PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2398, 15 February 1900, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

General Buller's movement in advance began on Monday. This is Friday, and v>e are still without the decisive good news for which the whole British world, fevered and anxious, is waiting. It may come tonight — to-morrow — next day ; that it may not come at all is a thing unbelievable, inconceivable. By long expectancy and hope ■deferred we are wrought to such a degree of tension that we want Ladysmith relieved at any cost. No sacrifice would seem too great. Of course this is utterly unreasonable, and we may as well remind ourselves of that fact in time. It may be that Buller will fail again,. and yet succeed in the end. How many times was Wellington beaten back into' Portugal before he could begin the memorable advance that drove the out of Spain. The chances are that Buller is not going to be beaten back at all. He has been fighting continuously since Monday at daybreak, and must have made good his ground, or he would have been back across the Tugela before this and the fighting over. His guns may be going still, and, if so, it must be that they are

Bellowing victory, bellowing doom, and that the relief of Ladysmith is a thing assured. But an' if it be not so, our British doggedness will not fail xis. We shall simply begin again. Meanwhile what we in New Zealand have got to do is Lo hurry tip with our Scouts and Rough Riders. Even with Ladysmith. relieved it is a far cry to Pretoria.

People whose misfortune it is to find their country always wrong and the enemies of their country always right are to be commiserated and borne with tenderly. Their trouble is a mental twist, congenital or acquired, and they cannot ■help it. Little can be done for them. They are hardly lunatic enough to be put ■under restraint ; the most that can be hoped is that their friends may be able to keep them muzzled. And this is not easy. The impulse of the pro-Boer is to proclaim his malady from the housetops. ■He disputes at street corners, lifts up his scandalous testimony in tramcars, writes 'nonymous letters to the newspapers. Of this we know something in Dunedin — not much, perhaps, but something. The colony of the Australasian group that has 'largest experience of pro-Boers is South ■Aii&tralia. That is explained by the existence there of villages and rural settlements ■almost entirely German. AMrA. W. Looser remonstrates with his disloyal countrymen in this wholesome fashion:

TVe come out here to a free country; come to make a living; become British subjects; obtain the same rights that Englishmen have; got protected by the English flag ; and, last of all, make ar. oath of allegiance to be tius to cur Queen and flag. Is it not absolutely peijury to side with the Boers, and say, " I hope the "British will get driven into the sea?" Shame! I often wonder why those disloyal people do not catch the first beat to Germany, and relieve a free countiy of perjurers. I was born a German, but will die an Jihiglisunian to the backbone. Another, writing to an Adelaide paper, recommends tolerance, but v.ith Machiavelian intent : The natural impatience exhibited by all loyal Britons against sympathisers with the national enemy is a tactical mistake, for it would be wiser and better to encourage every tongue to wag as freely as ever it will, and for the listener to qiiietly note the talkers. Then, when the time' comes that we have to look for tiaitors in our midst, the listeners will bo able to point them out to the putho.-I'ios. This is to take ti \uter too seriously. The Boer sympatlii .. ■> at worst a crank, exasperating sometimes, no doubt, but on the whole harmless. There isn't time just now to discuss Mr Seddon's curious atfcicude towards the more

There isn't time just now to discuss Mr Sedtlon's curious atfcicude towards the more men and more hor&cs movement. Discussion may come by and bye. He has the secret approval of all British Boers, be the same many or few ; also he spares his cherished surplus. That is all that need be s?id on the subject at present. We are too busy in exercising the functions that the Government has abdicated to quarrel with anybody — too busy and too happy. OLago, from the Waitaki'to the Bluff, is mobilising ; we have our own War Office in the Garrison Hall ; we are raising our own litile army, with doctor, chaplain, nurses, all complete ; we shall have our own send-off, with all the proper emotions. On the whole, we have livtle reason to regret Mr Seddon's defection. We give our money joyfully ; the men we want are coming forward with alacrity ; the South of New Zealand will have no reason to blush for its separate contribution to the war. And we shall have done it all ourselves ! As an Otago man I am proud of my ccmntry. It is wonderful to feel that we aie all of one heart and soul in this great citizenship, the splendour and magnificence of which we never knew till we were called on to do something and to suffer something for its sake. The war is a blessing in disguise. Thanks to the war, we are all a little less soidid and a little less selfish than we were six months ago. ' Even the British Boers, whoever they are — and I am thankful that, personally, I don't know one of them, — must be undergoing a wholesome education, in spite of themsslvcs. With this contagion of generosity all round them they will not be able to keep their money in their pockets. They won't help to send fighting men, it id true ; but what about nurses? Unhappy, indeed, must be the man who is burdened with principles so inhuman that forbid his contributing to a nurses' fund.

As to those same nurses, I shall subscribe to the fund for sending them, of course ; everybody will subscribe ; but I should rather put my money into men and horses. It is not to" be supposed that the Otago and Southland Scouts will have a hospital of their own, or even an ambulance. What will a squadron of troopers — the most mobile force in the army, here, to-day and gone to-morrow — want with half a dozen nurses in their camp? Obviously the Otago nurses will not be able to follow the fortunes of the Otago Contingent. If accepted, their place will be in field hospitals common to all troops alike, or in the great receptacles for wounded tlut have been established at Pietcrmaritzbiu'g, Durban, and Capetown. Jt amcnmls to this, then, that Aye shall not bo supplying nurses for our own troop.s ; we shall be presenting nurses to Vue Impeiial Government, although jt is not known that the Impcikl Government want nurses. But that they want men and horses is known for ceitain. It may be that they will accept our six nurses merely because we offer them, and in compliment to the donors ; but can it be doubted that they would rather we offered them more mounted men? Nurses in any number that may be required can be supplied from Britain ; but Biitain can't supply colonial rough riders. In short, the wisdom of sending nurses to the Transvaal is not very apparent. At the best we shall be sending coals to Newcastle, and the £700 we propose to use up in the operation might be feotter spent. So, again, as respects the

chaplain. The Imperial authorities supply chaplains, and supply them in adequate number and due variety, &o as to suit all tastes. It seems superfluous to provide our Otago army with a separate spiritual adviser. The kind of chaplain we ought to .send is one who can sit a bucking horse and shoot straight.

The following report (non-official) of one of Mr Seddon's festive meetings in the South supplements usefully the prosaic account already sxipplied through the ordinary newspaper channels. We get a glimpse of Mr Seddon among friends, released fro in parliamentary and other restraints, unbending in that simplicity of manners, freedom of speech, and goodhumoured readiness to boss all and sundry, his colleagues included, which together make up the qualities that endear him to the people. My reporter heads his manuscript with a pencil drawing from " Alice in Wonderland " — a sketch of the memorable banquet at which as&isted the Hatter, the March Hare, and the Cheshire Cat. This work of art cannot be reproduced here, and in any case I should have to exclude it as being obviously irrelevant. FRUIT BANQUET (Non-political) AT OTAUTAU To the Hon. Richaid Sccldon and Ministers. TheOlinisters of the Crown came to Otautau. The hall was crowded, and after going round to the school, the Hon. Mr Seddon came in and sat down. Grace said by somebody, '■ Amen," loud, by the Premier, who nudged chairman, "The Queen," and before the chairman coiild say two words, slioulecl, " Now all stand up/ and started " God .save the Queen " himself, to the disappointment of the orchestra. The chairman then proposed " The Visitors, ' interrupted by " Jolly good fellows," (I think started by Ward). Quickly loss the Hon. Mr Seddon: Admired the school and progress of children. .Education a grand thing now ; n.vst all be educated equally ; as for the Ministers they were not cultured, but were mea of parts. M'Kenzie was a hill shepherd, Ward a telegraph boy, and himself a nondescript (we know now what a nondescript is) on the West Coast. Now look at us, cp;i the Opposition show anything like us?" (Thank God, No.) The Hon. Mr M'Kenzie roaa sedately. " They were accused of corruption. -Would Otautau consider it coirupt if they received £500 foi a public bridge or for river piotection?" — (Cheers.) (No mention msde of grants to side roads leading to siippoiters' holdings.) The Hon. J. G-. Ward rose, as usual, smartly, and straightened himself up (he meant to keep going, when he started, so that the Premier should not pxit him out by prompting right along as he did everybody else). "He touchingly alluded to our late member, Mr Mackintosh, who had held large estates in the neighbourhood for the benefit oi the district (?) and then to the inipiovement of the district by subdividing them. (But no Government did that). He then called out, ' 'Now Walker, two minutes only.' " The poor Minister of Education did not have that e\en, the Premier prompted him right off the board. The Hon. Mr Seclclon started in again quick: " Sorry to see the chairman so nervous." (Poor fellow, like the Dormouse in '" Alice in Wonderland ' he had no show). "He (Mr Seddon) knew what it was to be chairman, he had been there." Hon. J. G-. Ward: Three" cheers !— HH p! hip! Hen. J. G. Ward: Three cheers foi ourselves.- — Hip ! hip ! Mr Gilfedder, M.H.E., here tried to speak. Hon. J. G. Ward : Three cheers for agricultural, pastoral, and mercantile interests! — Hip! hip! Rush through crowd to railway, and scramble of previously fixed deputations to catch at lea3t oi.e lion, member of the Ministry each, before the train started. Three cheers as train staited (Hon. J. G. : Hip! hip!) By One "Who Was There.

Dredging shares, I observe, have dipped a little this week. We don't exactly confess to i\ slump ; but the tone of the market, it must be acknowledged, has been, so to speak, slumpy. The rule in Stock Exchange gambling is, I believe : Run your profits, cut your losses. Translated, this means that when stock is rising you may hold or buy ; when stock is falling the sooner you unload the better. That explains our present tendency to slump. For some reason, not altogether unrelated to criticisms in the Daily Times, the further advance of speculation stocks has come to seem doubtful ; hence the holders of those stocks — buyers for the rise, who never had the remotest intention of paying calls — have hastened to get rid of them. The A'riter of a letter in Thursday's Times insinuates that the sharebrokers have " oversold "" — that is, have sold shares that they don't possess, and must buy.

■When bipkers oversell it is not a very difficult matter for them to biing about a. tenipoiary " sltim£> " in order to supply contiacts, tlio mere hint of a fall in prices being quite sufficient for many timid shareholders, who at

once rush their shares into a broker's hands " to do the best he can with them." , This doesn't apply to the present case, I ! fancy ; but it is just as well to publish it , that our friends the brokers may know that we have an eye upon them and are awake ,to possibilities. My own reading of the ' share market may be given in three particu- | lars : (1) Certain dredging stocks are nut ' yet as high as they deserve to be. I hold some of these myself, and may be accepted as an authority. (2) Others, representing claims that cannot come into work within 18 months or two years. haA*e been run up 1 unduly by " buyer* for the rise," and must j come down. (3) Since the New Year we have committed ourselves to the finding of 1 another quarter of a million sterling fov i mining purposes within the next twelve , months. There has been a rush of new , companies, all of which have been subj scribed and over-subscribed. We are to ! blame all round for this — the vendors and | brokers for jn-oposing so many new ventures before the earlier ventures have become remunerative, the public for accepting ' them. And as we are to blame all round, Iwe shall rue it all round. If there is anything that threatens our dredging industry with collapse and investors in it with wide i weltering ruin, it is the incontinent greed of vendors, promoters, and brokers in shoving new companies on to the market, and of Stock Exchange gamblers who subscribe 1 and over-subscribe the share-lists without the smallest intention of providing the capital.

Two question's of an unusual character came before the Dunedin Presbytery at its sitting on the 6lh, and both were considered at some length. The one was the question as to whether the Presbyterian Church of Oia^o and Southland should send an accredited agent, minister, or Scripture reader with our contingent to South Africa. Upon this there seemed to be only one opinion. No one spoke against it, and several warmly supported it, and a committee was unanimously appointed to make the necessary inquiries, and to report the following Tuesday. A divinity student offered to s^o, and his letter sets forth his* qualifications for the post, which evidently include the capacity for roughing it and an acquaintance with military discipline. The other question is one that has been raised in connection with the celebration, or proposed celebration, of the communion service at St. Andrew's Church. Thi^ is petitioned against by a member of another Presbyterian Church, who sets out some of his reasons and arguments in his petition. There was no disposition to treat the reference lightly. Mo&t of the speakers concurred that a decision upon it ought to be given by the Supreme Court of the Presbyterian Church, but the tone of the discussion wa^ clearly in favour of the view that the church had a right to decide the question as to the mode of celebration. The petition was referred to the synod, and no opinion either against or for the practice referred to expressed by the presbytery.

His Excellency Lord Beauchamp, Governor of New South "Wales, accompanied by his A.D.0., Captain Smith, arrived in Dunedin on the 6th from the south, after having travelled overland from ililford Sound. . His Excellency left for the north next morning. Our Te Anau correspondent supplies the following particulars of the overland journey: — Lord Beauchamp, accompanied by his A.D.G., Captain Smith, arrived at Milford Sound in the Union Company's steamer Mokoia on Tuesday morning, 30th nit. One of the Government guides, Mi Donald Ross, was in attendance to pilot tlie party on a visit to the Sutherland "Waterfall, thence, via Lake Ada, he Arthur Valley, over il'Kinnon's Pass and the Clinton Valley to Lake Te Anau. The weather was not exactly as fine as it might have been, Lut on the whole the trip was a good one, and some of the scenic effects were very fine. The head of Lake Te Anau was reached on Thursday evening. Friday was spent at Clinton at the accommodation house there. The steamer Tawera made a, special trip, taking Lord Beauchamp's valet and luggage from the foot of the lake and arriving at the head on Friday evening-. On Saturday the party left Clinton about 8.30 a.m., steamed to the head of the North Fiord of Lake Te Anau, and afterwards to the small township of Te Anau, which was reached at 3.30 p.m. A special buggy, provided by Mr Crosbie, of Lumsden, was waiting Lord Beauchamp's orders. The night was passed at the hotel, and on the fol-

lowing morning a start was made for Mana pouri, it being the intention of his Excel lency to proceed' to Lumsden on Monday, am thence to Dunedin. Previous to leaving Ti Anau his Lordship expressed the very high opinion he had formed of the scenery between Milford and the lake. He was specially .struck with the grandeur of the North Fiord He also spoke in very complimentary terms of the attention of his guides and tha comfort of the new steamer. We understand that the following students Of the University of New Zealand have passed their final examination for the M.B. degree : - Miss Daisy Platts (Dunedin), Miss Jane Kinder (Stony Creek), Miss C. H. Frost (Auckland), Miss "Woodward (Auckland), Messrs A. Hall (Dunedin), E. J. M'Ara (Dunedin), D. H. B. Bett (Dunedin), W. J. Cran (Dunedin), T. A. Will (Taieri), C. Schumacher (Lyttelton), and E. Gibson (Dunedin). The public aie sometimes apt to look on colonial degrees as of less value than Home degrees, but as an instance of how mistaken such an idea is we may state that a student who failed to pass the final examination for M.B. of the New Zealand University last year at once proceeded to London and took his M.R.C.S. degree at King's College, gaining honours in anatomy and first place in midwifery and gynaecology, while in his othei classes he was very near the top. There were between 60 and 70 competitors. Last year, out of 11 candidates who presented themselves locally, three passed, and this year, out of 17 candidates who came forward, 11 were successful. The Auckland University Council desire to secure from the Government an addition of £1000 to the £4000 subsidy paid and to establish a chair for practical and theoretical agriculture. The Oamaru Mail understands that the New Zealand Alliance have instructed Mr A. S. Adams to move in the Supreme Court to have the recent decision of the S.M. in the recent Oamaru local option poll petition sot aside. Mr W. M. Shore, late manager of the Kaitangata coal mine, was entertained at a banquet on Saturday evening at Kaitangata, when he was presented, on behalf of the employees, with a liqueur stand, also a gold albert and medal, and with a gold horn brooch for Mrs Shore, as a token of the esteem in v, hich they were held. Mr Shore will commence a tour for the benefit of his health, and will probably make a trip to Australia shortly.— Free Pre^s. The death of the Chevalier Antoine de Kontbki, at the advanced age of 82, ia announced from Ins native Cracow. Chevalier de Kontski visited New Zealand on a concert tour about three years ago. The Daily News says of him that '"he was, five-and-twenty years since, a. well-known figure in London musical life. Indeed, some of his fashionable pianoforte pieces, and particularly the still recollected Reveil dv Lion," and the " Souvenir de Biarritz," were at one time played in every drawing and schoolroom. De Kont«ki was a merely superficial musician, but he was an excellent pianist of the brilliant school of which Thalberg was the principal exponent. He was particularly noted for the delicacy of his touch and the refinement of his playing. He wad born in 1517. The New Zealand Guardian, referring to the position of the Dunedin See House fund, says: — It seems there is no way out of ifc but to raise the money by subscriptions. It is clear that money cannot be borrowed, as the property must not have a mortgage; and it is clear that the Home societies expecfc the diocesan £2000 to be subscribed, and not to be "financed." Of course it would be very easy to appropriate some of the bishoprio endowment fund towards this purchase; but that would be "financing" the matter, and not raising the money as the societies evidently contemplated, in terms of the request made to them. There is only one honest, straightforward way, and that is to subscribe the money. The Bishop has announced hia intention of giving £200, making his subscription J3250 — that is the amount he originally announced, with characteristic generosity, he would give. Three hundred pound h wanted.

Ethel E. Penjamin, Barrister and Solisitor, Albert Buildings, Princes street, Dunechu (oi.vcsite C.P.0.), haa trust moneys to lend <&' approved security. — Adv/ -