PERSONALIA

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8386, 25 March 1913, Page 3

PERSONALIA

VICE-REGAL. His Excellency the Governor, Lord Liverpool, attended the Auckland Uacmg Club’s meeting at Ellerslie yesterday, and to-day, according to a Press Association telegram, will leave for tho South to inspect military camps in the Canterbury district, returning later to Auckland.

Mr John McVay has been' appointed Government representative on tho Njv .ner High School board of Governors. Among Fellows recently elected to the Koyal Colonial Institute were Messrs Charles H. Elliott, Albert M. Marks, and W. Pollard, of New Zealand.

Dr Maguire has been appointed medical superintendent of Auckland hospital, out of thirty-seven applicants. He has been acting-superintendent ot the hospital for some months. Captain Cliff Roberts, late chief officer of the Rakanoa, has been given command of the Kamona in place of Captain Norton, who has been granted a month’s holiday leave. Mr \V. W. Snodgrass has consented to become a candidate for the office of Mayor of Nelson. Mr Snodgrass is at present a member of tho City Council.

Mr W. Wakelin, who has been connected with the grocery department of Messrs Webley and Co., of Petone, for a number or years, has accepted an appointment in the Labour Department at Christchurch.

The Hon. A. T. Ngata has been seriously ill. He underwent an operation in a private hospital in Wellington a few days ago, however, and u> bow' making satisfactory progress towards recovery. The Hons. W. F. Massey, H. D. Bell, A. L. Herdman, and Dr Pomare are at Wellington. The Hons., W. Fraser and W. H. Herries 'are in tho north. The Hon. F. M. B. Fisher is en route to Hobart by the Maunganui. The Hon. E. H. Rhodes is in the south.

Sir Joseph Ward presided at the annual meeting of the Incorporated Society of Meat Importers at the Cafe Royal, Regent street, London, in touching on New Zealand frozen meat statistics, the ex-Primo Minister pointed out that the meat trade between Great Britain and New Zealand had increased by leaps and bounds in tho last few years. The Dominion now had 467 steamers carrying every year twelve million carcases of sheep and four million quarters of beef, and trade was in a flourishing condition.

In recognition of tho work done during the South African war by Miss May Murray, daughter of General Sir John Murray, the Wax Office recently presented the kind-hearted woman with the South African war medal. Mias Murray, who is a brigadier in the Salvation Army, was sent by General Booth with a staff of Salvationists to South Africa at the end of 1899, and her' work in providing soldiers’ homes and other agencies for the welfare of the men was praised by Lord Roberts, Sir R. Buller, and other officers.

Master E. C. Coutts, the winner of tho “Alf. Bayly Memorial Scholarship,” was. presented last Thursday by Mr P. Skogiund, chairman of the Stratford District High School Committee, on behalf of the Taranaki Rugby Union, with the memorial medal. In making the presentation, Mr Skogiund stated that though this was the first time the scholarship' has been won by a pupil of the Stratford school, yet on two previous occasions on which the' scholarship had been competed for, the school had had either the bettor athlete or the better scholar —on this occasion the winner had been first in both departments. The medal not only indicated the winner’s prowess in the athletic field or in the classroom, but carried with it memories of a man who was honoured and respected by all who knew him the late Mi Alfred Bayly. Mr Kwei Chih, who is a passenger by the Orama en route to Wellington, to take up a position at the Chinese Consulate here, was seven years ago Professor of History at the University of Tientsin; then he joined tbs diplomatic service, and for seven years was Chinese Ambassador at Washington. He then joined the Chinese Legation at London as secretary, and now ho has been promoted to New Zealand. In an interview at Fremantle it did not take him long to plunge into a consideration of tho “ White Australia” policy. “Axe you not a bit previous in your protection?” ho asked. “Yours is such a big, fertile country, and so sparsely populated. How are you going to get it populated if you insist upon these restrictions? Consider the state of the Australian aborigine. He has been rendered almost extinct by a philosophical idea of isolation. There him been no intercourse <vith other nations, and he is dying out for want of it. Australia must not restrict herself if she wants to become a great nation. Look what America has become through Uie absorption of all nationalities. Man is like water; he’ must find his own level.” “ But we are busily getting out of our own levels, and im porting new blood from the Old Country,” remarked the interviewer. Mr Kwei Chih nodded his head sagely. “1 know,” he said, “ yon are getting out people at the rate of 1000 a year, but what of that? Why the whole population or Australia and New Zealand does not amount to that of London at the last census. My own country was degenerating until we opened the doors about fifty years ago. Now we are glad to get ideas of Western civilisation. in our higher educational institutions English is almost wholly adopted in teaching. That is because our mnguage is incomplete in terminologies. in view of the fact that the English methods hold the middle ;ourse between the too technical type if German and the ultrapracticai methods of the American, there is a strong disposition • among the ad/anced Chinese educationists to follow -he English schools. Where would we uo had we continued to isolate our.elves to ourselves?”