WELLINGTON NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14386, 2 December 1908, Page 5

WELLINGTON NOTES.

(From Om Own CoitRESPdNDEKT.) WELLINGTON, December 1. Special interest is now attached to tho A'ew Zealand lawn tennis championship meeting at Nelson during the Christmas holidays owing to the intimation received that-Mr Alexander, the American plaver, together .with Messrs Wilding, Parker, and. Doust, will be competing. Nearly all the avnilabft accommodation at Nelson has already been taken up in view of the event. Though Mr Hamilton was unsuccessful in his recent search for huias, tho Maoris whom Jie left in the bush have since found a fow of the birds, which are nesting; consequently no further 'steps will be taken with regard (o their capture until the young birds are fully fledged. There is now some hope of preserving the lutia, and when specimens are taken they will bo carefully dealt with and liberated on Little Barrier Island, off the North Auckland coast. It transpires that there has been wholesale destruction of huias ■by a Government survey party during recent years, the birds being killed for their feathers, which are valuable.

Apropos of the present- financial stringency some remarks were made by Mr C. J. Crawford, Mayor of Miramar, ]ast evening. "I always looked upon freedom as .tlio principal characteristic of the British race—freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, freedom of criticism. But here in Now Zealand," he said, "one must never say what one thinks or knows; it is wrong, at is unpatriotic. Now I know that this district largely depends for its progress and its development, both private and public, upon the funds supplied by the larger landowners in the country. The legislation under which lands were taken over for closer settlement and large properties were cut up ■helped, a district like this, but now the graduated land, tax has dried up all sources of supply for places like this. A friend of mine, a Now Zealander, just returned from- .Queensland, where he has money invested, told me that he eon. side-red: there ivas a- million of New Zealand money invested in Queensland. I know that the general drift of money lias been out of New- Zealand. So long as that sort of tiling gees on we shall suffer from shortness of money. W-e must establish financial confidence in the country. We must stop eending money out of the country. Then we shall have money for borough purposes and for the building of houses."