The Club Smoking Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIX, Issue 24, 14 December 1907, Page 25

The Club Smoking Room

By

HAVANA

TO be the head of a Ministry is by no means an enviable billet,” began the politician. “You chaps sit here and criticise the Premier as if he had nothing to do but consider all your whims and fancies, and every city in the Dominion, and every little tinpot township in the back-blocks, seems to think Sir Joseph should devote his whole time to its own exclusive needs. You raise the cry of North versus South, or country versus town, or railway site versus central site, as if politics were one big game of grab, in which one section of the community had to try and score off another section. You forget that the Government has to consider the interests of the whole community, and you are like a spoilt kid crying out ‘Boo-hoo! Jimmy’s got a bigger bit of apple than I have.’ The Postmaster-General has to think about his department as a whole, and not about the wishes of each separate citizen of Auckland, who wants the post office opposite his own door. The railway site will effect an immense saving in the cost of handling the mails, and will expedite their despatch. From the departmental point of view it is admirably situated, and will also be handy for the bulk of the large warehouses and shipping offices. Then wc want an imposing edifice to displace the ugly hoardings which at present disfigure the whole section. It will be a boon to country people and visitors to have the chief office near the railway and wharves, and I am sure a little extra walk won’t do any of our city clerks any harm. They all look as if they never get half enough exercise.” “I don’t follow you at all in your remarks,” interposed a prominent business man. “The question of a new site should not be determined by the Government at all; it should be left to the business men of the city to decide. The lower end of Queen-street is very inconvenient for most of us. The whole trend of trade in Auckland is towards a more central spot. You can't expand the city into the harbour, therefore you must grant that the business centre will tend to move towards the upper end of Queen-street. The cost of handling is not to be weighed against the inconvenience of citizens, because, if it came to that you might do away with the delivery of mails on the ground of expense, and expect every man to call for his own letters. Then there is the further point as to what we are to do when we want to enlarge our railway station. Goodness knows we want a new station almost more than a new post office, and our present site is none too large for our requirements. The arrival platform would be a disgrace to an English village. I have seen better stations at Home for wayside towns *ot a quarter the size of Auckland, and you naturally expect a terminus to be better provided for than places en route. I hope the question will be thoroughly thrashed out before any irrevocable step is taken.” ‘ As for that,” remarked a postal official, the matter has already received a good deal more attention than you seem to imagine. lam not at liberty to disclose the secrets of the Department, even in the privacy of a club, but I may say that the Post Office staff has been consulted in the matter, as well as several firms who do a large mail business in 'Auckland. The advantages to the officials of the railway site are enormous. It means not only an immense saving in cost, but also quicker distribution of mails. This is a consideration that affects not merely Auckland itself, but far more the other districts to which the (nails are despatched from our central

office. It may surprise you, but it is nevertheless a fact, that the greater part of our work lies altogether outside the purely business community of Auckland. The office must be placed where it is most convenient for the work of the Department as a whole, and Sir Joseph Ward, in his choice of a site, has shown himself a statesman —one who looks at the question from the large point of view, as to what is in the best interests of the Department, the colony, and the city. The building, as planned, will not interfere in the least with future railway expansion; it will add, if anything, to the dignity and impressiveness of the proposed new station, and the saving effected by not having to purchase a site will enable more money to be spent on the building itself. You must allow that the Premier has proved himself a most capable Post-master-General, and it is far better to leave it to him to choose a site than to any one section of the community. If you left it to the business men to decide, you would have as many different suggestions as there are claimants to the Portland estate.” © © © “I remember the old Duke of Portland when he was Marquis of Titchfield,” said an old settler. “His father was an awfully good fellow, and a splendid landlord; but he was a bit of a recluse in his way. He always drove through the village in a closed carriage, and would insist on having three horses abreast. The eldest son was always a bit mad, even as a boy. This was the more odd from the fact that the other two boys, Harry and George, were splendid examples of the men’s sana in corpora sano. They were both of them thoroughly keen sportsmen, and Henry kept a pack of hounds, and regularly hunted his three days a week. They say that the old Duke used to blame himself for his brother George’s death, and got in the habit of brooding over it. You will remember the story, I expect. If not, if you will excuse an old man’s prosiness, I will tell you what I know about it. The two had a quarrel one day, and George ■was teasing his brother, and making fun of his peculiarities, when his brother suddenly flew into a violent passion, and dealt him a swinging blow that knocked him sprawling. It was shortly after this that Lord George was picked up dead. He was going to Thorsby to dine with Lord Manvers, and when half way there he sent the dog cart on, and said he would walk. As he did not turn up they sent to look for him, and found him dead on the road. The doctors, of course, said it was heart disease, but I know the matter preyed very much on the old Duke’s mind, and he often told me he would like to either bury himself away from everybody, or else turn into somebody else, so that nobody would know ■who he was. I remember once he wanted to go from Worksop to London without anybody knowing he was going. So he told the coachman to take his carriage and two horses and put them on the train, and he would follow. The coachman did as he was told, and when he got to London and went to get the carriage taken off the truck, he found his master inside. He must have had a pretty jolting sort of journey, but he managed very effectually to keep his trip a secret.” “It seems awfully funny,” the journalist remarked, “to think of the thousands they are wasting over the case when they could decide the whole thing in a jiffy by opening the coffin. I remember a case in which a woman was accused of stealing some pearls. The man who had bought the pearls had paid in twelve fifty-pound notes, and the defence

showed that none of these had been traced to the accused. The question of identity was argued out for over three days, and everybody got so mixed up that the unfortunate man who had been robbed, said they would be trying next to prove that he stole them himself. At the very last, an old Jew came forward with one of these identical notes endorsed by the accused. When asked why he had not come forward before, he said he wanted to see first what the la wye s would make of it, and he had been enjoying the fun.”