AUCKLAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11191, 13 August 1898, Page 3

AUCKLAND.

j (From Our Own Correspondent.) j July 23. The question of the extension of the North ; Island Trunk Railway has now assumed a ; new phase. The Council of the Chamber of j Commerce were considerably astonished the { othei day when a deputation from the Women's Political League entered their j Council Chamber to urge upon the council the necessity for taking action in this direcf tion. They were under the impression thafc j they had beeD taking action all along, but j the ladies simply ignored what had been done, and the league proposed to take the initiative itself. The President (Mrs Daldy) referred to the necessity for the extension of the North Island Trunk line, and the in- i justice done to the provincial district cf Auckland in the expenditure of the money provided for that purpose, also the comparative amounts spent in the North and South Islands, and requested the Chamber of Commerce to urge upon the Auckland members the" duty of seeing that equitable arrangements were made for carrying on the important work of connecting Auckland with ; the South. The council thought that the j ladies would be weak on finance, but that's ; were they made the mistake. The ladies i had gone into that arid region also. Mrs Daldy said that Auckland had nofc received its fair share in the expenditure of public money, for, out of £15,000,000 spent Auckland had received £2,457,000 — somewhere about a seventh instead of a fourth, which was the proportion tlie province was entitled to. The ladies suggested that a monster petition should.be drawn up, signed, ; and forwarded to the Government. Ifc was rather saddening for the ladies' deputation to be informed thafc all they had stated was already known to the council, and all they suggested had already been done, save the petition business, which one of the members stated, from his personal experience, was simply labour thrown away, as fchey were thrown into the waste paper basket. The chairman said the question of borrowing was involved in the proposal, and the country was pledged to non-borrowing. How did they propose to go on ? Well, the matter : of funds was no concern of the ladies, thafc ; was the business of. the Colonial Treasurer. ; The ladies were rather hazy about the rival i routes, and fought shy of the vexed question, as they have nofc sent a deputation up the Ohura country, the Tangaraku Gorge, ar.d fche Awakino country-yet. A spectator ofj the scene said, "The members of thej Council of the Chamber of Commerce took I their gruel at the hands of the Women's" Political League like lambs." A petition is being signed on the subject of railway extension, notwithstanding that it is prophesied that it will go into the waste paper basket, but the ladies are under the sw reet . delusion that when the Premier sees the j signatures of the members of the Women's '■ Political League ladies he will not be so un- : gallant as to refuse their request. Talking of railway matters, Mr Samuel Vaile, the railway reformer, is not to be headed off by tbe refusal to summon him to Wellington, and proceeds to 'the seat of Government at j his own charge, to wrestle with the mem-, bers of Parliament on the virtues of his ' stage system. During the past fortnight the Rev. Mr J Hammond, a. Wesleyan minister, well known ; in connection with Maori mission work on the West Coast, has been travelling through the native settlements' in the Hokianga dis- ; trict, and reports, it is stated, "the full sub- ; mission of the* disaffected Waima Maoris on 1 all points " brought up by the late disturb- j ances. There is reason.to fear that this re- ; port is too optimistic, as.it is contrary to the i experience of fche old settlers, and belied by all that is known of Maori character in the past. What is more likely is that ifc has been I resolved by the natives to offer no overt re- j sislance to the law, btit to maintain a pas- | sive resistance. The action of the Makarau | natives and their strained relations with the j Whitemata County Council go to show ! thafc the old leaven is still working.' There i is mr desire on the part of any of fche Northern -j County Councils to press unduly in the mat- ' ter of taxes on the Maori race, and they wiU | be only too glad if the.Rev. Mr Hammond's predictions prove to be accurate. Mr Hone Heke, MLH.R., and,many of the Ngapuhi chiefs have acted splendidly; throughout, in enjoining the malcontents to obey the law, and to seek for redress in a constitutional manner for any alleged grievances from j which they may .\ suffer. One thing; which has been ■•"hrbught* out ■ clearly:by :'the ,;" late ; •V'hbi'tih'em '" disturbances . lis the folly., of the Government leav- | j ing the provisions of .the Arms Act to be a I dead letter. -It has been well known that for , ;'the past two years the disaffected natives have" been purchasing "arms-and ammunition i at every available' opportunity. The time j will come -when m this respect the Maoris j may be trusted to be put on the same footing i as Europeans, but it. is not possible at this juncture. The Government have therefore j wisely set about enforcing the law, and mak- j ing an example of those who violate ifc. j In spite of the winter weather, great pro- j gress is being made with the erection of the j exhibition buildings for the forthcoming In- j dustrial and Mining Exhibition. There has j been a good deal of unpleasantness about allegations as to sub-letting and some men be- i . ing paid less than the'standard rates of pay, j but as the contractor was about £1000 under ; his 1 competitors, he is" not likely to make a ■ fortune out of the business. He has made a tolerably good defence of his action. There is some "talk of the leading promoters of. the exhibition being examined on the matter, in order to put an end to the questions, and interpellations in Parliament on the subject. A fine exhibition choir has been formed of tested and trained voices, under Professor Schmitt, in order to perform Sullivan's "Golden Legend" ancl several oratorios during the season. The necessary music has just arrived from England, and there is little doubt that.under the able management of Professor Schmitt .the musical arrangements will give general j satisfaction. The Exhibition Committee have been desirous that the Auckland Society of Arts should furnish an art exhibition, hut as the exhibition, choir hg-ye secured the Choral iHall,-which is the.only suitable building, it 'is doubtful whether anything will come of - the proposal, more especially as the result ' would be to seriously injure the society's ordinary annual exhibition in March next. Some of the Wellington folks have been sneering at the exhibition buildings as " Auckland's lean-to." At anyrate, the "lean-to" will be the largest building of its kind hitherto erected in ,the. colony. The work of forming, drilling,.and arming volunteer corps still goes on—the revival *n the volunteer movement showing no abatement. The martial feeling is manifest alike iin town and country,—among the prV.e----j tariat of the city..' the miners of the goldj fields, and the " bullock-punchers" in the j rural hamlets. The defences of the city and j harbour of Auckland are gradually being perfected. Captain Coyle, the officer re- ! cently from Home, in charge of the Torpedo Corps, has submitted greatly improved plans for the defence of the harbour, and has also effected many wholesome changes. One im- ! provement being effected is the placing of a ■ heavy gun in position on Mount Victoria signal station, with a view of commanding. i the inner harbour, the causeway across Shoal i Bay, and Northcote, the latter probably being the objective point of a flanking land i force desirous of turning the defences at the i North Head. Nothing has been so remarkable as the : continuance of the building boom. During i the past week contracts have been let inI volving an expenditure of about £25,000. Work to a similar amount is at present in hand. Yari°hs large enterprises are projected, which shows that confidence in the commercial future of Auckland is unabated. There is some justification for the apparent discounting of the future, as the revenue of the Harbour Board during the past half year shows a substantial increase. As showing that the possession of a dock is not everything to a port, the chairman of the Harbour board has just made some statements on dock construction which should be laid to 1 heart by some of the southern harbour 1 boards. The graving dock cost £65,000, but although occupied about five days a i week it only yields £1500 of revenue per i S annum, or scarcely sufficient to pay interest' lat the rate of 2-i per cent. The Calliope dock has been a much more disastrous business. It has cost £150,000, the loan bear- ! ing interest at 5 per cent., and the dock costing the board £25 per working day, j 'of which it receives no part back. The revenue from the dock is barely sufficient to pay working expenses, and the maintenance runs into £1000 a year, so that taking one 1 consideration with another, Calliope dock ', at present means a dead loss to the Auck- ' land Harbour Board of close on £9000 a I year. But for the magnificent endowments of the harbour, which amount to 600 acres iin area, from the Bastion to Kauri Point, and which in fche days to come will make i the board one of the wealthiest in Australasia, it would be in a very bad plight with

its "white elephant." The receipts from ' some of the endowments total £12,000 a year, and in a .few years the lease of land ; and buildings on the "foreshore up to the custom house fall in and become the property of the board. The chairman of the board says . that one of the loans, for which the board 'is at the present time paying £10,000 a , ■ year, interest and sinking fund, will be paid j oft' in a few years, and the receipts of the 1 ooard increased by that amount. Altogether he regards the future as " promising." But when one considers what could have ' been accomplished by the money hopelessly lost over the Calliope dock, in providing I wharfage accommodation, and in helping to ! make Auckland a free port, as regards harbour dues, it only proves once more the truth of Oxenstierna's maxim "That once ; behind the scenes it is wonderful to see with how little wisdom the world ts j governed." I During the past fortnight a number cf parishioners' meetings of the Anglican Church have been held. A good deal of interest attaches to them outside the pale of the denomination, from various causes, as indicating social progress or otherwise. It is noteworthy that two of the clergy got their stipends raised, a token that things areI looking better commercially. One of tbe j successful ones has just got back the £50 a ; year taken off nine years ago, proving once i more that everything comes to bim who waits. An attempt was made at one church to get the ecclesiastical franchise for the ladies, but although ifc vvas admitted that "the church might put up-its shutters and retire from business but for the services of the women," the handful of men present pro- ': oeeded, ajaaid " the forest of bonnets," to . elect, on their own account, the x»estry as usual. One healthy feature of most of the , meetings was the general desire to get rid - of church debts, and thus avert the intro- j duction of questionable methods of raising funds. At Devonport, where Mr Kirk has proved the local Kensit, the vicar, Mr Hawthorne, has shown a desire for peace by promising to abstain from practices which excite the ire of some of his parishioners, ancl peace is likely to reign there once more. He has had a difficult task in succeeding the late Rev Joseph Bates, a man whose praise was in all the churches, and whose early death was an irreparable loss to the Anglican ; Church in the Auckland district. ! One of our ablest lawyers has passed away ■ in the person of Mr Uidwin Hesketh, who but for the infirmity of. deafness, which . came upon him a'few years ago, would probably have received an appointment to the Supreme ! j Court Bench. He received his legal training | in Auckland, and on his admission to the! bar i soon won the position of being the leading _ pleader in the local courts. The last great I case he was in, before his retirement from active' work, was the trial of Scott for the Waikomiti murder. Bufc it was as a- man, rather than a lawyei, that the • Auckland -, people held him in most esteem. His up- , j' -lightness and- conscientiousness -had passed ~ ! into a-proverb. Ifor nearly a quarter of a i century, owing to his love of music, he had.; voluntarily officiated as organist, at St. '. Mark's, Remuera, supplied the whole of the , church music at his own cost, while the extent of his personal benefactions to the j church will never be known, as he preferred jto make them unobtrusively. His remains 1 were followed to their last resting place amid the regrets of every section of the comj munity—Jew and Gentile and Chinaman, I being clustered around the grave wbich held ; a!) that was earthly of Edwin Hesketh. One of the disasters of the past fortnight ; has been the great fire at Hamilton, one of--1 che important towns of the-Waikato dis- , 1 crict. Evidently the lesson taught by the ; i tires at Paeroa and Te Aroha was lost.upon ; ; the Borough Council,"as there was uo fire- '■ brigade, no appliances for the suppression I of fire, and no organisation to protect salI vaged property. , The -esult was that, che' j fire simply went on until its ravages were j stopped' by a, brick wall, while citizens I 'ooked on:ih helpless despair, and despite | the exertion! of the police, a good deal of -, j salvaged. ■ goods carried off by the "baser, ! sort," who brutally profited by the calamities iof their fellow residents. Apparently such ' conduct is regarded in some quarters as I venial, for it was remarked, " the insurance j companies will pay for- the loss." Unfortunately one of the sufferers, a jeweller, was ! uninsured, which -rather upset that theory- ' The police cook steps to recover his jewellery. Already one man has been committed for crial, and another is on remand. It is appalling that in small country places, '"where everybody knows everybody," -i ; such scenes should'be possible, and rather ■< ■{.disillusionises one as to the simplicity and I innocence of country life. - Some scenes of | the same character are reported to h:s.ve occurred at the Paeroa fire, and the plunder j' of the salvage so widespread as to be a positive public scandal. Now that the damage. ! has been'sustained by Hamilton an effort | will be made to organise a. fire brigade ana -j to procure fire appliances, experience being I the only school in which its municipal I authorities and burgesses would learn any- ; thing. ■-■-.■ ■■■ ■■ i The revival in the flax market is likely to j be of' great service to the Waikato settlers, and already the various mills are getting '■ into operation, both in the Waikato proper I and in the Raglan district, which was -forj merlv, during the boom, a great centre of the flax industry. There are immense quantities of- green flax growing in the • extensive ! delto ,of the Waikato, and should ! afford remunerative employment to the i surplus labour, in its cutting and ! transport to the' mills, as the work requires but little skill or training. If the improvement in the market and demand continues • the flax industry. will prove a I powerful rival'to the gum industry, which | is becoming a precarious source of living ' to the average colonial gum-digger, the Aus- ! trians, with their steady, plodding, sober I habits, and communistic organisation, hav- [ im? practically monopolised some of the ' emnfields.