Our Correspondents.

Otago Witness, Issue 1342, 18 August 1877, Page 6

Our Correspondents.

QUEENSLAND.

FURTHER CHINESE LEGISLATION.

The objectionable measure cf 1876, in a very much modified form, having been reintroduced, has passed both Houses, and now awaito the Governor's assent. It provides, as in the former Bill, that the sum payable by an Asiatic or African alien for a miner's right shall be £3. and for a business, shall be LlO a year, instead of 10s and £4 respectively, as heretofore ; while the remaining clauses, without reference to aliens at all, provide the way in which the payment ef miner's rights and business licenses shall be enforced against all persons alike. These provisions, however, aje stringent enough to meet John's inevitable attempts at evasion, though not appearing to be specially aimed at him. The Chinese merchants have already had the Bill translated into the Chinese language, and lithographed copies are to be circulated over the goldficlds, and in Hong Kong and elsewhere in China. The other measure, which I described in my last letter, has passed the Lower House, with a good deal of alteration, and is now with the Council, who are making mincemeat of it ; and in my next I shall probably be able to tell you the reault. MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER.

This has again become law in this Colony, or rather an -Act has been passed upon the subject, and now only awaits the Royal assent. There is no doubt that this will be accorded, as the measure has t<*ken the form recommended by the law advisers of the Crown when the last Bill was vetoed. For years the Bill for this purpose, time after time that it was introduced, met with a vigorous and often a vicious opposition ; but, ■whether we have become accustomed to the idea or from whatever cause, not the slightest interest was this time taken in the Bill, which has been passed almost sub silentio.