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produce have been well received in Canada, and should the Dominion Government remove the duty on wool, as they are said to intend, there will be an opening for that commodity also. 1 Canadians on | the other hand expect to find a market in Australasia for those commodities which now find their way from San Francisco. In canned fruits, lumber, hard wheats for mixing purposes, agricultural machinery, and the like, Canadians claim that they can more than hold their own as against the United States, now that direct steam-communication is established. As yet the Imperial Government have not seen fit to adopt the new CanadianAustralasian steamers as armed cruisers in time of war, but the Canadian Government are pressing the subject upon the attention of the Admiralty through Sir Charles Tupper, the Canadian High Commissioner, and fully expect before long to secure for the VancouverSydney line the same cruiser allowance as is made to the China and Japan mail-steamers crossing the Pacific from Vancouver. As yet the New South Wales Government is the only 2 Australasian authority which has given practical support |to the line in the shape of a subsidy of £10,000, but the Canadians regard the new route as of interest to New Zealand and all the Australian Colonies, opening up as it does new channels of trade, and the only wholly British route to England. The Canadian Gazette, the semi-official organ of the Canadian Government, published here in London, has much to say of the " making friends with Australasia." In its issue of today it remarks, " It must not be imagined that those who have inaugurated this new service have done so from motives of pure philanthropy. Far from it. Mr. Huddart and Mr. Ward have been touring through Canada, as business-men whose faith is based upon clear-headed notions of the £s d aspect of the question. In appealing to the Governments in each of the 3 countries concerned, they have made |it clear that the route has distinct climatic and speed advantages for the traveller between Australasia and Europe, and for the mails as well. A fast ship on the Atlantic and a special train on Canada's transcontinental line could deliver a London mail at Vancouver in ten days, and a rapid but possible service on the Pacific could convey the mail from Vancouver to Sydney in fifteen or sixteen days. Speed for speed, this would beat the Suez route by several days. Equally obvious is it that it is of great advantage to each component part of the Empire to have it command this wholly British route to the Antipodes. No one need be reminded how precarious communication via the Suez Canal must be in times of difficulty, and transit by the San Francisco route may at any time be denied 4 to British passengers, mails, and cargo. The trade aspect |of the question is necessarily in the experimental stage as yet, but all the information gathered by the promoters during their Canadian tour and the experience of the voyages yet made suggest that the reversed seasons, different climates, and varying natural wealth of the two continents will afford an ample and profitable basis of exchange. Moreover, unless some speakers in the New South Wales Assembly are misinformed, the Canadian Government has expressed its readiness to modify the Canadian tariff in such a way as to encourage trade connection. There is also the prospect of Canadian commerce with the Sandwich Islands, for, despite the political influence which the United States has succeeded in gaining in Hawaii, there is no reason why San Francisco should hold 89 per cent, of a trade much of which may be carried on even more satisfactorily with Canada. 5 Altogether, Canadians have reason to feel satisfied." |

Shorthand — Junior. — For Junior Civil Service. Time allowed : 3 hours. Instructions to Supervisors. 1. Inform candidates before the time for taking up this subject that they may use pen or pencil as they please for taking notes, which should be written on ruled paper, but that they must transcribe those notes into longhand with pen and ink. 2. Inform candidates that when once you have commenced to dictate you cannot stop until the passage is finished. 3. Dictate the passages at the following rates of speed : — (a.) 50 words per minute. (6.) 80 „ (c) 100 „ „ N.B.—lt will be well to practise reading these aloud some time beforehand, looking at a watch or clock, so as to accustom yourself to reading at the exact rate indicated.* 4. Candidates are at liberty to take down one, two, or three passages, as they choose. All the passages required by candidates are to be dictated before any one begins to transcribe ; and there should be as little delay as possible between the readings. 5. Inform candidates that rapidity in transcribing notes into longhand is essential, and note carefully on the transcribed copy the exact time taken in transcription. Candidates must not look at their notes while a passage that does not concern them is being read. 6. Inform them also that the clearness and accuracy of the shorthand notes (which must in every case be sent in attached to the transcript) will be taken account of by the examiner ; and that they must not alter the shorthand notes after the dictation is finished.

* The matter to be read is marked off into sections, each of which is to occupy a minute. The Supervisor will perhaps find it advisable to mark it off into smaller sections, each containing the number of words to be read in fifteen seconds, and to read one section in every quarter of a minute. As the candidates hear the passage read only once, the reader's articulation ought to be very clear, and the candidates ought to be so placed as to be able to hear well.