of a Parnell among them. Parnell, he said, is the man who tells the people in Ireland not to pay rent. -The people in the Northern part of New Zealand appear to him to need a Parnell—a man who would stand up for them, and tell the colony and the Government of the colony that they ought not to. be called on to pay the taxes that are being imposed on them on account of the borrowed millions. The Bettlers from Auckland to the North Cape had been very little more benefited by the borrowed millions than the inhabitants of Patagonia. It was trne, ha said, the people of Rodney had got some aid this year for their pnblic works through the exertions made on their behalf by their present excellent representative. But this was only the smallest modicum of their rights, and the rights of the people of all the northern counties are stdl systematically ignored, as they have ever been ignored by all the forma of Governments of the colony, whether provincial or .central. Here, for example, was this settlement of Omaha, containing, among other enterprising settlers, the family of theMeiklejobns—as lineafamily of settlers as ever came to the colony, a family who had built their own ship, in America, and sailed round the world in search of a home, and had at last settled in this district. Yet during nearly the whole of what was now almost a quarter of a century that he and their clergyman had been visiting this settlement, it was absolutely without roads. When he visited it, until quite recently, he could only do so by plunging through quagmires, where his horse's neck, if not his own, was endangered. There were some important improvements now in this respect. He was glad to see them, but he said he would he g adder still to see among them moral and spnitual improvement. He Bpoke at some length upon this subjeot, and said that he believed very _ firmly in the Bible declaration that it was righteousness more than anything else, and more than all things else, that exalted a nation.— Mr. Campbell next spoke. He said they all knew that their minister had not been' hitherto a political parson. However, after what tfcey heard from him that night, it would appear as if be hardly intended to remain so., for his own part, he was glad to hear the minister Bpeaking out, and if he progressed in future as he had done that evening, it would not be surprising if they saw him yet standing for the representation of Kidney.—An interesting programme of recitations and speeches, with music, vocal and instrumental, was then gone through, after which, wilh the usual vote of thanks and the singing of the .National Anthem, the so Tee was biought to a close. Altogether . the evening waa a very pleasant one. It ! was the hist soiree held in Great Omaha, but ic appeared to be the universal desire that it should not be the last.—[A Correspond! Nt, April 10.]