(MOM OUR OWN COKHKSI'ONDEXT.) Jane Bth.

Otago Witness, Issue 1598, 8 July 1882, Page 3 (Supplement)

(MOM OUR OWN COKHKSI'ONDEXT.) Jane Bth.

At no previous period in the history of Auckland has so much attention been paid to the question of. local industry. Among the enterprises in train, or approaching completion, are the Bacon and Butter Factory ; Fibre, Rope, Matting, and Twine Factory ; Sperm Candle Manufacturing Company, Tobacco Growing and Manufacturing Company, and the projected sugar-refining works. The first will revolutionise the existing condition of things in the Waikato. The second intends to turn out weekly 15 tons of rope, twine, and matting, and five tons of twine for reapiug-aud-bindmg machines. As regards the sperm candle industry, it is proposed to combine with it those of soap and oil making, so as to utilise all the products, and the scheme is only delayed by tho necessity for arranging 1 satisfactorily ■with existing vested interests. Tobacco-growing is an old-established industry in Auckland, but, owing to a lack of capital by_ those hitherto engaged in it, has never attained much importance. It is likely to do so now, as several of our leading firms are willing to furnish the necessary capital, provided a suitable site for the experiment, and an experienced practical manager can be secured. Not only local, but English capital is being expended in our industries, and a number of English capitalists, through local agents, are now looking out for suitable seams of clay in order to commence the erection of potteries' on a large scale. As for the local glass industry, it has completely checked the importation of various kinds of flint glassware, and at an auction sale the other day not a line could be sold, and the importer proposes to take his goods to a Southern market, as there is no prospect of one here. Not only is this the case, but the industrious glass worker is shipping also his locallymanufactured goods to Dunedin, there to encounter afresh the imported article.

At the late licensing meetings the committees have given a note of warning that they intend rigorously to enforce the law as it stands. Quite a number of applications for renewal of licenses have been held over for further consideration to give the owners time to decide as to whether they will pull down old houses and erect new ones before the issue of the license is determined. The committees are sternly setting their face against mere drinking-shanties, and demanding ample accomniodation for the public. Whatever may be thought of Good Templarism, the Temperance people have been instrumental in bringing £j,bout these changes and these enlarged demands upon the licensed victuallers. It is not now possible in- Auckland, as^ I have known it, for a publican to borrow several suites of furniture from an upholsterer until his license was obtained, when the furniture was quietly returned again. Iv Auckland the people who for 20 years fought against the introduction of a hotel in their midst, but had one thrust down their throats in spite of them, have taken the first opportunity afforded them by the Act of abolishing that house and sweeping the district clean again. The new pioposals for the reorganisation of the Volunteer force have been vei\y favourably received here. On all hands it is felt that there must be, a change of some .sort, or dissolution at no distant date. Perhaps the necessity for seeing that drill is efficiently imparted and steadily practised was never better exemplified than at the Auckland Volunteer review on < Queen's Birthday, when a Volunteer narrowly escaped having his ear shot off by his rear-rank man during the tiring of the feu-dv-jok. In all probability he will iose the sight of one of his eyes for life. A member of one of the corps parading told me that recruits were put in the ranks to make up a muster, and that in one case the officer of a company pot so alarmed at ,the extraordinary manner in which a youthful warrior was loading his rifle that, fearing ramrod and charge would go off together, he had the ammunition taken from the lad to prevent accidents. The iucident is only equalled by one which occurred at a review at Ellerslie. A company had "formed square" to receive cavalry, when at the critical moment a frontrank man calmly sat down on the point of the bayonet of the ma» in rear, receiving a Hasty flesh wound along the inside of ' the thigh some inches in length. The rear-rank man, on being cross-questioned as to hit* conduct, vouchsafed the satisfactory explanation that " us he could not get a fair show at the. horsemen, ho. felt it to be his bounden duty to ' support' the fellow in front!" Any system which would prevent contingencies of the above class would be gratefully accepted by the "efficients" of the Volunteer force. The Thames Scottish, owing to the scurvy treatment received from the Defence J )epartinent in the non-fulfilment of the agreement under which they volunteered for Parihaka, have dishnuricd. In the dissolution of that corps the Colony has lost the services of perhaps the finest and most efficient body of men iu'the Volunteer force of the Colony. It is a poor policy which tir.st endeavours to get efficient Volunteers and then loses their services when this is accomplished by want of tact, niggardliness, and bad faith. They disbanded after celebrating the Queen's Birthday with all honours, loyal to their Sovereign, but also faithful to the old national motto of Scotland, Nemo nu: impune .I<in«xcl. The Provinco will not soon forgot, if Mr Bryce does, that the Thames Scottish has " done the State some service." . Larrikinism is becoming more rampant than ever, owing to the tenderness of the Bench iv dealing with offenders, magistrates and Justices' alike havintj a wholesome dread of ■irousiii" that maudlin hnmanitannnism now so prevalent. Emboldened by the impunity accorded to destruction of public and private property and assaults on women and children, tho larrikins have now pwMMHi^ lo take the Chinese in hand. Fortunately the two Justices who dealt with the case happened to be above the average ..f J.P.s, and gave the ringleader imprisonment without the option ot a fine, and saddled another offender with fine and costs to such an extent as will cure him ot worrying the heathen Chinee for some time to come. . . „ The necessity fo the erection of a juvenile reformatory is becoming more patent every day. At present boys and girls are being sent to 'the Industrial Home at Kohimarama, of known criminal instiiicts and antecedents, to the probable deterioration of the youthful inmates of that institution who are unfortunate in their parentage, but themselves non-

criminal. The present system adapted Jbythe authorities is actuated by cheeseparing motives rather than a conviction 'of its propriety and expediency. Am a case in point, a boy has been recently sent there named O'Connell, not yet 10 yeai's old, and small for his age. He has already robbed her Majesty's mails as deftly as Ned Kelly could have done it, and was subsequently detected trying to pass off a cheque obtained' from one of the opened letters at a public-house ; has bolted once from the custody of the police, and was recaptured and legironed ; and has levanted three times from the Kohimarama Industrial School, and been flogged once for absconding. Yet the welldeserved whipping administered by the master of the Home— necessary if all authority there was not to be successfully defied— has been the subject of some comment. A Government official in the Education l)epartment lias inspected the boy's back. The official visitors are to report upon the young robber, and he will probably be gushed over in a .way which is calculated to arouse the envy of all the good little boys in the city. • In the face of this sort of thing, is it any wonder that larrikinism is rampant? O'Connell, on being interviewed by a reporter, said he was not sure whether he was si descendant of the great Liberator, but that he was neither a Land Leaguer nor a Parnellite, so it appears the little fellow has some redeeming points after all.

Captain William Jackson Barry, of Otago, has been delivering some of his lectures here on his " Ups and Downs in Colonial Life," but was only moderately successful, though he has sold a goodly number of copies of his work. He has now gone to the Thames goldfields, where tu'O many old West Coast and Dunsfcan miners, whose experiences have been as chequered as his own, and where he will find a more sympathetic audience than in Auckland, where a new generation have sprung up who are not familiar with the history of " the heroic work of colonisation." Tliere are also other reasons. The fact is, tlie most of our leading lights in shoddyocracy whose career runs back to this olaen time are not at all anxious to hear old reminiscences of Colonial life, and would much rather remember their " ups " and forget their "downs." By a wonderful lapse of memory they have forgotten the grit from whence they were dug out, and the rock from which they were hewn. Capt. Barry has held quite a levee at his hotel of old hands "in the forties," who formerly figured in the history of Kororareka. Among them were one or two Buffaloes —old men-of-war's men. An " old salt" whose acquaintance he renewed had been one of Governor Hobson's first boat's crew, and he still survives, in a green old age, as the popular boniface at a suburban hotel. Captain Barry considers that he will not have "done M^e province till he has interviewed Maori royalty, and the rencontre between two such old identities as Tawhiao and the Captain promised to be both amusing and interesting.