WELLINGTON NOTES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4339, 29 April 1896, Page 4

WELLINGTON NOTES.

[CoimESPOXDENT.] THE QEnMAN SPHEKE OF INFLUENCE. ; Mr Seddon has again taken another plunge, i This time it is into the board of advance of a . German mining syndicate. These sudden (or j Seddon) jerks are somewhat disconcerting to , people of steady habits ; but it is one of the i prices we pay for the luxury of being , governed by Liberals. The true bearings of . the business are not yet open to the public gaze, and the observant journalist may only recount facts and theu draw deductions. We find that when matters began to get warm in the Transvaal, a year or more ago, that a certain Hebrew speculator came, like Joshua of old, to spy out the land ; and he found, not only milk and honey, but very desirable mining properties. Their only fault was that the legislators of old had considered thirty acres sufficient for any man or company to hold, and quite a number of companies have found that area big enough to swallow up all their capital— but that by-the-way. Mr Ziman started interviewing, and the result was the inevitable Mining Act Amendment, 1895. This statute enacted that one man could take up an area of three square miles, and the same applicant could take up three such areas, or 5,760 acres in all ; so that it only required ten syndioators to join together to 3IOSOPOLISE A WHOLE COUNTY. The chief provisions of this revolutionary j Act arc not in the Act itself, but in the regulations, and these are merely auother j term for the " will of the Ministry," otherwise , Mr R. J. Seddon. So Mr Ziman, after get- ' ting his Act passed, purchased tha options of . several good things about Reefton and pegged out nearly nine square miles in his own name | and another three miles by an agent, and then departed for London to exploit his options, j He has succeeded ; but before the return of this modern Joshua, a Caleb turned up— a \ "made in Germany" scientist, Herr Wich- , mann by name, who saw some good things up ! I Auckland way, and being a man of science he , I started exploiting in a very scientific manner. ; It is a wearisome sort of business to travel , I through creeks and over mountain ranges all over the colony to pick out the plums and , dodge the duffers ; so this German scientist ' secured all this information in one act by securing the Government official who had all this knowledge up his sleeve. He offered Mr , Gordon about three times as big a salary as ! the Government paid him, and then New | Zealand lost her Gordon and Germany is a j Gordon the richer. Also, Air Park, of the \ school of mines at Auckland, a man of ability '•and experience in metallurgy assaying, and with a thorough knowledge of the Aucklaud reefs, wtucb. aye o£ a vefractory character. ' l Thus the colony has lost two men who have j | COST A GOOD MANY THOUSANDS j to teach. Not that Mr Gordon is much loss \ ( me jndice ). His ponderous annual reports are neither original nor entertaining and more than once led to indignation meetings being held in Reefton ; but he has done a lot of travelling about the goldfields, and what he knew was of value to the Germans. So they annexed him, and both he and Park are now in the German sphere of influence. But Herr Wichmann was not yet satisfied. He had secured the expert portion of New Zealand and that required to be supplemented by the political genius of the colony to make it perfect. Why not bag the Premier ? He laid his trap, "Barkis was willin'" and Mr Seddon joined the board of advice. He had a good precedent for it. His colleagues, Messrs Ward and M'KeDzie, had done the same thing a few months before with the Colonial Produce and Distribution Co., which it was stated in its prospectus was intended to " obtain concessions from the colony and local bodies ;" therefore, on the ground of precedent, Mr Seddon was justified in joining the " little German band." Herr Wichmann may now couut on a Mining Act Amendment, 1 1896, which an obedient jelly-fish Parliament will pass without remark, and the first tap on the wedge will be given towards making New ■ Zealaud a German colony. AN EXAGGERATED VIEW. ' Readers of these Notes may laugh and say ' that this is an exaggerated conclusion to ' arrive at. Very good. Let us see what has happened in the Transvaal during a few months. The " Contemporary Review " for ' February has au article on the Germans in the Transvaal, which says :— " Germans first appeared in the Transvaal in the comparatively harmless character of mining financiers. Next to the Jews, perhaps, they are the most numerous. As concession hunters they have been unapproachable. Having got on the right side of the President and the Raad (Parliament), they only had to help themselves to what they wanted. One monopoly after another they suggested, engineered through the Raad, floated in Europe, and are now making fortunes for themselves and their Boer friends. One of the best known of a long series of concessions is the dynamite monopoly, the practical effect of which is that every mining company ha? to p'ty 20 to 30 per cent, more thau the best explosives would cost in a free market, and a particularly big plum is now ripening for the punishment of the Uitlanders and the benefit of the Pretoria ring. It is nothing less than a cyanide monopoly for the whole republic. If it should be realised, the cost of producing gold may be increased by five or ten per cent. They have also a monopoly of trade in whisky, and every mile of railway is controlled by one company in Berlin." Now, if we substitute " Premier " for '• President " and " Parliament " for " Raad," what different position are we in to what the Transvaal was two years ago ? We know something of OEBMAN AGGEESSION AND CRUELTY in Samoa and every week we hear of German hatred to England by the cables and the English Press. With what looks very like treason in our own camp, what is there to prevent German or even black labor displacing our European miners in the reefs, Krupp'g macLinery being imported in place of that manufactured in the colony, and a monopoly granted for explosives and chemicals? It may be said that a monopoly is impossible. It was only last session that something of the I sort in binder twine was abolished. If our over-worked Premier can find leisure to assist the band of Germms to take possession of our public servants and our gold mines, then it is surely time that au outraged community should say, " Stick to your German band ! Be the big drummer if you choose ; but we will have you no longer." E. T. GILLON. On Sunday afternoon, after many months of unbearable suffering, borne without a murmur, there passed peacefully away the greatest journalist New Zealand has yet produced. I | saw him frequently up to within a week of his death, and his mind was as bright as ever ; but his once-robust frame gradually wasted away to attenuation. No man in the colony possessed such a thorough knowledge of its ! political history or personal ac^uaiatange

with its past and present public men. Hia insight into public business was marvellous, nnd this, combined with a lucid and vigorous criticism, made him a great power. Hia pen was always forcible, sometimes vitriolic in its strength ; but it was ever wielded conscientiously. Once he had mastered any public question — and he never ventured an opiuion without knowing Us bearings— he was inflexible. Nothing would turn him from what ho believed to be the righteous course. Such a man ever makes enemies and he was no exception, and it was in this respect that his true nobility of character was conspicuous. Personally I know of instances where he could have struck home on those who loved him not ; but he generously stayed his hand. He scorned shams and fallacies and denounced the high priests of them in uumeasured disdain. He had hoped until within a few weeks of his death that he would last long enough to aid in the re-establishment of a purer Government, but it was not to be. His last words to me were : "My race is run ; but God knows I have tried to do my duty." And in that sentence is summed up the character and career of B. T. Gillon. A CLERICAL OPINION. Speaking to a clerical gentleman about the Premier's dictum to a deputation of the unemployed that he would sooner see children starve than that their father should be degraded by becoming a sandwich man, the rev. gentleman said : " Why, what is Seddou himself but a huge sandwich man, carrying hia own advertisement all over the colony ? " According to the Ministerial dictionary the word •' degradation " means — " Preferring charity to an honest living." 21st April, 1896.