OUR LONDON LETTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6133, 21 March 1898, Page 1

OUR LONDON LETTER.

1 ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES. [From Our Porrespondeni-.] LONDON, Feb. 12. THE LOSS OF THE MATAUKA. The loss of the Mataura, news of which was received in London last Friday, is the most serious mishap that has befallen the New Zealand Shipping Company since its Jformattion. Till this' catastrophe, happily •unattended , by loss of life, the company •had been blessed with cilmost a unique •experience as regards the safety of their vessels, and during the twenty- three years' run of their business not a single passenger ■has been lost. Few other companies with an equally large fleet can boast of so happy ; arecoid, and it is to be hoped that in the loss of the Mataura the New Zealand Shipping Company has not commenced to -work but a streak of bad luck. A peep into the history of our mercantile marine: will show thafetheinipfortunes of. shipping companies, like 'ibhose of: individuals, rarelyV "come 1 ; singly, and this old adage- seems to be particularly true with regard to those firms having a long record of good luck. The meagre information of the loss of the Mataura given in the first telegram received by the New Zealand Snipping Company, was by them transmitted to Lloyds. It "wa3 stated in shipping circles that the vessel had gone ashore in the Straits of Magellan, where so many brave mariners have found a watery grave ; but later inquiry proved that the actual stranding took place at Sealer's Cove, situated on Desolation Land, which lies to the west of the island of Tierra del Fuego. News of the vessel was not expected until she reached Teneriffe. When, therefore, a message was received at the company's office in Leadenhall Street, stating that the steamer was a " total loss," the greatest anxiety was excited respecting the safety of the numerous crew. It was not reported, indeed, that any lives had been lost, but no information was forthcoming as to the safety of the greater number of the boats in which the crew apparently escaped from the doomed vessel. In the city on Friday evening, the main theme of conversation was the wreck, and in shipping circles there was no little excitement, .further information concerning the fate of Captain Milward and the crew of sixtyseven men not being expected for several days. However, about half-past four in the afternoon Messrs Westray received a cablegram which relieved" all anxiety. Later cablegrams confirmed the reported safety of the entire crew and passengers, and a telegram, dated Buenos Ayres, Jan. 29, states- that the crew and- passengers have been transferred to the steamship Crcana, which left Monte Video on Sunday for England. ;'■'.'■■. ! / ' ; ■"■■,■:. STAMPS. •..'■. .. . ■ , By tKe Run litaka went . the last cases of New. Zealand's new stamps/ duly guarded, from • Waterlow and' Sons' to the docks, and watchid with jealous eye until they reached the strong-room. This shipment includes some of the most artistic examples, the penny with a circular view of Lake Taupo in blue on a brown ground, the brown 3d with the huia, the redbrown shilling with a couple of kakas on a branch (to my mind the most animated stamp of the lot), the 8d in steel blue, the 9d purple, with the terraces, and the red os one of Mount Cook. I hear that j660J000 worth of the new issue of Newfoundland were sold at their face value by the agent of the colony before the stamps were despatched from England, and as the New Zealand stamps are infinitely more artistic, there should be a boom in them among philatelists. THE PROHIBITIONIST LEADER ON THE WAR-PATH. The Eev L. M. Isitt is in London again for a few days, after a very surcessful and enthusiastic mission in Burnley, Liverpool and Swansea, to which places he has been asked to return. Hardly a day passes on which he does not speak for an hour or more, but hard work seems to agree with him, and he looks wonderfully fit. He is booked by the Alliance of the United Kingdom to lecture for the whole of this year, in order to rouse the Liberals to press forward the direct Local Veto Bill, and out of thirteen weeks at his disposal next year, six are practically gone. He hopes to be able to get a couple of months' holiday on the Continent in the summer, otherwise he will be hard at work all the time. In Liverpool Mr Isitt visited the dispensaries on Saturday nights, and viewed with his own eyes the accumulation of wounded and maimed creatures whose injuries were directly attributable to drink, and whom he will no doubt use as horrible examples to illustrate his lectures. Mr Isitt's voice will probably be 1 eard in Exeter Hall at the end of next .October; The intermittent warfare between him . and Mr Dolman, as to whether Clutha, v "the one . . ewe ■ lamb of Jthe Prohibitionists," has been recaptured by the publican party still rages. The Westminster Gazette refused to publish some of Mr Isitt's replies to his opponent, •whereupon the Alliance News retaliated by the following answer to Mr Dolman's request to publish in its columns his rejoinder, in which he claimed to have " restated the ' sheer invention ' (viz., the recapture of Clutha by the publicans) as an incontrovertible fact " :— " You ask me to put in the Alliance News your rejoinder to Mr Isitt's reply to something of yours in the Westminster Gazette. Are you not labouring under some misapprehension? You and I are advocates retained to plead for and against the liquor traffic. Those employing you have many daily and weekly organs at their command ; my employers have little more than the Alliance News, a small weekly paper, never able to give room for more than, a tithe of what is needed for the full advocacy of our side of the great argument. The many organs at the service of your employers scarcely ever give more than brief and imperfect extracts from the Alliance News, or quotations from its friends. How can you expect my employers' little organ to do more for those to whom you have chosen to command your services ? I am, dear sir, yours with the best wishes, Henry S. Sutton, Editor Alliance Nexos." Mr Dolman, referring in the Westminster to this extraordinary letter, leaves the editor to deal with Mr Sutton's " impudent assumption that you published the work of a hireling of the liquor trade as the contribution of an impartial journalist," and asks the reverend gentleman for an apology. But the reverend gentleman sticks to his guns, and the Westminster this time gives him a fairer hearing than did the Prohibitionist organ to Mr Dolman. Mr Isitt's letter puts clearly the point in dispute and. his • contention, and colonial readers will be better able to judge than those on this side who is in the right. "In Mr Dolman's first letter," writes Mr Isitt, "he stated that the Clutha electorate, the one ewe lamb won by the prohibitionists in 1894, had been recaptured by the pubiioans in 1896. I said in reply and I say now, that this statement is a. sheer invention and Mr Dolman's quotation from the New Zealand Year Book of 1897 does not help him out of the difficulty. Now for the facts. It needs a three-fifths majority to carry 'no license' in an electorate, but once it is carried it needs three-fifths of the recorded votes to restore lenses Wh<jn 'no license' was won for the Clutha m 1894, the whole strength of the liquor party in the South Island was concentrated for its overthrow Very unfortunately for us before the election of 18JJ6, the Government altered the boundaries of the Clutha electorate,

j and included a slice of country populated bv a good many nonprohibitionists, and containing one house with an 'accommodation license/ No sooner did this happen than some of the publicans offered to bet two to one that they recaptured the Clutha, but instead of securing the needed three-fifths on election day, the voting was, license. 1618 ; no license, 1989. This means that every liquor bar closed by the election of 1894 remains closed ; that drink cannot even be sold at the railway refreshment rooms, and that the whole district originally prohibited is to-day still t prohibited ; but because our majority was only 371, i.e., not a three-fifths majority, the accommodation house standing in the slice of country added to by the alteration of the boundary, remains." SEED PEAS. . ■ ' ■ Mr John Holmes haa been laid up for some days, having, so his doctor informs him, narrowly escaped an attack of typhoid. Before His illness he visited Reading and. other; districts and made sotiie : inquiries about : the '"market for New Zealand 1 seed!peasi He finds that if this branch of the colony's industry is to make headway • hsre, seed pea growers will have to bestir themselveSj for the Canadians are, competing very keenly in this line, and their representatives are visiting all the leading seed merchants. The Dutch and Germans are also competitors with whom New Zealanders will have to reckon» The French market seems likely to be restricted, for, whereas formerly the French Customs admitted colonial peas as British, they are now raising a question as to whether the colonial vegetable should not be charged the double rate payable by foreign produce. POEMS OF THE EMPIRE. It must not be imagined from the Star's remark that the Agent-General has just " perpetrated a volume of poems " that Mr Eeeves has been burgeoning into verse by way of a contrast to the prosaic nature of his Juties as Agent-General, and that when he is surfeited by the material in the shape of butter, cheese and frozen mutton, he lets his thoughts wander to the ideal and the inditing of lyrics and pastorals. By no means. " New Zealand and other Poems," which make their appearance in a neat paper cover, under the auspicas of Grant Richards, represent the product of Mr Reeves's muse in New Zealand, polished so as to be worthy of the English public, or, rather, of Mr Reeves's friends, for I hear that he is not advertising or pushing his garland of verse or inviting criticism. Nevertheless, tbe Echo, in a column headed " Poems of the Empire " reviews the booklet in a strain " of somewhat extravagant eulogy. The most striking characteristic of the volume is its manliness. All the great poets, Shakspere, Milton, Tennyson, &c, were manly. Minor poets are all .effeminate. Ergo' Hi; Reeves is a great poet; seems to be the conclusion to be drawn from- these arguments. " New Zealand" is considered in "the Swioburniau manner." As a politician-poet,: Mr Reeves is compared with Mr Gladstone, while the word-picture called up by the linesCool ferns lifting wings over caverns of green Veil light intermingled with shade, are compared with " the work of the' great word- painters Sophocles, Virgil and Tennyson." As for the " Burnt Homestead," "if Horace had been a New Zealander he would have written just such a poem." The quality of the book, the Echo's reviewer thinks, supports the favourite theory that it is to the Britons beyond the seas that we must look for novelty in the future of English literature. The merit and the versatility of the poems are undoubted, but I fancy that Mr Reeves would be the last person to challenge comparison with Shakspere, Gladstone, Sophocles, Virgil, Tennyson, and Horace. ENGINEERING DELAY. Now that the engineering strike is over, there is some chance of the orders for the railways which have been accumulating being completed. Your Government has been one of the many sufferers by the strikes, and in some cases of delay I understand that the Agent-General is considering whether he shall not inflict the penalties provided for non-completion by the contracts. COLONIAL TRADE. Mr Chamberlain, speaking at the annual banquet of the Jewellers' Association at Birmingham on Jan. 29, made a vigorous declaration of the Government's policy in the development of colonial trade. " Our policy," he said, "is to defend our own possessions and our own claims, to open new markets wherever it is possible, and to prevent the old markets from being closed against us and from being transformed into the exclusive monopoly of some single State." Replying to Mr Morley's contention in his speech at * Dundee, that' before new markets were opened it ought: to be proved to demonstration that every one of them would pay for itself, Mr Chamberlain remarked that if those arguments had prevailed in past times, and the . history of . England had been dictated by ■ philanthropists, and economists, the British Empire would t haye been to - day a sorry spectacle' and .would not have included • Canada, South Africa or Australasia. The trade with West Africa is now something like two millions a year, and has multiplied three-fold in the course of the last thirty years ; and we have only scratched the surface ; we are only on the exterior of the Continent. When the work of civilisation and the communications already begun are completed, Mr Chamberlain prophesies that " trade with the West African colonies will rise by leaps and bounds, and it will go far to fill up any gap which may be left in our general commerce by the hostile tariffs of Continental nations." The Government does not intend to have the Gold Coast and Lagos hemmed in by foroign competitors in the same way as Gambia and Sierra Leone. Mr Chamberlain reminded his hearers that " every inch taken from territory we believe to be ours goes to swell the area of monopoly, the area from which | we shall be for ever excluded, and which will become the sole property for commercial purposes of some of our competitors." In China all the Government desired was " the maintenance of those treaty engagements, which provide that if China opens ports or territories to general trade the channels by which that trade proceeds shall be as free to all the world as they are to any particular Power." The present English policy, Mr Chamberlain claimed is in principle the policy that prevailed in 1548, when the Regency of Antwerp complained to the British agent that the King of England had more regard to a company of merchants than to the friendship of a great empire, and the British agent replied, "The King, my master, will support British commerce, even at tbe hazard of the friendship of the greatest monarch on earth." PERSONAL. According to the go3sips it is considered pretty certain that the vacant Ribbon of St Patrick will be given to Lord Ranfurlv I met Mr Walter M'Alpine (of Christ church) on the Rimutaka last week He is now fourth officer on tM Waimate, under Captain Jaggard, and was looking forward to a weeks holiday with his people at Plymouth. r r I am extremely sorry to hear of the death of Lieutenant - Colonel James Frederick Harman, R.A, who for the past five or six years had acted as military adv IS er and inspector of warlike stores for the various colonial Governments, which occurred at Tunbridge Wells on vlh o The gallant officer had bTetfaS t^faee with death for many monthS) for bis

j medical men acquainted him long ago with the fact that lie was suffering from°cancct of the liver. H? stuck to his work, however, till a few weeks ago, when he was forced to ask the Ageats-Geneval to ailow his old chum of college and field, Colonel Eden Baker, E.A., to act for him. To this they readily consented, and Colonel Barman took to his bed. The cancer developed rapidly, and in spite of medical efforts to relieve him the patient suffered the most frightful agonies: But on Wednesday afternoon " death's bright angel " brought the gallant soldier peace. Colonel Harman was but fifty-two years of age. He was A man of sound, practical common-sense, and of wide military experience. Like his predecessor, Qeneral Stewart, he did a great deal of valuable woijk in a quiet unobtrusive way. Colonel, Eden Baker will continue to act in ColonelfHarnian's place until the wishes of the Australasian Governments in regard to the post have been ascertained. Lady ;Von Haast spent six days in London, at the end.of..]ast..w§ek, i _with_~her son ; Mr 11. .Von Haast, having come from Vienna to see her s,onsj?ei'ore leaving for Runm in Slavonia, 'where she intends to spend some months. She also had the pleasure of meeting such old friends as Mr and Mrs Walter. Kennaway, Mrs Chevalier and Miss Fuchs, all of whom declared that she was looking youger than ever. On her way over she was met at Leipzig by the two daughters of Professor Cook, who expressed themselves delighted with the life in that musical centre. Mr Spencer Gollari has had a fair share of the loaves and fishes of the turf since he became a patron of the "illegitimate" game in England. On Friday last he scored another win at Kempton Park by the aid of the Australian-bred Galway, which secured the Stewards'- Steeplechase | Handicap Plate of .£9B very easily from Goldfish and Sheriff Hutton the only other starters. Galway, whose first appearance it was over fences (he ran unplaced in the Eton Hurdle Handicap at Windsor the last time out) carried list 7lb as against lOst 121b by Goldfish and list 31b by Sheriff Hutton, and was the outsider of the little party, his starting price being 6to 1. Hickey sent the son of Boolka and Bridget to the front the moment the flag went down, and making the whole of the running, Galway won in a canter by half-a-dozen lengths. As the Australian gelding fences well and undoubtedly stays he should do Mr Gollan excellent service in the future.

Brick^orkebs' Picnic. — The first picnic of the brickyards' employes was held on Sattu-day at Tai Tapu in, a paddock lent by Mr H. W. Peryman. The party left town in a nuinber of four-horse drags, supplied, by the Tram Company, at a little after nine o'clock, and Mr .Peryman's place was reached at eleven o'clock. —After arrival there sports for' children 1 and 'adults were carried ' oil .with igreat ■: success, , for. 'the ■ adults by a cotnmittee consisting of Messrs J. Simpson, Taylor"(2), M. M J lne'rnay and E. Piper^ and .for the children' by .Messrs C. H. Harding; J. Young, J. Kingdon and B. Fegley.. Soon after 5 p.m. a start -was made for' town, the company before leaving giving cheers for Mr Peryman. The party reached town about seven o'clock after a most pleasant outing, and before dis 7 persing ofeeers were given for Messrs H. B, Kirk, Wigram Brps. and J. Brightling.