INTERPROVINCIAL. I

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6296, 17 February 1892, Page 2

INTERPROVINCIAL. I

[Br Telegraph. — Press Association.] WELLINGTON, Today. The Danish residents in Wellington have resolved to support the candidature of Mr H. D. Bell for the Danish Consulship, vice Mr C. J. Toxward, deceased. At the annual meeting of the Mokihinui Coal Company, the report stated that the los 3of their steamer Lawrence, and the bar remaining in a dangerous state for a time, had prevented the shipment of coal, as the insurance companies refuse to insure vessels crossing the Mokohinui bar. Under these conditions the output for the year was only 4540 tons. Such work in the mine as would open it out for the future and prove the extent of the field had been carried out. The mine manager reported that he will be able to send to market 400 tons daily as soon as the railway line now under construction by •he Government to Mokohinui is completed. He also stated that the operations of the company for the year have proved a portion of the property operated upon to contain two million tons of coal. The Chairman explained that an overdraft of £3314 would have to be liquidated during the year, and £5000 or £6000 spent in making the railway ftfc for heavy traffic. He also mentioned that the net loss on the steamer Lawrence was £8906. The report was adopted, and Messrs Roskringe and Allen were re-elected directors. The Premier left for Palmerston yesterday, and will address the electors there. The Earl and Countess of Onslow took their final departure from Wellington via Manawatu by special train at eleven o'clock this morning. The volunteers formed a guard of honor, and the D Battery fired a salute of 17 guns. The Benevolent Trustees threaten to appeal to the public if Government will not help them to provide shelter for destitute old persons. As a last effort the whole of the members will deputationize the Premier again. In consequence of the hospital authorities refusing to keep destitute persons who are cured, a number of such cases have been thrown on the hands of the trustees lately, who have no adequate means of providing for them. At a temperance meeting a series of resolutions were carried asking the New Zealand Alliance to bring in a Local Veto Bill at the next session of Parliament, and appeal to the country to support it. His Excellency the Governor left shortly after eleven o'clock by a special train for Palmerston, where he will stay this evening. Owing to the arrangements being altered at the last moment, there was not a large attendance of the public to bid him farewell, many persons having gone to the Manawatu station, whereas he left from the Government station. There were no speeches, but a number of personal friends of Lord and Lady Onslow bade them good-bye. A guard of honour attended, and a salute was fired as the train left. The s.s. Dorio left Capetown on Saturday for Wellington. The Anglican Synod yesterday decided that the next triennial session be held in Nelson in January, 1595. Owing to the delay in the arrival of Capt. Tox, the new commandant of the New Zealand forces, the arrangements for the year have to a great extent been upset, and consequently Government have decided not to foanulateany scheme for Easter encampment bnb the arrangements which have been made in various localities for holding encampments will not be interfered with. The Governor goes on to Wanganui, where he will stay the night, continuing to New Plymouth to-morrow morning. The Hon. Mr Buckley and Mr G. S. Cooper accompany (Tie Governor to Auckland. The gold exported from the colony during the year ending 31st December last, was worth£22l,ooo more than the previous year. All the fields showed an improvement, but th» principal increase was in Otago and the West Coast. When Mr Seddon took office, he gave out that any leases in which covenants as to working were not complied with, would be cancelled, and he has not yet had occasion to carry this into effect. AUCKLAND, To-day. For the four weeks ended Saturday, during which time an avera3e of thirty-seven stamps were employed, the Wailri Goldmining Company crushed 1073 tons for a return of half a hundredweight of bullion valued at L2OOO. J. C. Seccombe, the well-known brewer, is dead. A Native named Kima Ohina Muri was committed for trial yesterday for removing the trig flag at Teuku, near Waiuku. He pleaded that he acted under the instructions of his superior officer, Kerei Kaihau, who acted for Tawhiao. Kerei Kaihau gave evidence and endorsed Kima's statement, and added that even if Kima were put in prison the flags would be disturbed by Tawhiao and by himself as Tawhiao's representative. On Kerei Kaihau leaving the Court he was arrested as an accessory by his own admission to unlawful removal of the trig flag, and will be charged to-day. The German cruiser Bussard, 1,460 tons, eight guns, Capt. Gertz, arrived this morning from Samoa, twelve days out, in order to spend the remainder of the Inirricane season, till the end of March in Auckland. The Buzzard is a new steel vessel, which was launched in 1890 and arrived in the East at the end of the year. The man-of-war returns to Apia in April. ' News has arrived at Levuka, that the schooner Emma Fisher has been seized in the Solomon Group by H.M.S. Royalist, for recruiting without a license. The vessel was sAA &t auction for £137. INVERCARGILL, To-day. The jury in the second trial found Mellish and Thompson guilty of larceny of sealskins. They recommended Thompson to mercy, because of his youth and inexperience in the sealing trade, he being only the cook to the Sarties. Sentence was deferred, pending the ecision of the Appeal Court on two points of law. HAWERA, To-day. A man named Wetherall, who has been surveying on the Awarua block, was lost on Saturday. As he had to swim the Rangitikei river to get to camp it is feared he has been drowned. Parties are out searching.

Tom Mackenzie, M.H.R. : Now I do not intend to take up your time much longer, but I will say we have a Government just now which may be something to-day ami another to-morrow ; Freetraders to-day, Protectionists to-morrow ; land nationalises to-day, freeholders to-morrow. And I say that those who support the present Ministry are not supposed to be thinking men at all. They are rather supposed to take up briefs for the Ministry than to stand by what they believe to be undying principles. They are to be automata for the Ministry ; to represent party, not principles. f say that so long as I have a right to a seat in that House, so long shall 1 maintain the right to think and to act for myself in the best interests of the country. I shall never crawl I into Parliament as that man crawled into Parliament in Wellington the other day. He went to address people from the platform and had his words corrected by those who were beside him. He is a political cripple and has landed into the House of Representatives upon Ministerial crutches. I intend, so long as I have your confidence, to endeavor to legislate for the future as well as for the present. We have a good country, but we have heavy responsil)ilities,andifwecommiterrors just now through a desire to please and to be popular, or because it is more agreeable to do so, they may come to be regarded as crimes, and their effects will not be easily wiped out. The first thing we ought to do is to see that we have a sound system of finance established. We should also see that the laud is allocated so that no man shall have more than a reasonable holding, and that our land laws always tend in that direction. I believe myself that the time has arrived, and I said so two years ago, when the Government should pass a measure precluding a man from acquiring above a certain area, cither as one 01 a company or as a private individual, and I stick to that. I would go further and advocate that when, say, a man owning 20,000 acres dies the law should be that he should have no right to leave the whole of that land to any one person, or more than half of it, and there should be a system by which the balance should be valued at a fair price and Bold iv 500-acre lots, no man being allowed to take more tha# one section of it. That is my principle. That would do no injustice to the owner of the property, who could enjoy it as long as he lived, but at his death he should have no right to leave the whole property to one person,