A SONG FOR THE MINERS OF WESTLAND.

West Coast Times, Issue 10123, 5 June 1895, Page 4

A SONG FOR THE MINERS OF WESTLAND.

" Onward, Liberty and Reason," This is now New Zealand's shout ; Westland, it were meral treason Where thy Miner's voice left out. Heed not those whose noisy yelling Would awaken Tumult's din, Let a nobler voice be swelling In the battle ye would win.

Show that ye have sense and feeling Fit to gain and guard your place, Let your own determined dealing Meet Opposition face to face.

Not with weapons red and recking Not with Anarchy's wild flame, But with loud and open speaking In the Miners mighty name.

Ask for all that should be granted, Show the fester ef neglect, If the Miner's love is wanted Miners they must have respect. Let the great ones, high in station, Lift their eyes and see at length Ye are pillars of the nation That alone insures its strength.

Tell your rulers they must levy Fairer weights on wearied backs, Say the coffers that are heavy Best can yield the heavy tax. Tell aloud your hearts are loyal Let " God Save the Queen " be sung, Yet the idle and the Royal Must not suck with horseleech tongue.

Think they with short-sighted meanness Ye are weaker 'neath their will, With your pocket in wolfish leanness And your larder lest nourished still. Let the people have their college, Untaught men are fearful things. Only crucibles of knowledge Serve to melt crime's fetter rings.

League in firm unflinching quiet ; Use your presses, print and read, If you ope the gate of Riot Wive^ and little ones must bleed. v Onward, Liberty and Reason," Let this be the Chorus cry And not a heart will dream of treason If wise, Senate lips reply. Words by E. C. Sent in by Jas. Herring, Kumara.

A more romantic career than that of Sir Charles Mills, who died lately, was^ever imagined by a writer of military novels. His mother was an Austrian lady, his father is generally believed to hare been Lord George Bentinck. Young Mills, however, grew up under the impression that he was the son of the gentleman who had married his mother. On coming home from Bonn University, where he bad completed his education, the lad discovered the truth about his origin. Shocked and humiliated by the discovery, he ran away from home and enlisted in the 98th Regiment, serving in China. One of the opium wars was then in progress, andyoung Mills took part in the capture of Hong Kong, and by that time he had been promoted on account of his superior education to be orderly room clerk, and the civil governorship of Hong Kong was actually entrusted te him for some months. Later on he served in India, and fought at Chillian wallah. Dmring tbo Crimean war ha t» »l»oted, on mcount of his knowledge of German, to oiganis* tfce " German Legioa " formed at that lime. AfUr peace wm ooaeluded with Russia in 1858, Mills was oo*ski»sioned to take the German Legion to Cape Colony, and settle the men on Government lands to the east of Capetown. These settlers are the nucleus of the rather restive German population in British South Africa to-day. One soldier of the legion, Col. Schermbrucker, is now a loading politician in Cape Colony ; another, General Schmidt, is one of the Boer ♦commanders in the Traosvaal. Sir .Obaitai Milk, after rising to tho head of fhe Colonial Civil Service, oaaio to London as Agent-General in 1882.