WELLINGTON NEWS NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11372, 15 May 1900, Page 5

WELLINGTON NEWS NOTES.

[BY telegraph.—own correspondent,] \ Wellington, Monday. WAR AND FAMINE.

The Bishop of Wellington preached yesterday in St. Paul's upon claims of the people stricken by famine. Famine, he said, resulted from the conscious or unconscious neglect of the laws of nature, which were the laws of God. With regard to the war in South Africa, he thanked God that men had come forward to answer the challenge which involved the cause of the Empire. He thought we were in the right to fight rather than allow the great trust which we had given to us from God to be taken away from us. We were able to say that we in New Zealand were perfectly disinterested in joining this war. Ho thought that in doing so we were doing our duty. In assisting the sufferers by the Indian famine, we were doing a purely unselfish act, which in a human sense could in no way profit us. The need of help was very pressing for the sufferers numbered nearly the population of the City of London, and it was stated by the Viceroy of India that the people were dying like " flies." The offertory amounted to £21 lis 6d. MINISTERIAL. The Colonial Secretary has received a telegram from the Hon. John McKenzie stating that lie is still improving in health. The Premier is to take leave of Mr. McKenzie to-day or to-morrow. Mr. Seddon will then return to Wellington on Wednesday. He went South in the Hinemoa, but he will proceed to tho Islands in the Tutanekni. He will be accompanied by Mrs, Seddon. He will call at Rarotonga and several of the other islands of the Pacific. He will be absent about four weeks. A NEW SCARE. Three cats were found dead this morning in one of the wharf sheds. The question rose whether they might not have been poisoned by diseased rats they had fed on. Dr. Fyffe, the sanitary commissioner, was sent for, and arrived soon after. The shed was closed, and an air of mystery surrounded the wharf. Mr. Gilruth and Dr. Fyffe immediately made a post-mortem examination. The result was that the cats were shown to have died of an irritant poison—poison laid for flits probably. A third cat from the same shed died of pneumonia. There was no indication whatever of the plague. The scare fell through, and people went to their work as usual.

WHAT IS AGRICULTURAL LAND?

The Chief Justice (Sir R. Stout) this morning gave an important judgment in the case of Kilsby Bros. v. the governors of the Wellington College and Girls' High School. The question was as to the construction of the lease of certain lands. The Court was asked to decide whether the land was pastoral or agricultural land. His Honor, in the course of his judgment, said that he considered that agricultural land was not land that must necessarily bo used for cropping. It might be used for clearing and laying down in artificial grasses, and it was not, therefore, necessarily land that was ploughed or ploughable. This land had been surveyed into small sections, eleven in 963 acres, and this to anyone conversant with our land laws and the rules observed in defining Crown lands was a potent proof that the land was deemed agricultural land. The terms " agricultural land" and " pastoral land" were relative. The circumstances of the colony changed, and with this change land that had been pastoral became agricultural land. He thought that if the land was fit for cultivation, using that word in the sense used in the Land Act, the land was agricultural land, even though it might never bo fit for cropping. Were he to. interpret the word " agricultural" in any other way it would make the term unmeaning to most of the land in the Wellington provincial district.

THE JUDICIAL BENCH. Mr. Northcroft thought the copyright case against? Mr. Hornsby, a member of the House of Representatives, should be tried by justices. He pointed out that a stipendiary magistrate's tenure of office was insecure, because it was subject to the annual vote of the House. He had known of threats being made by members of the House against stipendiary magistrates; in fact, not long ago a magistrate was threatened in his own Court by a member of Parliament. He thought, therefore, that the case should be heard by justices, as being in a more independent position. Mr. Myers, who appeared for the plaintiffs, combated the S.M.'s view. Members, he said, should bo and were on the same footing as other people who came to the Court. In this case the Act under which the charge was laid could not be expected to be understood by justices. The S.M., whose remarks were evidently not intended to be taken as a serious objection on his part, finally agreed to hear the case. The above is a report of the proceedings from the Wairarapa Observer.