Talk of the Week.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 235, 11 March 1876, Page 13

Talk of the Week.

A eeturn of agricultural statistics of the province of Taranaki is published in the last Government Gazette. The difference between the estimated crops of 1875 and 1876, for the province, are as follows . 1875. 1876. Wheat (bushels) 16,559 13,487 .. Decrease 3372 Oats (bushels) .. 12,302 21.595 .. Increase 9293 Barley (bushels) 80 430 .. Increase 350 Potatoes (tons) .. 1,769 2,106 .. Increase 337 The number of holdings in the province is 592, the amount of land broken up, but not under crop, 1575 acres. There are 821 acres down for wheat, 1894 for green food or hay ; 775-1 for grain, 191. for barley; in grass for hay, 13,800 ; in permanent artificial grass, 58,0192 ; in potatoes, 432 g ; in other crops, 2674. The quantities of last year’s crops remaining on hand are 76 bushels of wheat and 601 bushels of oats. The Wellington people are a nasty grasping envious lot, especially in the matter of rifle shooting. At least, this is what the Auckland and Dunedin folks have recently said very authoritatively about us. But if a Wellington man were to have won the carbine championship, we want to know whether he would have been received at Auckland or Dunedin as Mr. Bell was received by the Wellington Artillery on Tuesday ? It is more than probable that had a Wellington man been victorious we should have had lettei-s and paragraph inuendoes to show that he shot unfairly, and used bear’s grease with his bullets, or did something or another that he ought not to have done. But Wellington is content to recognise the champion no matter where he comes from. It is an evidence of real colonial feeling that even in such matters as that just touched upon, this city shows that she is for New Zealand, not for a local jealousy.

The Auckland Evening Star of February the 27th has an article in its usual strain, alleging all sorts of things against Wellington, and declaring Auckland to be a species of paradise in which no one ever dies and nothing but the Provincial Government is impoverished. As a matter of course, too, it is stated that the impoverishment of the Provincial Government merely arises from the fact that all the public resources of Auckland are impounded to support the rest of an utterly impecunious colony. The Star, as the text from which it preaches to the above effect, takes the recent advance of £30,000 to the Wellington province, forgetting that this £30,000 is merely a payment of right, and one which, had Auckland been entitled to it, the colony would have heard nothing but threatenings and cursings until treble the. amount had been allotted. However, the people around the capital have a quiet way of doing things, and are satisfied to wait until justice is done them. There is, a significant paragraph in the aforesaid leader concerning the Oiago Guardian. .<, The Star,' noticing'That the Guardian has hitherto called Auckland people a set of ne’er do wells, in a public sense, observes significantly that the Guardian will soon sing to a different tune. With certain recent telegrams in memory, there is no difficulty in here recognising a certain hoof.

It is most unpleasant to have our meaning misconceived. A few days since we had a little paragraph pointing out that personal applications to Ministers for billets were becoming a bore, and were besides indecent, and nxost unlikely to result satisfactorily for the applicants. Our expressions were written in the most general sense, and without any intention of pointing at an individual case ; but somehow, sevei'al of our Northern and Southern contemporaries, who seem to know more on the matter than we do, have quite misconceived our meaning, and in Auckland and Dunedin papei's it is broadly stated that the bow we drew at a venture and the arrow we shot at random “ are supposed to be aimed at the Wellington correspondent of a Dunedin daily.” We desire to give this supposition the earliest and most unqualified conti’adiction. That Wellington correspondent, goodness knows, has been frequently pointed to by us, in a desire for the amelioration of his mental capacity, impoverished by want of cultivation of the truth ; bxxt we have never as much as had an idea that he would or. could pester Ministers for a - ’ Government billet ; and we desire distinctly to say so how. In fact, it would have been impossible for us to have conceived the personal application of our remai’ks which our Auckland and Dunedin contempoi’aries arc good enough to attribxxte to us, for we only know this Wellington correspondent through the traces of his clxxmsy claw which eveiy now and then appear in newspapers. As an absolixte entity he is unknown to us, and we have no desire to make his acquaintance. It is evident, however, that he is known elsewhere ; but surely his impudence cannot be sufficient to justify those who do know him in saying that he pesters Ministers for a billet.

The Crozet Islands, xxpon which the ill-fated Strathmore was wrecked, have naturally become’objects of considerable interest lately ; and by the kindness of Captain Davis, of the ship Pleiades, we have been enabled to extract the following information from Imray’s Sailing Directions for the Indian Ocean : “ The Crozet Islands are named after Captain Crozet, who commanded the French ship Ajax, and who discovered these islands in 1773. In 1838 they were examined by M. Cecille, of the French navy, who states that the islands are situated between lat. 46deg. 9min. and 46deg. 34min. south, long. 50deg. 24min. and 52deg. 20min. east. The largest of the western group is Hog Island, which is mountainous, and the coast is in many places steep, without any anchorage for ships. It abounds with hogs and seals, and is only accessible with difficulty on its eastern coast. A

dangerous reef lies about ten miles S.E. 4 S. out from this island. About eight or nine miles to the north-east of Hog Island are the Twelve Apostles, which, strictly speaking, are connected. They are formed of two islets of moderate height, separated by a narrow channel, and surrounded by ten or twelve small rocks, and they appeared to M. Cecille to be inaccessible upon all sides. Possession Island, from which the survivors were taken off, lies nearly eighty miles to the south-eastward of the Twelve Apostles. It has only one anchorage, called Ship Bay, situated at the end of a deep valley, and open to east and south-east winds, which throw a heavy sea into this bay, though the gales seldom blow home. This bay is situated in lat. 46deg. 26min. south, long. 51deg. 20min. east. • The whole of the group of islands are visible in clear weather from a distance of 60 or 65 miles, are generally covered with snow, and totally destitute of trees or shrubs, the only vegetation being coarse grass and a very hard sort of hollow-stemmed moss, bxxt they are frequented by prodigious numbers of birds. These islands were also visited by Captain Boss during his expedition to the Antarctic Seas, but he does not appear to have made any considerable additions to the information already given ; but at the time of his visit there was a sealing station on Possession Island, and according to the account given by those men the eggs of birds were very numerous, and excellent food, especially those of the albatross ; the temperature not low, and wild ducks numerous in a lake on the summit of the island.. The changes of weather are sudden and violent. These islands were more recently visited by H.M.S. Supply, in connection with the Transit of Venus expedition, but no later information of their character and climate is at present available.”

The Australasian of a recent date disposes thus effectually of some remarks recently made by Sir George Grey concerning it : —“Sir George Grey has the defauts de ses qualites. With the'terrible earnestness which is a consequence of the consciousness of a great and lofty mission, he has also that liability to become the victim of a hoax, which often accompanies a state of extraordinary mental exaltation. Sir George Grey has been made the subject of a trick of this kind lately. Indeed, it may be said that he was at once the hoaxer and the hoaxed, inasmuch as it was to his own supernatural faculty of seeing through a milestone further than other people that he. fell a prey. He lately sent to an Auckland journal a letter stating that he had read an. article in the Australasian criticising his election.speech at Auckland. With regard to this article Sir George Grey had two obsei-vations to make. One was that it was ‘coarse,’ an opinion which unquestionably he had a perfect right to form if he liked. The other was that * the article . was written at Wellington by a dependent of the Government.’ Sir George is good enough to state the evidence by which he was led to this deduction. The article was cut out of the paper and sent to him in an anonymous letter, which stated that 1 it was .forwarded with the compliments of the writer. The letter was posted at Wellington, and was in a handwriting which Sir George had ‘ before seen.’ Ergo, it was written by a dependent of the Government. The logic is overwhelming, and the conclusion is irresistible. Nevertheless, the fact is that Sir George has been tricked by a silly hoax, in which his own credulity and faculty.of jumping at wild conclusions has made him an accomplice. His inference is as unfounded as his reasoning is ridiculous. A politician who has had the experience of the world of Sir George Grey oxxght to be above the childish folly of seeing a private foe in every public critic, and of supposing that nothing can appear in any journal commenting unfavorably on his rather remarkable style of oratory, unless it emanates from motives of personal hostility or self-interest. Tyros in public life usually start with, notions of this kind, but a veteran politician like Sir George Grey ought to have discarded them long ago.”

We have received the February number of the “ New Zealand Jurist.” We think this most carefully got xip and ably edited publication must be very useful to the profession. Among its valuable features we remark the notes on general topics interesting to the members of the legal fraternity, the notes of new decisions, the roll of solicitors and banisters in the colony, who now foot up to. the goodly “ total of the whole,” as Joe Hume used to say, of 225. There are we see now .no less than nine lawyei’S in the House of Bepresentatives. Det us trust that their presence there will be for good and not for evil. There is also a table of times of sitting of the Supreme Court, in its sevei’al disti’icts, and also of the District Courts, a very useful thing. The “Notes of New Decisions” are likely to be of much service to the profession, for in this way are made available many important points before the entire report of the case can be given, so as to help both opinions in practice and decisions of Courts. .Among the special articles is one on the appointment to the post of Begistrar of the Supreme Court at Christchurch of Mi’. F. De Carteret Malet, which lately made such a stir among the lawyers there. There is another special, article, which will be read with great . interest both by the lawyers and the public.. It appears that the point which was decided by the Appeal Court in Brogden v. Miller, as to the right of plaintiffs, in suits for the reconstruction of invalid policies of insurance, to have the insurance slip, which is itself invalid as a contract, looked at by the Coui’t as evidence, .is coming up again in another case in Dunedin. The attorneys in the fresh case, Messrs. Macassey and Kettle, have submitted a case on this decision of Brogden v. Miller, for the opinion of the eminent Victorian barrister, Mr. G. Higinbotham, and his opinion is that this decision will probably not be sustained by the Privy Council. Mr. Higinbotham refers to the case of Casey v. Patton, wherein it was pointed out that in the former case o Mackenzie v. Caulson (the case on which our

Appeal Court relied) an important English Act was ignored, and that with this Act our New Zealand statute in point corresponds. Mr. Higinbotham concludes: “The rule seems. to be inconsistent with the above decisions,, which show that a slip which is absolutely void and not enforceable at law or in equity as a contract, may yet be given in evidence, though not valid, wherever it is material, and although there is no evidence of- any other valid contract.” We can honestly recommend this most useful and careful publication.

The recent remarks of Mr. Vincent Pyke regarding the Wellington police are not meeting with the favor that gentleman would doubtless desire to see accorded to them. We ourselves offered a little kindly-meant advice to Mr. Pyke concerning these same remarks. The Wanganui Herald supplements our remarks by saying : —“ We have lately been getting some remarkable ‘ law’ from Dunedin. The other day we learnt that the B.M. there had decided that a man when in a state of drunkemxess need not divulge his name to the police, but we are not informed if after a night’s subterranean reflection, and when he was avain enthroned with reason next morning,. the police could not enforce from him what they can from others. We are now told that a defaulting absconder, against whom a warrant has been in existence for some months on a charge of forgery, is grossly injured by being arrested by the police ; or in other words that they should act in -direct defiance of the instructions of their sxxperior officers, and the mandates of the Court itself. Without entering into the logic of this magistei’ial deliverance, we may point out that there is an intermediate port between Wellington and Port Chalmers, and as we believe that it is an anxiom in law never to believe anything till it is proved, Campbell’s intention of visiting Dunedin was no proof that he had not a strong personal predilection for the balmier air of the plains of Canterbury. We quite agree with our contemporay in the attitude he has assumed in his defence of the police, for when they exceed their duties the Press is not slow to vindicate the liberties of the people; and it is therefore only fair that when that body is unjustly stigmatised for doing their duty they should receive the influence of its pi’otection. In Scotland, at one time, an impartial system of what was known as ‘Jedburgh Justice’ prevailed. It was simple in the extreme, and merely consisted of hanging a man first, and trying him afterwards. ‘ Dunedin Justice ’ has, however, not only reversed this ancient practice, but would appear, morally at least, to hang the man who arrests a presumed criminal. Judicial vagaries are the last manifestations of imbecility we should expect from the metropolis of the South, and we trust they are now * played out,’ as they may be infectious; but in any case, we look to the Govei’nment for the exercise of some discrimination in the appointment of gentlemen who are to adorn the bench.” There is only one point on which the Herald is astray. In a portion of its ai’ticle, not quoted by us, it calls Mr. Pyke “the. second Besident Magistrate at Dunedin.” Now Mr. Pyke is hot the second Besident Magistrate at Dunedin, nor is he likely to be so, although we doubt not the appointment is one he covets.