Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1892. THE HOME ELECTIONS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6897, 18 June 1892, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1892. THE HOME ELECTIONS.

Since the general elections which took place in the United Kingdom, the majority of the Salisbury Government has been reduced by one-half. If bye-elections wero a trustworthy guide of the current opinion, the days of the present Administrution could now bo numbered. The great contest between parties in the centre of the Empiro is fixed to take place about the middle of next month. Unlike previous elections, the result will depend little upon questions of foreign policy. Tho Salisbury Government have been very successful in dealing with foreign countries. Tho prestige of the Empire has been maintained and its boundaries extended. The foreign policy of Lord Salisbury has been almost universally approved by the country, and has won the admiration of his opponents. Mr Goschen, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has, during his term of office, practically reduced the national debt by about a hundred million. England still maintains her supremacy as a maritime nnd manufacturing country, and there is little sign of that supremacy being endangered. These things in former times would have earned for the Government an extended lease of power. But the political air is impregnated with social and labor questions, and on these questions the elections will chiefly turn. It is true that Lord Salisbury is prepared to advance quite as far as Gladstone in matters of internal reform, but the unreflecting portion of the electors are not likely to be materially influenced by a circumstance of that kind. They look forward to great changes, and they think the speediest way to bring them about is to effect a change of Government. Mr Gladstone is in conflict with the labor leaders on the eight hours' system, but it does not follow tluir the rank and file of that party will not support at the polls Gladstnnian candidates, though it is quite certain that if Mr Gladstone gets into power ho will lead tho party by the nose. He has at last given an opinion, though, as usual with him, an equivocating one, on a statutory eight hours work, and lie has too good an understanding of the manufacturing and other productive industries of Great Britain to depart from that opinion. The prosperity of England largely depends upon being able to hold more than her own in the markets of the world against ill competitors. If the cost of produotion were largely increased — as it is feared it would be by limiting the day's work to eight hours— Britain's trade and manufactures would go to the wall. Of course, if all nations consented to adopt the eight hours' system, the case would be different; but that is a remote prospect. A cablegram yesterday gave the leading planks in the platform of the Government. The programme is an exceedingly liberal one. Whether it will capture the votes of the agricultural laborers and the workers of the towns remains to bo seen. The provision for peasant holdings is probably in pursuance of Chamberlain's idea of three acres and a cow. The proposal as to the rates to bo paid for labor employed by the State or municipalities cannot bo very acceptablo to the great majority of tho Conservative party. They are being forced to travel in a direction they do not like. The County and Borough Councils of these colonies would resist legislative interference of the kind. Their programme shows that the Salisbury Government are making a big bid for popular support.

Tenders are advertised for the floating of the schooner Awaroa from her present position to the Gisborne wharf. The frost this morning was the hardest known here for many years. Freshly thrown up ground was caked to the depth of two inches. Snow lay several feet deep on the Wairoa road last week, and even yesterday there was a considerable amount on the road at Waerenga-o-kuri. | A man named Ellis, who was arrested at Auckland and remanded to Gisborne, will appear at the Police Court on Monday on a charge of stealing a horse from Mr McGuire, of Waipiro. i In the Auckland Supreme Court on Wednesday the case Waiapu County Council v. Cook County Council, motion for writ of injunction, was mentioned. Mr Button stated that he had been requested by Mr Hesketh to apply to have this case allowed to stand over. The application was granted. Our readers are reminded that Mr Snazelle's series of entertainments will be commenced on Monday night at the Theatre Royal. Much has been heard in advance about Mr Snazelle's abilities as a singer and recontenr, and a good deal of interest has been awakened. There is every indication that the audience on Monday evening will be a large one, and intending patrons would do well to secure their seats beforehand at Mr W. Good's, where the plan is now on view. Amongst the applicants for relief who appeared before the Wellington Benevolent Trustees the other day was a female fortune teller. Evidently the business of palmistry is falling off, or else competition is becoming very keen. More probably the latter is the case, as a new professor in the occult art has just arrived with a flourish of trumpets from the South One of the trustees fancied that he had soon the woman in question sitting behind him in the stalls at the opera. However, as the woman's husband is suffering from the effects of typhoid fever and her daughter had St. Vitus' dance, it was resolved to grant 2s 6da week. Mi" George Lewis, head of the Local Government Department, New South Wales, who is at present in New Zealand to enquire into our electoral system (including one-man-one-vote and single electorates), the Government Labor Department, and the local government system, has been in Wellington for some days days past, prosecuting enquiries in connection with his mission. Mr Lewis has already visited Auckland, Gisborne, and Napier, and goes South shortly to visit Christchurch, Dunedin, and Invercargill, and possibly the West Coast. He also visits Tasmania and Victoria before sending in hie report.

A company is being promoted at Invercarj^ill to manufacture hosiery and clothing. It is estimated that the sugar crops on the Clarence (New South Wales) this year will yield nine tons per acre more than last year. The Minister for Public Works in Victoria gays that work will be found for between 15(K) and 2000 of the unemployed very shortly. The Newcastle (New South Wales) Anglican Cathedral committee have received a total sum of £10,181 15s 5d in aid of the building fund. It is stated that when the recent severe drought broke up Broken Hill people sat outside in order to experience the strange .and delightful sensation of getting wet through. At Geelong a tailor has received an anonymous letter enclosing £10. The writer states that about forty years ago lie purchased a suit of clothes, but was unable to pay, and went through the Insolvency Court. The Otepopo (Oamaru) Licensing Committee refused the license of the Maheno Hotel, on the ground that it was not required in the neighborhood. A shocking fatality has occurred at Northampton, Western Australia. A young man named Richard Williams was engaged in roping a ferocious boar in a sty, when the animal charged him and gored him to death, ripping up nis thigh, and inflicting fearful injuries. A Tangiers cablegram of June loth states : — Lightning exploded a British petroleum steamer in the harbor of (?), and twenty persons are reported to be killed. The adjacent vessels were set on fire. Twentytwo persons were killed. The accident was caused by drunken sailors dropping lighted matches about. With the view of deciding whether it is possible to preserve the natural bloom on frozen mutton, the experiment was made in Oamaru of sending to England and back a sheep and a lamb frozen with the pelt on. The North Otago Times states that the experiment cannot be called a success. The bloom had entirely disappeared, and in its place was a pale color that gave the impression that the sheep had died a natural death, and had afterwards been skinned. At Palmerston the other day the Licensing Committee refused to grant licenses to the owners of four new hotels, which have recently been erected. One of these had cost £1,700 for building alone. On the previous day two other new licenses were refused. It is apparent from this that the Palmeraton Committee think they have hotels enough. All renewals applied for were granted. Sir Patrick Buckley gives a very doleful account of the number of destitute persons from New Zealand whom he had met with in Sydney. Almost everywhere he went he was encountered by unemployed men who had left New Zealand to look for work and failed. These men are not merely povertystricken ; they and their families are destitute. Even when he was coming away people begged that he would use what influence he could to get them back to this country, where they had experienced tolerable comfort even when things were at the worst. The directors of the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company%ave reduced the cnai-ge for freezing mutton for this winter to Jd per lb, less 20 per cent. , the directors of the company having determined to make this further reduction, which is equal to 3d per 60lb sheep, in order to induce stock-owners to freeze and ship a larger proportion of their surplus stock, in preference to selling in the local markets. The PreRS points out that as the freight is £d, and the London charges only about £d per lb, this reduction brings tlie total charges for freezing, freight, insurance, and selling in London to about IJd per lb, so that only 4d in London will give a return of 2£d per lb, or 12s 6d per 60lb sheep, in addition to the skin and fat. A London correspondent says the Daily Graphic achieved a novel journalistic feat in connection with the University boat race, which a portion of its staff watched from a captive balloon in telegraphic communication with Fleet-street. From the balloon the entire race was visible, and as it progressed the positions of the boats at various points were wired to the editor. Within half an hour a special edition of the Daily Graphic showing "the boat race at a glance," with the relative positions occupied by the rivals at Craven Cottage, the Soap Works, Hammersmith, the Oil Works, Barnes, and Mortlake were selling by thousands in the Strand. * A Wellington correspondent writes:— ln an interview with the Native Minister this afternoon I ascertained that he is just now busy in the preparation of his Native Lands and Native Lands Court Bill. With regard to the former, it will undergo a good deal of alteration. This is necessary owing to the new departure arrived at by the Government of issuing debentures in payment for lauds. Tliis new mode affects the whole of the pur-L-hasing clauses of the Bill as it was originally framed. With respect to the Native Laaids Court Bill, the clauses relate almost wholly to forms of procedure. The Chief Judge, I understand, is engaged in conference daily with the Native Minister on that subject. The Wellington Press says :— " We are reliably informed that notwithstanding all their protestations against borrowing the Ministry intend next session to propose that a loan of £750,000 to £1,000,000 be raised in the colony. Somehow or another they have got hold of the extraordinary notion that though it would be wicked to borrow in the London market borrowing in the colony would be very laudable. It is true that the Government would have to pay about 1$ per cent, more for the money here than in England, but as this would pass into the pockets of the colonists who have saved moderate sums, and not into those of that hated creature, the foreign capitalist, the higher rate of interest must be regarded as a blessing to the colony in disguise. On April 30 a London correspondent wrote : — The smallness of the majority by which Sir Albert Rollet's Women's Suffrage Bill (notwithstanding Gladstone's opposition) was thrown out on Wednesday afternoon, has caused great jubilation in the Fawcett-Maclaren brigade, and doubtless surprised you New Zealanders, who learnt the result by cable. Barely half the House voted. Many honorable members declined to take the Bill seriously, whilst others, who knew there was a sure majority againt it, calmly annexed a holiday It was curious to note how honorable members seemed to invariably approach the women's suffrage question from the point of view of their own feminine belongings. Thus Mr Balfour and Mr Maclaren (the Radical M.P. for Crewe), who disagree on almost every subject, were at one that clever, capable, and intellectual creatures like the former's sister and the latter's wife ought not to be denied the franchise. On the other hand, the philanthropic Mr Samuel Smith (described with greater candour than politeness by Mrs Fawcett as that " fussy old frump ") naturally contended that the comfortable body who saw to his linen being aired, and combed his whiskers for him occasionally, would not know what to do with a vote, and would use it simply as driected by her clever husband's hands. Professor Sir George Humphrey, F.R.S., in addressing the Cambridge Tcinperance Association recently (says the British Medical Journal), took occasion to protest against the common form of intemperance in drinking, which was short of drunkenness, but which, as it was more general, was more prejudicial, and was doing more damage than actual drunkenness. This was the habit of " nipping." Taking a glass now, a glass then, and a glass often ; in the morning (which was worst of all), at the mid-day meal, in the afternoon, and in the evening. Even more than drunkenness, this was terribly damaging to the system ; It made men soddened, and was evidenced in a general shakiness of the hand, sometimes of the step, and above all, of the tongue ; in fact, a general shakiness of all the organs. The "nippers" succumbed to slight accidents, slight illness, or slight shocks of any kind. Prick them, and the life, as it were, ran out of them. They say, "My work is hard," and they took the very means which unfitted them for good and prolonged work. By temperance in drink, he meant that nothing should be taken whatever, under any condition, except at meals, and very little then. Those who could not be absolutely temperate and content with moderation, should become total abstainers.

There is much sickness on the Mtirchison goldfield, Western Australia. It is a kind of fever and many deaths have occurred. The total value of the Mount Morgan mine, Queensland, recently increased by over £1,000,000 in a few days. The doctors of Masterton now have their hands full. Influenza, whooping cough, and diphtheria are very prevalent. The Manawatu Standard asserts that both Mr Jzard and Sir Walter Buller will oppose Mr Wiison for Otaki at the next election. The two tallest trees in the world are believed to be two eucalypti in Victoria, estimated to be 435 feet and 450 feet in height respectively. The Hon. J. B. Whyte is in Auckland, whither he has gone to remove his family to the East Coast, where he himself has lately been residing. In New South Wales twelve banks and financial syndicates own about 45,000,000 acres of land, one institution alone owning 8,500,000 acres. The Government of Mexico has granted the Mormons 100,000 acres in the province of Chihahua, and will probably increase the area after the first batch of settlers arrive. The Western district of Victoria is becoming highly moral. At Coleraine logal business is almost at a standstill. The customary court business consists of a debt case about once in a month or six weeks, with a few drunks thrown in between. Lawyers are scarcely ever required, a judge never. Gustave Jovanavitch, the Russian Cattle King, owns 800,000 acres; 1,000,000, or more, sheep, and 34,000 dogs ; but W. P. Reeves dure not go to Russia and call Jovanavitch a " Soaial Pest." — Catholic Times. The Post commends Mr tteddon's Wangarei speech, and says it shows Ministers coquetting with a new loan, Mr Seddon's address amounts to an intimation that if the people are sufficiently pressing the (Jovernment will yield to their demands for the resumption of the borrowing policy. A lady canvasser lately " struck" Ministers for tickets to an entertainment, and the result is seen in the following placard on each landing of the big wooden building :— " Notice to canvassers : Canvassers in these buildings for sale of goods, tickets for entertainments, or any similar purpose cannot be allowed. By order. June, 1892." After receipt of the news of the Privy Council's decision in the Edwards case, an Auckland Star reporter waited on MrEd wards, who is reported to have said that he waa perfectly satisfied the decision was bad. He holds as firmly as ever that the appointment waa yalid. He considers the erroneous judgment due to lack of special knowledge and complains that his case was considered of less importance than the case of the murderer Deeming, for wnereastheHouseof Lords adjourned to allow of the judges sitting oil the Deeming appeal, they heard the arguments in his case piecemeal at intervals between Parliamentary sittings, which was not a proper method to obtain a full grasp of a difficult case The miscarriage of justice in this and other colonial cases, he considers, provides a very strong argument for the creation of an Australasian Federal Court of Appeal. The Bill which the Atkinson Government were about to introduce was not in any sense a measure specially to validate his appointment, but applied equally to the appointments and decisions of Judges Richmond, Williams Chapman, and Gillies, who had all been appointed before their salary was authorised. It was to be passed to meet the objections of the Chief Justice, and was not proceeded with because of a misunderstanding. Mr Edwards had pledged himself not to act as judge until Parliament fnet, but on receiving a telegram from the Chief Justice instructing him to take up Supreme Court work he did so, and in consequence of his acting Ministers thought it useless to press the bill. He thinks that if members look at the matter fairly and apart from party feeling. Parliament will recognise the justice of his claim to compensation. The Weather : — Weather forecasts for 24 hours from 9 a.m. to-day : Wind between north and east and south-east at all places northward of East Cape, Taupo, and New Plymouth, and between north-east and north and west from thence southward of Port Chalmers and Queenstown, and between north and west and south-west elsewhere. Barometer further fall everywhere ; sea increasing on eastern coast, increase on west. Warnings to expect strong easterly winds and rain have been sent to all places northward of East Cape, Taupo, and kew Plymouth, and for northerly gales and rain to all other places. Synopsis of last 24 hours : Throughout the country the barometer has continued to fall steadily with fine weather, and generally with frost. — R. A. Ed\vi>\