NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1211, 17 May 1895, Page 35

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Mr Hutchison had a good deal to say the other night at Eltham about Te Whiti. He had been “ assured”—a man who wants to say something nasty has always been assured, and he never subjects Ins convenient witness to cross-examination— he Had been assured that the visit of the Minister of Labour to Te Whiti was regarded as an admission of the supremacy of Te Whiti. Mr Hutchison has never heaid of the « 800-ie-man.” He thinks ho has invented the idea, but he was prudent enough to o-et it off upon a remote country constituency. He will probably hear a good many more things about Parihaka shortly, which all the assurance of his convenient informants, aided by his own, which is not small, will not avail to misrepresent.

The Post revelled the other day in a gory anticipation of dreadful things to happen in the Uriwera Country; a “ horde of unemployed —this is how this considerate journal speaks of the working men who are unfortunate enough to be out of work—a “ horde ” of the unemployed was to be let loose among the Uriwera to provoke that already sulky people by givin° r full play to every imaginable vice. But lo and behold! The Uriwera are coming* forward to help these "unemployed to make roads through their country. Our rash friend may be dreadfully disappointed at the loss, of the offensively predicted bloodshed, but everybody will laugh at him.

That was a fine, old-fashioned, long-drawn wail it gave us on Friday about the abolition of Freetrade in Native lands. “The last sigh of the Moor ” is one of the most pathetically poetic things in old Spanish history. The last shriek of the monopolist and the landgrabber against the safeguards that kill his business is the most comical and satisfactory thing in the history of New Zealand. About the best thing in the history of Native land administration is the work done by tie Public Trustee in the matter of the West Coast reserves. The Public Trustee has secured the confidence of the Native owners by his fair, impartial and successful management of their property. His position under the new Land Act is actually , denounced by the Post, as incomprehensible and unjustifiable. The Minister of Lands never gives quarter to any attempt at monopoly. That is the standing grievance against him, and it is made into a standing joke. But the power given to him is denounced as shameful. Truly these shrieks are the ravings of lunacy. The Natives may be misled time ; but they will in the end discover .that the limitations on the freedom of trade in lands are the best provision ever made for their interest. They will find that the new system gives them good value and enables them to keep it. These are things unprecedented.

Why do the Opposition financiers not pitch into the directors of the Bank of New South Wales ? They have committed the heinous crime of bringing forward the surplus of one period into the to'tai for dis* tribution at the end of fthe next period, and they have had the audacity to call that their profit. If there is anything in the financial tirades of the last few years, these directors have committed the unpardonable sin, and are nothing better than jugglers and mountebanks. Where is the Opposition virtue ? If they do not trot it out we shall be relucantly driven to the conclusion that they have been denouncing the Government finance against their convictions.

There is much in the chairman’s speech that is worthy of consideration. His statement, to begin with, that the Australian colonies have reached their sheep-carrying capacity, or nearly so, is very satisfactorily suggestive. Australia is one of the largest producers of wool. ' Now the population of the world is not stationary, - and it is a population which wears woollens,and, liking woollens , keeps to them, and increases its use of them. There is reason to think well of the future of the wool industry.

Another suggestive statement is that ••• Queensland is certain to become the premier cattle-raising 1 colony of Australasia. This is proved by recent returns of cattle . shipments. Now, every one remembers the time when there was a regular stampede ’all over Australia from cattle to sheep ; station-owners getting rid of their cattle at any price to find room for the more profitable “ jumbuk.” Now, the superior profit of cattle-raising in Queensland means a - large shrinkage in the wool production of the Continent. The prospect of the wool trade is,thereby made still more bright.

The Brisbane Courier has, apparently been asleep for some months, and having been awakened up suddenly by the success

of our 3 per cent, loan has taken to read up the musty reports of speeches made by opponents of the cheap money scheme when the scheme was young. There he has discovered that all the gilt-edged securities are o-oing to pass into the hands of the Government Board. ITe will be astonished, perhaps chagrined, to learn that this line of criticism was dropped long ago. It will annoy him to find that the critics who have any pretension to be informed at all now insist that the securities which the Board is destined to have are those that are not only not gilt-edged, but have no edge at all.

The Department has, however, been inconsiderate enough to falsify this cheerful prediction. Here is a statement ot the Tuapeka Time s which has been going the rounds of the Southern papers: A settler applied for a loan of =£3so over 400 acres of land, which an expert valuer has stated to be well worth .£I4OO. They settler’s object in applying for the loan was to payoff an existing mortgage equal to that he asked for, on which he is paying 7 or 8 per cent. But the Superintendent of the Advances to Settlers Department refused to let him have more than £soQ—that is .£350 less than a private lender gave him. Another instance was that of a man who applied for an advance of ,£l5O to pay off a mortgage for which lie is paying 7 per cent. His property is worth ,£BOO, and all the department will advance is <£225 A third case is that or a settler wno applied for a loan of £BOO to pay off amortga.fre of that amount. He was offered £4OO. This kind of thing must be galh and wormwood to the prophets. They cannot undeistand how a Liberal Democratic Government can do business on safe lines. But it is a fact, nevertheless, that they can. The success of the loan and the prudence of the advancing department are strong testimonies.