ANGLO-COLONIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9180, 9 October 1888, Page 6

ANGLO-COLONIAL NEWS.

[feom our londox correspondent.] London, August 24. THE CHINESE QUESTION. Just before the closing of the session of Parliament Sir George Campbell asked the Government whether a pamphlet which has been circulated in this country, purporting to contain the speech of Sir Henry Parkes in moving the second reading of the Chinese Immigration Bill, in the Sydney Parliament, was a genuine one. He quoted several passages from it which he thought were somewhat peculiar, and required explanation. Sir John Gorst, replying on behalf of the Government, was fain to admit the authenticity of the pamphlet, with which no doubt you are perfectly familiar in the colony, but expressed the opinion that tho passages which gave offence to Sir George Campbell were sufficiently axplained in the preface. Inasmuch as Sir Henry Parkes in one portion of his speech is made to say that neither Her Majesty's Governors nor Her Majesty's ships of war will induce them to permit a single Chinaman to land on the shores of New South Wales, sava under such conditions as they shall impose, and that in other parts he delivers himself of similar highflown utterances, it would seem that the explanation contained in the preface is not wholly unneeded. Although the Colonial Office are very reticent as to the progress of the negotiations with the Pekin Government in respect to Chinese immigration, a little of what is going on has been allowed to leak out. On the 'loth instant Sir Graham Berry and Sir Arthur Blyth, in response to urgent messages from their respective Governments, approached the Colonial Ortiee with a view to ascertaining what was the real position of affairs. They found Lord Kuntsford, who was on the eve of departure for his holidays, still rankling under the feeling of annoyance at the way in which the hands of the Imperial Government had been hampered by the precipitate action of Australasia, and somewhat less conciliatory than is his wont. To their request for information he gave them as near an approach to a snubbing as is compatible with his habitual punctilious politeness, and intimated that as the negotiations were being conducted through the Governors of the different colonies, he 3aw no necessity for communicating any particulars respecting the same to "the Agents - General. However, a little diplomatic softsoap which was judiciously applied by the more able Agent-General of the two, subsequently mollified him to the extent that he consented to become a little more communicative : and the Agents-General left his ; presence with something like an assurance I that in his opinion there was no necessity for any departure from the decisions which had been arrived at in the Sydney Conference in regard to the Chinese. It is considered probable now that the American Senate have given their sanction to the Chinese Exclusion Treaty Bill, the Imperial Government will be able to urge that they have as good a right as the Washington authorities to favourable terms granted to the latter by the Tsungli Yamen. The Times of Wednesday of this week contains a very sensible letter, written from Wellington "by Mr. Edward Wakerield, on the Chinese q'uestion. Mr. Wakerield ridicules the idea that there exist the slightest grounds for apprehending a Mongolian invasion of Australia, nor does he admit that the Chinese at present inhabit tb,e country to any great extent. On the contrary he quotes Mr. Hayter, the Government statist of \ ic:oria, to show that last year there were only .51.000 Chinese in all "Australia, against 3,000,000 Europeans, while, so far from increasing, their numbers are falling off at the rate of three per cent, per annum, so that, it this ratio continued for 30 years, there would be no Chinese left in Australia, and, hnally, that, inasmuch as there are only 51,000 Chinese to Australia's 3,000,000 square miles of territory, it follows that there is only " one poor solitary pigtail to (30 square miles of country." He declares that the recent agitation was got up solely for political purposes by Queensland and New South Wales wirepullers, and tells us that to accept the noise of these demagogues as the voice of Australia would be as absurd as for the people of the colony " to take the blood and thunder resolutions of the Trafalgar Square meeting for the deliberate voice of the people ot the United Kidgdom, or the perfervid utterances of Mr. Gladstone against the police at Mitchellstown for an indication that British statesmen are determined to nut down that useful but much-abused force. , THE IMPERIAL DEFENCE BILL. This Bill having become law before the expiry of the session of Parliament, the Admiralty have lost no time in availing themselves of the authority thus conferred upon them to build an Australasian navy. They have put the five cruisers in hand, and three of these are to be built at the famous Elswick Works of Sir William Armstrong and Co., at Newcastle, and two at Dumbarton, by Messrs. J. and G. Thompson. They are to be constructed under the superintendence of Mr. G. Apsey, one of the Government Dockyard officials. There is some little anxiety in colonial circles in London as to what form they will take. The last official statement on the point was that they were to be improved Archers, and unless some fresh agreement has been entered into with the colonies, this will, no doubt, be the model after which they will be built. But the experience of the recent naval manoeuvres seems to show that vessels of the Archer class would be of little use in real warfare, and that the merits of this style of ship have been greatly exaggerated. One of the lessons of the mimic war operations has been to show the value of fast steaming vessels armed with quick-firing guns, such as would be capable ot overtaking one of our fast Australian or New Zealand liners and bringing them to. But some of the newspaper correspondents, who have watched the manoeuvres throughout, tell us that such cruisers as we have in the British navy at the present have, with one or two exceptions, proved total failures for nearly all the purposes for which they would be required m actual warfare. A cruiser, says one critic, which cannot maintain a speed of at least 16 knots an hour to the full extent of her coal endurance could neither escape from a modern battleship nor overtake a modern passenger steamer. She would be no use as a scout told off to keep touch with an enemy's fleet or as a dispatch veaeel to maintain communication between separate divisions of the same squadron. This being the case, it becomes a question whether the Archer type of vessel would be the be3t for the use of the colonies. The Government, however, magnanimously promised that the ships, when being built, should have the advantage of all the recent improvements, and no doubt the lessons oi the naval manoeuvres will not be thrown away upon them. Perhaps the breakdown of the cruisers may be explained to some extent by an altered form of the well-known Jingo line, " We've got the ships, and we've got the money, but we don t seem to have got either the men or the officers." The operations which have just been terminated show that we are very deficient in two useful classes of seamen, namely, engineroom hands and lieutenants. In many cases, ships, particularly the cruisers, have gone to sea with the engineroom not only undermanned, but with many of the complement which has been scraped together woefully deficient in knowledge and experience. In some instances even lada from the farm have been put into theengine-rnom, where of course they were of comparatively little u»e, especially when superintended by young engineers who had been sent to take part in the manoeuvres for the sake of the experience which it would afford them. The torpedo boats also seem to have come out very badly from the trial. It would stem that this class of vessel, althoug valuable as a destructive agent in smooth water, \n well nigh useless when tho sea is at ! all rough. The life of the officers and crew • on board a craft of this class is, to quote the retined language of Sir Charles Beresfmil, "Simply devilish," and both officers and crew have to be frequently changed. If the torpedo boats are only useful in Blnootl; water, it is clear that those who prophesi.- i that the days of big ships were over are \vi y much mistaken, and that the late Holi.ii: Pasha was not far wrong in his opinion .is t-i the exaggerated importance attached to torpedoes a« an addition to the implements «\ modern warfare.

THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE. Substantial progress is now being made with the buildings of the Imperial Institute, and enough bricks and mortar are now visible. to give a fair idea of the general outline of the plan of the building. Iu fact the work is in such an advanced state that the AngloDanish Exhibition, which occupies a portion of the site of the Imperial Institute, will have to be closed to-morrow to make room for the encroachments of tho builder. I gave in my last letter an outline of what it had been decided to do in connection with the formation of a Commercial Intelligence Department of the Institute. Official publicity has now been afforded to the suggestion of the organising committee in this regard, and they are set forth in a more extended form than I was able to give to them a fortnight ago. The circular, which has been issued to the newspapers states that it is proposed that the results of the operations of this department shall be made available for use by those directly interested in commerce and industries by the publication of a journal to appear monthly, which shall be distributed to member's of the Institute, and, under certain arrangements, to public bodies, associations, and institutions connected with commerce, trade, industry, technical education, emigration, and colouia-

ation. This publication i 3 to be supplemented by the issue weekly, or from time to time, of special circulars for the purpose of conveying important information as soon as obtained, to those privileged to receive the same. The collection of intelligence of this nature relating to the colonies and India is already proceeding by correspondence with the various Colonial Governments, with the Agents-General, with the officials, public bodies, and mercantile and other associations of the Indian Empire ; with foreign consuls, and, with the assistance of the Foreign Office, with British consuls in foreign States ; with the principal commercial and industrial journals at home and in the colonies and India, more than a hundred of which are now regularly being examined at the offices of the Institute; and with the provincial, colonial, and Indian Chambers of Commerce, the Royal Geographical Society, the Iron and Steel Institute, the Society of Chemical Industry, the Institution of Civil Engineers, and other technical societies. This correspondence will, it is hoped, provide for the continuous collection of:-—(«) All published matter of an authoritative character respecting the resources, industries, and commerce, the condition and statistics of trade and labour markets, and the general commercial relations of the several British colonies, of India, and of foreign States and colonies, with a view to the formation and maintenance up to the day of a library of reference on matters relating to commerce and kindred subjects, to agriculture, industries, trades, handicrafts, emigration and colonisation, (b) Information relating to known and new sources of supply of raw material—mineral, vegetable, and animal— in the colonies and India, to fluctuations in prices, means and charges of transport, the opening up of new countries, districts, or markets, (c) Information from import and export merchants in the colonies and India respecting local requirements of raw material and manufactured goods, the state of the markets, finance, means and cost of transport, and of measures likely to promote the development of local trade. (<7) Information relating to foreign markets, imports and exports, industries, finance, tariffs, customs, and other kindred regulations, and to all matters connected with the trades, commerce and industries, and with the current oondition and prospects of further development of technical and commercial education in foreign States, (e) The preparation from time to time of precis, extracts, and statistics giving in a form suitable for publication newmatter relating to the above subjects. (/) Information relating to the requirements of the colonies as regards immigrants and colonisation, new explorations, public works in progress and contemplation, condition of labour market, character of labour and trade demands, rates of wages, and other matters of use and interest to those seeking employment in the colonies, or for information boaring upon the existence or creation of openings for the investment of capital in the colonial sections of the Empire. A special office is to be established, with branches in the provinces, for dealing with inquiries relating to the above-mentioned classes of information, and it is intended to develop this system of correspondence into an organisation for the collection of the latest samples, for trade ami experimental purposes, of the different products and resources of the Empire. As I mentioned in the previous letter, centres for the collection of information will be established in 12 or 15 of the principal cities of the colonies and India; and, finally, it is announced that a conference will shortly take place between the organising committee and the representatives of the principal Chambers of Commerce and trade associations, with the object of discusssing tho suggestions of the operation of the Commercial Intelligence Department. It will be seen that the Prince of Wales sets a very ambitious programme before his pet institute. The duties of the Intelligence Department alone constitute a very formidable undertaking, and yet they will be but a fraction of what the institute hopes to do. The Intelligence Department, with its monthly journal and frenuent issue of leaflets, looks as though it would prove a formidable rival to the undertaking of Mr. Leigh ton Bailey, to which reference was made in a previous letter. There is one thing very certain, namely, that if this Intelligence Department is to be properly conducted it will run away with a lot of money.