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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4163, 24 July 1874, Page 2

We print as a supplement to the present issue the Financial Statement, as made by the Hon. the Colonial Treasurer, in Committee of Ways and Means, on Tuesday evening, and as presented, in printed form, to the House of Representatives. The Statement, in its complete form, includes, of course, a series of tables of figures, wliich are also in the hands of members, but which are too elaborate for reproduction. Along with the Statement, there were laid upon the table the proposed estimates for the General Government services, for the year ending June 30, 1875. Three immigrant ships arrived yesterday in the Colony—at Auckland, the Miltiades, with 170 ; at Lyttelton, the Peeress, with 164, for Timaru; and at Port Chalmers, the Sam Mendell, with 371. Mr. O’Neill endeavored yesterday to obtain from the Commissioner of Customs some information as to the quantity of Australian wine that finds its way into New Zealand. Mr. Reynolds, however, was compelled to state that the return could not be furnished. The department could state what quantity of wine was imported from Australia, but could not discriminate between colonial and foreign wine. “That," said the hon. member for Newton, “ was a pity.” At the City Council meeting yesterday, Councillor Dransfield’s motion regarding the raising of money for the formation of roads was carried. Accounts were passed, and a general discussion ensued upon routine business. A committee was appointed to' go through the road contractors’ specifications, with the object of ascertaining whether they had been properly carried out. A complaint was made as to the condition of the footpath between Osgood’s and the Princess Hotel, and Councillor Moss called for a return of fees paid by contractors since the Building Act came into operation. Yesterday was rather a large day in the House of Representatives as regards Wellington. First, Mr. Pearce obtained leave to bring in a Bill (which was read a first time) to enable- the Corporation to borrow a sum of £25,000 for the purposes of the Waterworks of the City ; next, Mr. Bunny obtained leave, and brought in a Bill to enable the Corporation to borrow a sum of £150,000, for the reclamation of a part of the foreshore at Te Aro ; then Mr. Bunny, acting for the hon. the Superintendent of the Province, obtained the consent of the House to resolve itself today into a committee of the whole, "to consider of giving leave to bring in a Bill to provide for the payment for the construction of certain public works in the Province of Wellington in - land or money and, lastly, Mr. obtained leave and brought in a Bill for the election of Mayor of the City of Wellington. To this we may add that the Wellington Hospital Reserves Loan Bill, and the Wellington Special Settlements Act Amendment Bill, were both read a third time in the House last night.

Those who take an interest in the result of the great Australian carnivals of the year—the Sydney Metropolitan and the Melbourne Cup —will road with interest two little works which have just reached us ; Centaur’s index of pedigrees and performances of all the horses entered in these events, and the Guide to the Turf for the present month. Both will be found invaluable to persons interested in racing matters.

The business transacted at the Resident Magistrate’s Court yesterday was of no particular interest. The man Wheeler, who has been so often remanded on a charge of vagrancy, was discharged. Two cases for breaches of the Municipal Corporations Act were dismissed with cautious. In the civil business there were two cases adjudicated upon—Pearce v. Prike, £25, amount of a promissory note ; and McCaull v. Caulder and Bell, £ls ; verdicts being given for plaintiffs, in the first instance for £l6, and in the latter for the full amount, the orders including costs. A Dunedin correspondent who is desirous of keeping us well informed, or otherwise, telegraphs to us that “ a report is current, and is gaining ground that Mr. Macandrew is to succeed Dr. Featherston as Agent-General.” Ho adds that “ the change is acknowledged as a favorable one, but the question is—Can Otago part with Macaudrow’s services ?” It would appear that there are troubles and troubles. Wo lately reported the marriage of Lord Donoughmoro with a Tasmanian lady, Miss Stephens. A London journal, Vanity Fair, has the following on the subject, and it is rather curious ;—“ Lord Donoughmoro is about to be married to Miss Stephens, a young lady of eighteen, extremely clever, and charming. Lord Donoughmore had been sent away from an Irish frying-pan only to fall into a Tasmanian fire, and his brother, Mr. Walter Hutchinson, being sent to look after him, incontinently slipped into the same flame, for ho at once engaged himself to Miss Stephens’s sister. Whereat we may all rejoice, for there will be two now and delightful married ladies to cement our union with the Colonies.”

There is a hitch, it would seom, in tho arrangement, of tho Anglo-Australian Steam Shipping Company, which was formed for the purpose of running fast steamers between England and Australia via the Cape of Good Hope. It appears—and wo gather tho news from the Melbourne Leader —that “ the terms demanded by tho owners of tho Iberia, tho steamer which was intended as tho pioneer, for a six months’ charter, are so high that the project has had to bo abandoned for the present.”

The Hon. the Commissioner of Customs last night obtained leave from the House to bring in a Bill to amend the Merchant Seamen’s Act. •

A few nights ago the Hon. Mr. Pox asked that there should be laid on the table the regulations issued by the Government for the instruction of the licensing benches. The papers were placed before Parliament last night. In answer to a question put to him in the House last night, Mr. Richardson stated that telegraphic communication would be opened with Gisborne in Poverty Bay, within six months from the present date. Mr. Macandrew obtained leave last night in the House to introduce a Bill to amend the Juries Act. This was the Bill he promised to bring in with the view of exempting firemen from duty as Jurymen. Ministers appear to be determined that there shall be no delay on their part in the conduct of the business of the country. It was intimated in the House of Rejrresentatives last night, that this evening the Hon. the Commissioner of Public Works would make his statement—a deliverance only less important than that of the Treasurer.

Accidents to the East Coast line of telegraph in the Middle Island invariably form excuse for the Nelson and West Coast papers advocating the extension of an alternative line from the Lyell to Nelson. The Mail of a recent date says :—The necessity for another line of telegraph, connecting Nelson with the West Coast via the Dyell, is again being shown most forcibly, communication with all the stations south of Blenheim having been interrupted for more than two days. . The expense of carrying the wires from Pox-hill, to which place they must be extended as soon as the railway is completed, to the Lyell would bo so trifling compared with the increased convenience that it would create, that we wonder it has not been done long ere this. The manner in which Mr. J. Lazar, who had been for some time fulfilling the duties of Provincial Treasurer in Westland, has been discharged from office does not seem to afford much satisfaction to the local public. Complaints are made that, while there was no intimation of anything but approval of his work, his removal from office was abrupt ; but the explanation is given that it was a necessary sequence of Executive changes, and of his own declension of an offer made to him. Mr. Lazar was for a number of years Town Clerk of Dunedin, and filled the same office in Hokitika from the time it was settled until the offer was made to him to become the successor of Mr. Thomas Horton as Provincial Treasurer. Mr. Lazar, it is stated by the local papers, purposes making a change of residence by proceeding to Wellington. There seem to have been some lively scenes at the nomination of a member of the House of Representatives for the Waitemata district. In its report the Herald says :—On questions to Mr. Macfarlane being asked for, Mr. Staines said : —Had you anything to do with printing or circulating this circular this slanderous bill ?—Mr. Macfarlane : Yes, I wrote this bill down to the professional slanderer, and then I handed it over to a friend to finish it. (Laughter.)—Mr. Rees, who was the next to speak, said ; I came over here today not expecting the treat that I have had, and I believe a good many of you did not expect to have much of a treat at the nomination. I thought that, however bold a man might be at stabbing in the dark, he would not cai'e about confessing his deeds, but I am very glad that there is this one redeeming feature in the character of Mr. J. S. Macfarlane—that he comes here and makes a joke of having written a thing like this (holding up the handbill). Gentlemen, you have heard him speaking of this Timber Ploatage Bill, and what it cost, and he knows all the while, as well as possible, that he charges all against a poor victim of his, named Thomas Craig. [Mr. Macfarlane, pointing to Mr. Rees, “Liar.”] Mr. Rees : This is the robber of Craig.—The Herald adds ;—“We have excised from our report the rest of Mr. Rees’s address, and the interjectory remarks of Mr. Macfarlane. The language is altogether too violent. When gentlemen on a public platform use such expressions towai'ds each other as liar, scoundrel, robber, and the like, to report such a speech in detail would not tend to edification, and would only be jverused with any gratification by a class of readers we should not care to gratify.”

Favorable news still comes from the Mohikinui. The Westport Times says :—“ The reef in the prospectors’ claim is materially improving as it trends its way towards No. 1 North, and sanguine shareholders assert that if it continues to improve in the ratio at present indicated the reef will bo all gold before reaching the northern boundary. At the river Messrs. Seaton and party are actively pushing on the construction of the coal wharf, and anticipate to be able, in a few weeks’ time, to supply coal in any quantity to skippers calling at the port. Mr. Lewis Sweet, the licensed ferryman and accommodation-house keeper, has, in view of an increased shipping trade in the Mohikinui river, erected a thirty-five feet signal staff, to guide vessels in entering, and has made preparations to use Marryatt’s Code of Signals.” Mr. Justice Richmond has given judgment in an appealed case of Morgan and the Waste Lands Board of Nelson. The appellant sought to recover a deposit made as an applicant for a lease of the Brunner coal-mine, which deposit the Resident Magistrate held to have been forfeited. The Judge’s decision was as follows ; —“ The applicant has not broken any contract. The parties clearly never came to a final agreement. Nor can the appellant even be said to have withdrawn from his application, for the Board were not willing to grant it in its original shape, and the appellant never' accepted the modifications insisted upon by the Board. The deposit, therefore, is not forfeited either under any general principle of law applicable to such cases or by virtue of any provision of The Nelson Waste Lands Act, 1863, and the judgment of the Resident Magistrate’s Court must be reversed, with costs.”