CURRENT TOPICS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7867, 1 August 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

REMARKABLE LAND PROSECHTTON. In the Wellington. Magistrate’s Court this week an unusual prosecution, probably unique the world over, is likely to bo heard. The cane ie being taken against a settler, and arises out of the sale of an area of 1400 acres of Crown land in the Rangitikei district. It is alleged that an, attempt was made to “bear” the market, and tho defendant is to be charged with having offered to accept a bribe to refrain from bidding. This is an offence under section G 9 of the Land Act, 1908, which lays down that a person who offers to take a bribe to refrain from bidding in a Crown lands auction is liable to a penalty not exceeding .£IOO, or twelve months’ imprisonment as tho alternative. For accepting a bribe under similar circumstances tho maximum penalty is .£2OO or two years' imprisonment. A BIG ESTATE. The will has boon proved of Mr Walter Savill, of Finches, Idudfiold, Sussex, shipowner, ship and insurance broker, a director of Messrs Shaw, Savill, and Albion (Limited), trading chiefly between London and New' Zealand, and a director on the London board of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company (Limited), formerly with tho old firm of Henry H. Willis and Co., ehipbrokers and merchants, engaged in the New Zealand trade, who died May 4th last, aged seventy-four years. Ho loft estate of tho gross value of .£1,630,101 8s sd, of which the net personalty has been sworn at £1,583,983 11s lid. Tho testator left to his wife £3OOO, We 'personal effects, horses, carriages, live stock, and consumable stares absolutely, and tho use for life of an annuity of £BOOO and of his residences Pinches and the farm known, as Kenwarde, adjoining, and of 9, Queen’s gardens, Hove, and of all of his household effects and farm and garden stock. He left £2OOO to his son Walter Henry Savill, and £IOOO to each of his other children, £IOOO to each of his nephews Alfred Savill and Arthur Edward Savill, £IOOO to each, of his nieces, a life annuity of £250 to his etstor Ellen Starkey, and he declared that his eon Walter, notwithstanding his trusteeship, may purchase at valuation any ships or shares in ships belonging to him. He also bequeathed £SOOO to the Seamen’s Orphanage, £SOOO to the Sussex County Hospital, £2OOO to the Royal Hospital for Incurables, Putney, £IOOO to hie managing clerk, and some minor bequests to servants, and the residua of his property as to three twenty-fifths to each of his sons and two twenty-fifths to each of his daughters in each case upon-trust for life, with remainder to their respective issue- The duties payable' on . the property ‘ will amount to about £250,000. This is the first millionaire estate of the current financial year. , " ' TOWN PLANNING TOUR. About fifty members of the “National Housing and Town Planning Council for . Great Britain’’ have paid a two days’ visit to Copenhagen in order to mate themselves acquainted with the public institutions of the city. They, were shown all over the town and its suburbs, and expressed their great satisfaction with what they saw on their way. “As regards parts, laying out of streets, and roads,' as well as plans for building new bouses, in which -sue are , specially interested,” Mr Abridge, hon. secretary, said, in an interview just before his departure, “1 think your town is superior to any other town I know of except Edinburgh and -Southport. As for your workmen’s houses',- they have not impressed us as being* as up-to-date as your other' institutions; they are over so much better in our country. But altogether, I can say that we have received a most favourable impression of the municipal institutions of Copenhagen,.” Mr Alridge and the chip-f portion of the party proceeded _ to Stockholm and Gothenburg, Sweden, and a minor part went on to Berlin. MR McGOWEN ON GERMANY. “Except perhaps as regards advanced methods of education, from no other point of view do I consider that Germany can outstrip Great Britain." In these words Mr MoGowen, Premier of New South Wales, as reported in tho London ‘Evening Standard,” summed up his impressions of his recent visit to the Fatherland. “My trip to Germany,” he said, “was interesting and instructive to a degree. I took a keen interest in what I saw at Krupp’a famous works, which do a large amount of manufacturing for my Government, and also at Siemens’s, where I viewed some of the most up-to-date machinery in the world- My experiences there were, indeed, of-an eyeopening description. Kxupp’s is a wonderful place, while the conditions of sanitation, light, and general cleanliness at Siemens’s struck me as being perfection. I was impressed by the fact that at Krupp’s X was shown, -without the slightest hesitation, the processes of making the larger guns for the new German Dreadnought class of battleships.” Of the trim appearance of * to German towns he passed through, Mr McGowen had something to say. Touching on the industrial progress of the Kaiser’s kingdom, he remarked that evidences were given him that this art of commercial “go-ahead-ness” on the part of the Germans was largely traceable to an educational source. “In no other respect,” Mr MoGowen added, “do I think our German friends cau show us points. Following similar lines as regards education

as Germany, Britain need have no fear of that or any other nation. I should sav that the rivalry between Great Britain and Germany is nothing bnt a iiidiuiy, industrial ore. Germany is an industrial beehive and the Germans are very busy bees. They realise that they must Tiudlc’ if they are to get the better of tho industrial deal. Yes, they know there is another big hive across the English Channel—that's whit makes 'cm hustle.”