ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVIII, Issue XXII, 31 May 1902, Page 1106

ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

LONDON, April 19. At an “ influentially attended ” conference of debenture-holders of the New Zealand Midland Railway Company, held on Thursday, the following resolution was unanimously passed: —“That this meeting approves the course suggested by the Deben-ture-holders’ Committee, and authorises them to request the New Zealand Government to hand over the railway to them on payment of £66,045, fhe sum at which the interest of the Government in the railway has been valued by the Royal Commission.”

The report presented to the annual meeting of the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade referred with gratification to the passing cf a law prohibiting the opium trade in New Zealand, and expressed a hope that "Australia would follow this example-

This is the third year of the war, but within the next few weeks no fewer than 21,000 British soldiers, to say nothing of colonial contingents, will be dispatched to the front. What a contrast to the sorry remedy to which the Crimean War drove us. After sending out the first army of 30000 men under Lord Raglan, the Government declared that no more British soldiers wera available, and appealed to Parliament for authority to enlist 15,000 foreigners to fight, the Russians. This was in November, 1854, within three months of the war’s commencement. Despite opposition, the Bill became Act 18 and l‘j Vic., c. 2, and recruiting agents were dispatched over Europe to enlist men, as remount officers are now searching the world for horseflesh, fur the British Army.

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which resumes its sittings this week, has only eleven appeals before it. Of these six come from India, two from New South Wales, and one each from Jersey, Natal and New Zealand. The last raises the question whether certain wax vestas were goods prohibited from importation into the colony and liable to forfeiture under the Patents Act, 1899, and the Customs Laws Consolidation Act, 1892.

The law has done speedy justice in the case of the collision between the Waesland and the Harmonides in St. George’s? Channel in a fog on sth March. In the action brought by the owners of part of the cargo on the Waesland and on behalf of the passengers to recover damage, fo> loss of their effects from the owners of Harmonides, " the representatives of each vessel claimed that the other was alone to blame for the collision. The evidence of the naval architects was of that contradictory character which has led to the celebrated classification of witnesses. Two surveyed the Harmonides after the collision. The one representing the Waesland was of opinion that the damage to the Harmonides showed

that at the time of the collision she had considerable way on, while the Waesland was moving slowly, the one representing the Harmonides drew the conclusion from the same damage that it was the Waesland that was going at a substantial speed and the Harmonides that was almost stationary. Mr Justice Barnes and the Trinity Masters, however, came to the conclusion that Harmonides had not been “navigated with caution until danger of collision was over,” and that she was alone to blame for the collision. The Waesland, on the other hand, had done exactly what the owners of the Campania, in the Campania-Embleton case had alleged was impossible, viz., slowing down, stopping, and reversing, and then gradually going ahead again at intervals. Very excellent discipline had also been maintained on the Waesland. Judgment was therefore entered for the plaintiffs, with costs, the damages to be assessed by the Registrar and merchants. A second collection of natural history objects from the exploring ship Discovery has arrived in England, from Macquarie Island, ano: is said tc be of considerable interest. This island was the last point at which the ship touched before heading for its destination in Victoria Land, and for many months Captain Scott and his companions will remain shut off from rhe rest of mankind in that ice-bound region. It is to be hoped that the influences of the Boer War and the Coronation will not cause British folk to forget the explorers, who are at the present enduring the rigous of an Antarctic winter. What these are like can be understood by any reader of Mr Louis Bernacchi’s book, “ To the South Polar Regions ” The author was meteorologist on board the Southern Cross, and has gone with the Discovery in the same capacity. He at any rate has the advantage of being “ salted ” to the brainsoftening monotony of the long Antarctic night. Mr Leo. Mandel, of Wellington, draws my attention to the translation of a paragraph which appeared in “Le Petit Marseillais,” which he thinks will interest your readers. The French journal says: “Those fine fellows the English are hunting everywhere for recruits for the war in South Africa. But it would seem that the task is no easy one, and that, as a rule, there is a want of enthusiasm for the business. At least, one would imagine so from the fact that our neighbours across the Channel are reduced to enrol even the Maoris of New Zealand. These natives are old followers of anthropophagy, having only renounced cannibalism within the last 40 years. The English, no doubt, hope that the Maoris will regain their fine appetite of former days, and will set to work to eat up the Boers. But what does it matter? To obtain volunteers among people who so recently- were cannibals shows that England is still the most civilised country in Europe. We are ignorant what these regiments of former cannibals will

do, but we doubt much that they will alarm the Boers. Up to the present the latter have not been very much frightened. Besides, it must have been brought hdme to them that the natives of New Zealand cannot be a bit more savage than certain English volunteers have shown themselves.” Now that the Board of Trade is taking over the Imperial Institute, it is interesting to compare the work done by the German Colonial Institute, the Kolonial-Wirtshaftliches Komite of Berlin. Although it receives no financial aid from the German Government, and is therefore unable to carry out costly research investigations such as are made at the Imperial Institute, every year it organises and equips expeditions to explore new colonies for new products of economic value, supplementing the systematic explorations on a large scale undertaken by the German Government in East and West Africa and elsewhere. Last year a botanist spent two months in German South-west Africa investigating the best method of preparing rubber obtained from the roots of certain trees, while another expert explored the central portion of German East Africa for gum-yielding and medicinal plants, fibres, and tanning materials. Dr. Stubbmann is now studying the cultivation of teak, cinchona, and sun hemp in India for the benefit of German East Africa, and other experts are investigating the conditions cf cottonculture in the chief cotton-producing districts of the world, with the view of cultivating cotton in Togoland on a large scale. The collections made by the explorers employed by the Komite are exhibited in Berlin, and afterwards deposited in the Colonial Museum; small exhibits of typical products are sent to schools and colleges. The results of all investigations appears iu a monthly publication containing interesting articles on the development of the German colonies and “commercial protectorates.” We, who leave the discovery and development of the economic products of the Empire to chance, and the private explorer and manufacturer, might, in the reconstruction of the Imperial Institute, profit by the example that the German Institute has set us.

Lord Macnaghten yesterday delivered the judgment of the judicial committee of the Privy Council dismissing the two appeals of the Wellington City Council from a refusal of the Court of Appeal of N.Z., to set aside the filing of claims for compensaiion for lands of the respondents taken compulsorily by the Council for public improvements in Wellington, so that the claims might become void and of no effect. The facts were simple. The City Council, -under the Public Works Act, 1894, took the lands of the respondents for public improvements. The respondents in due course, as required by the Act, sent in their claims for compensation. Section 44 of the Act provides that if the respondent does not within 60 days after receiving such claim, give -notice in writing to the claimant that he does not admit it, the claimant may file a copy of his claim, together with the

receipt for the service thereof, in the Supreme Court, and sueh claim when so filed shall be deemed to be and shall have the effect of an award filed in the Supreme Court, and may be enforced in the manner provided in section 76. By the omission of the Town Clerk of Wellington, the Council failed within the statutory period to give notice of objection to the amount of the claims, so as to entitle it to have the amount of compensation determined by the Compensation Court. When the Council discovered that the respondents had filed copies of their claims and receipts in the Supreme Court, it applied to the Court of Appeal for an order to set aside the claims, on the ground that the corporation’s omission to give notice was entirely due to inadvertence. The Court of Appeal (Mr Justice Edwards dissenting) discharged both motions with costs, and the Privy Council also made short work of the Council’s contentions. The scheme of the Act was not unreasonable. It was said that Parliament had overlooked the possibility of a slip. It had certainly made no provision for a slip in the case of' a local authority setting the Acf in motion. It had made provision for a slip in the case of a claimant who had received notice that his claim was not admitted failing to make the next move in due time. But that was a different case altogether. It was not unreasonable to require that public bodies putting in force an Act of Parliament for their own purposes should attend to its provisions. The claimant, in the opinion of the Court, having fulfilled the requirements', of the law, their Lordships were of opinion that the appeals failed, and they would humbly advise his Ma jesty that they ought to be dismissed. . The appellants would pay the costs of these appeals. <