CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9183, 12 October 1888, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE SAILORS' REST AND HOME. TO THE EDITOR. Silt,ln concluding your local on the above institution you say the workmen connected with the wharf may fairly claim to participate in its benefits. In this I cordially agree, but think that should be when they are old and helpless. If this Home is to be worked as a charitable institution, many fail to see that strong robust men, well paidan organised body—should benefit by money presumed to bo left to be expended in charity. Are there not old seamen and bushmen in our old men's home who can as fairly claim to be seamen as the majority of the wharf labourers? These should be the recipients of charity if any is given. As I am acquainted with most of the wharf labourers, I can safely assert that many are in fair circumstances, through their frugality when times were prosperous; but there are always some of every class ready to participate in any charity that may be offered. That the Home was not wanted was apparent from the first. The Home should be at once turned into a seaman's chape!, or poor house for seamen of all denominations, and the money should not be wasted as at present, in a mongrel institution, of no use to any but the management. —I am, &c., Duke Humphrey.

DIRECTORS AND AUDITORS. TO Til EDITOR. Sir, — letter signed " Asmodeus," in your paper of lUlh inst., has attracted my audition, and should also be observed by

all financial institutions in New Zealand. It has become the practice to appoint as directors and auditors to some of our largest financial concerns, men well known to tho commercial world as quite unfit to exercise any influence or control as directors, and quite incapable to understand the simplest accounts as auditors, but who are selected simply as creatures in the hands of tha manager or secretary. This is becoming a scandal, and will attract notice, now that a. close observance to our standing and crediti is to be made by financial giants in England. A very superficial inquiry would elucidate the fact that names now appearing as directors and auditors, and which for a long time have done so, are simply " dummies." The time has arrived for strict scrutiny into the conduct of all financial institutions, and as managers, inspectors, or secretaries hope to maintain the public confidence, mere creatures in these responsible positions must now be done away with forever.—l am, &c., Spectamur Agendo.

NECESSITY FOR RETRENCHMENT. TO the editor. Sir, —Public thought and attention in Auckland, if not in New Zealand, lately has been almost exclusively occupied, I may say engrossed, by the revelations elicited by the investigations made into the affairs of the Bank of New Zealand by the committee of its shareholders presided over by Mr. Justice Gillies. Its shareholders are to be congratulated, and its committee are deserving of tha highest commendation lor the skill and unflinchingl bravery they have shown, for, like accomplished and dexterous,surgeons, they probed into some if not all the financial festering sores and wounds which have aillieted thisas it has in other timesother great banking institutions. But greater credit is due to all concerned that, having found the caftse of weakness and the seat of disorder and monetary disturbance, they, like sensible men, applied the self-evident remedy. My wish is, however, not to occupy your space, nor the attention of your readers with that which belongs more especially to a limited circle, that of the Bank shareholders, than to the community at large. The whole population of the colony is directly interested in the shameful waste of public money and the gross mismanagement) still practised by the Government sanctioned by the Parliament of this unfortunate country. These two painful facts are the causes of the constant drain of the best portion of our people, nearly 2000 a month, and the crowding of debtors and their creditors into the Insolvent Court throughout New Zealand. Whilst these enormous sums are required to carry on the Government and support its many useless parasites, no permanent or beneficial relief will be found in the temporary or even lasting rise in the prices of our products, for this will only bean inducement to perpetuate our present, system of maintaining an unnecessary number of hangers-on for a living out of the public funds. The debt created in 1887-S was £2,473,884. During the present year we have raised another loan of £2,000,000, and paid over £100,000 for expenses in raising it. The total population returned by the Registrargeneral on Ist January, 1887, was 631,355. As Colonel Dawson truly said at the Otara meeting, with such facts staring us in the face New Zealand seems to have gone mad to permit such a rate of expenditure to continue. I notice by a parliamentary return presented 21st June last, that this small number of people paid for the luxury of having al\ scientific Governor £9740; its Ministers cost £10,494, and the Legislature which sanctioned these and other heavy expenses, cost the taxpayers £55,791 ! Is it to be wondered at, that with the above enormous sums to carry on the Government and to support its numerous parasites, an exodus of the population is going on from 1000 to 2000 per month ; and that) consists of some of the best portion of the people ; also that the Insolvent Courts throughout New Zealand are crowded with debtors and their creditors. Whether rightly or wrongly in principle it) is not worth while to inquire, but Parliament last session solemnly resolved not to interfere with Sir G. Maurice O'Rorke and Sir W. Fitzberbert's supposed privileges, but to leave to these gentlemen to fix tha amount to be paid to their clerical staff. The result is that men only employed for four months of the year are paid as high a. salary as those who give their services for tha whole twelve months in other departments of the State. Nearly £9000 was passed by Parliament for compensation for loss of office in the Defence Department. Many were at once re-engaged, and some of these officers are now in Auckland in active service again. No member was independent or patriotic enough to propose that) any enquiry should be made as to tne necessity for a revision of the Pension List, on which the colony is paying about £30,000 a. year. To all remonstrances of any member, and some few had a slight twinge of conscienceto the Premier, Sir H. A. Atkinson, his ready answer was, leave it to him during. ! the recess to make reductions. What is the use, therefore, we may all ask, of our sending 91 Europeans and 4 Maori representatives to Wellington at a cost of between £30,000 and £40,000 a sitting, if they are unable to exercise any control of the public purse? Would it not be far better to reduce the number to 50 forthenexb three years'! lam sure the smaller number would insist on controlling the present extravagance, abolish many rampant abuses, consolidate several of the departments into one, and effect without delay what is so urgently and desperately needed—l mean Financial Reform.

THE MEANING OF THE WORD MAORI. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Some time ago I received a letter anent the " Aryan descent of the Maori," which—Fornander, Tregear, and others notwithstanding —is simply nonsense. Again, as none of the numerous writers oil .Maori mythology, legends, origin, and emigrations, has attempted even an explanation of the word Maori, I would ask you to kindly permit me to do so. At the outsefa I would mention that lon, 10, lao, Ao, Aon, Aor, Maor, Aotea, Awatea, Saba, Sava, Java, Haba, Hava, and Hawa all mean sun, light, or dawn. By adding the Arabic or Hebrew yod or i—a qualifying termination—we get loni, Aoni, Sabai, Hawai, and Maori, meaning bright, lucid, shining, also child of the dawn or light, and wanderer. Thu3, Maor, Arabic, and Hebrew (sec Hebrew lexicon), light, sun, &c. ; Maori, bright, lucid, clear, natural, wanderer; Saba or Zaba (Turkish and Arabic), dawn; Zabai, one roving about (see Hebrew lexicon). In nearly all languages the words shine, light, dawn, clear, or bright are convertible into a meaning of Hying, roaming, or spreading. Take, for instance, the word " clear." After rain ib clears up. Then we have clear the fence op ditch, clcar out, clear away, all of which phrases are quite clear to an Englishman. Again, there is bolt, a stream of lightning ; bolt, to run away. German, brennen, burn ; rennen, run; scheinen, shine ; scheiden, depart, start. French, aube, dawn ; aubiner, to gallop. Swedish, skena, to shine, also to bolt. Greek, fos, light; foitas, wanderer. Maori, white, shine, also to go from one place to another. Tawhiti,' a vagabond. Hebrew, palad, shine; palab, escape, bolt. My aim in writing is to get;' others interested in Maori lore to proba deeper than has as yet been the custom. I wish I could induce some of our University men to take up this subject and pry out the hidden meaning of proper names of men, birds, trees, and fishes, which nearly: all indicate something in the past forgotten history of this really fine race of people.— I am, &c., Take.