OUR WELLINGTON LETTER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 23, 8 June 1910, Page 4

OUR WELLINGTON LETTER.

June 4. All on a Wintry Holiday. HAL' a dismally depressing place / / I Wellington is on a damp or wintry day which happens to be a holiday! It is not nearly bo bad on an ordinary winter-weather working day, no matter how hard the rain may rain and the stormy winds may blow, because work is one's refuge and salvation— and, moreover, the shops are, open. But when all places of business —except hotels—are closed, and when even the museums are shut, it is indeed enough to send the casual visitor’s heart down to his boots to walk Lambton Quay on such a day. Even I, though a hardened resident, felt the severe shut-up-and locked aspect of the town weigh heavy on my soul. If there is anything worse than Wellington on a winter’s holiday, it is, I think, Invercargill on a wet Sunday. I once spent a cold Scotch Sunday in Invercargill. I also once spent eight winter days and nights camped in a little iron hut up on the bleak tussock plateau near the foot of Mount Ngauruhoe, with three other p igrims, and many rats, amidst snow and sleet and rain. But I’d rather have that camping experience over again than another’ eold wet Scotch Sabbath in Invercargill. Anyhow, there was just the one consolation in Wellington yesterday: the hotels were mercifully open. No business people, apparently, wanted to close, but the law said. “ You must!” so they dutifully did as they were bid. Possibly, some time in the future, the museums and art gallery and similar public institutions in Wellington will be kept open on holidays, thf: only time when many people, particularly country people, can visit them. But this time is not yet. So, taking one consideration with another, a midwinter’s holiday in the Windy City is enough to drive the ordinary sinner to drink, yea, even much strong drink. Our Field of Mars. Having relieved myself of that complaint, let me say something of the doings of the past week. About the most important item of news is the announcement of the Government regarding the location of the permanent military training camps for the New’ Zealand Territorial Forces. The North Island site chosen is undoubtedly an excellent one. Aucklanders who have travelled over the Main Trunk railway will remember a breezy break in the great forest which stretches over most of the country through which the train runs from Taumarunui to Ohakune.. The line suddenly emerges from the bush, and you feel the “tang” of the Ruapehu snows In the wind, and right before you, on the other side of a tussock plain, lift all three of the great volcanoes—Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe ami Tongariro. It is an inspiring country, the very heart of the island. This is the Waimarino Plain, and here is to be the big training eamp for our young citizen-soldiers. I do not think a more suitable place could well have been selected. It is about equidistant from Auckland and Wellington; it is on the railway line; it is high and dry and healthy; the land is easily traversed by the troops, and there are all the natural conditions that would be encountered in actual service in the field. High it certainly is — the Waimarino Plain is 2000 ft. above sea level—too high for winter operations, in fact, though in summer it will be a magnificent training and camping ground. It is virgin country—no farmers to be disturbed, no barbed wire fences. I envy the Territorials their training camp. It is an ideal field for the peaceful practice of the arts of war, with its 30,000 to 40.000 acres of wild, free, open country, almost under the shadow of the glorious snow-tipped fire-Alps. Camping ami man ivring on the Waimarino will really be something in the nature of a great summer picnic, and in the cheerful picnic spirit our young soldiers will no doubt take tl*eir annual training spell under canvas. i The Acting-Governor. On Tuesday, Sir Robert Stout, the Chief Justice of New Zealand, will be sworn in as Acting-Governor of thn Dominion. He will hold the position for

about three weeks, until the new Governor lands. Many ‘‘Graphic’’ readers will ]>erliaps remember the last occasion when an interregum was expected between the departure of one Governor and the arrival of the next. Lord Ranfurly was going, and Lord Plunket was coming. In the ordinary course of events, the departing Governor would have left the Dominion some weeks before the new one arrived, anil the Chief Justice would have been sworn in as Acting-Governor, as was customary. But Mr Seddon, who was then Premier, frothed at the very idea. He had had his memorable quarrel with the Chief Justice in the matter of official precedence, and he wouldn’t hear of Sir Robert Stout acting as Governor, and as Tcting-Premier, his official superior, even for the space of one day. So it was Mr Seddon who aranged that very spectacular departure of one Governor and arrival of the other on the same day, Lord Ranfurly leaving the wharf as Lord Plunket landed. It was a clever move, but it revealed that touch of fiery personal prejudice that ever was the old lion’s pet failing. Richard Seddon could be, as one of his old political friends used to say, “a good friend, but a d d bad enemy.” Lord Islington is, I hear, to stay at the Wellington Club until the new Government House is ready for him. It is expected that a preliminary meeting of citizens will be called for some day next week to make arrangements for the suitable reception of the new Governor. Wanted, a Lioness. Has any Aucklander got a spare lioness in his back yard? Because we want one here in Wellington. The City Council is anxious to procure a mate for “King Dick,” the lonely lion as Newtown Park, but it seems difficult to pick one up. “Dick’s” nightly roarings are loud and long and melancholy, and seem to he getting on the nerves of those who live close to the park. Wherefore, someone skilled in the ways of wild beasts of the forest, has diagnosed his trouble as loneliness, and has prescribed a lioness companion as the one remedy. So, any gift of such a creature from anyone who has no further use for it will ease the minds of the Park people, and do “King Dick” a kindness by sending it along. Chauffeurs’ Responsibilities. Owners and drivers of motor-cars will be interested to hear of the ease which was decided in the Magistrate’s Court in Wellington the other day. The owner of a taxi-cab sued a chauffeur for dill 10/, the amount of damages and costs awarded in a suit brought against him (the owner) recently as the result of a collision between the ear an a bitcycle. The defendant chauffeur was the driver of the car, and the owner claimed to recover the sum in which he had been mulcted in consequence of the driver’s negligence. The magistrate gave judgment for ihe ear owner for the amount claimed and £3 costs, which should serve as a warning to irresponsible car-drivers, of whom there are too many in Wellington. The “street hog” is not always the owner, but is as often the chaffeur, who goes ahead regardless of consequences, feeling secure in the thought that his “boss,” and not he, will have to make good any damage he may happen to inflict. Tramwaymen on Juries. The Wellington City Council the other day decided io make application to the Government for the amendment of the Juries Act. in order to provide for the exemption of tramway employees from service on juries. The Mayor, Mr Wilford, explained that the suggestion was his. The train system was largely dislocated, he said, by the fact that the men had to serve on juries. They had no men to spare. Civil servants and railway num wer e exempted, and tramway servants should be similarly exempted from jury duty. Wellington Architecture. Lord Plunket, iu thanking Uic New Zealand Institute of Architecture at Wellington this week for a farewell address, said that his criticism of architecture in New Zealand some time ago did not refer to the work of professional architects. This should have been some little solace to the local architects, who as a body, are highly skilled in their profession, and whose work has of recent

years vastly improved the appearance of the city and suburbs. I think I have seen prettier homes tastefully designed, and in perfect harmony with their natural surroundings, in Christchurch, than in any other part of New Zealand. But Wellington runs Christchurch very close now in the matter of handsome architecture. The only thing that redeems some of the bare hills at the back of the city is the eye-pleasing character of some of the homes erected during the last two or three years. Their warm hued tile roofs, their white walls, their general cosy and comfortable aspect, is a refreshing change from the ugly barns and barracks that are run up in some parts of Wellington by cheap and greedy builders. If all owners allowed architects a reasonably free hand in designing their houses, there would be a vast improvement all over the city and the outlying parts. Some of the newer houses are in picturesque accord with their surroundings, though here and there one does see an architectural monstrosity, square and staring, perched like a huge sentry-box on some windy- hill-top. The character of the business blocks in Lambton Quay and other main streets has changed for the better of late years. Business firms who have been rebuilding seem to have reeogn’eed that utility and economy can still go hand-in-hand with beauty. Our Picture Shows. Wellington is certainly extremely wellprovided with kinematograph entertainments. Tlie Grand Opera Co. has drawn crowded houses every night, but no mat ter how great the rush to the Opera House, the picture shows suffered no apparent loss in patronage. The opera is for the “fashionables”; the movingpicture is for the masses. A humble sixpence will take one in, or if one is fastidious there are the upstairs seats for a shilling: and there are two good hours ol thrill and laughter. There are four permanent biograph shows in the city, besides occasional entertainments of a similar character in the outlying suburbs, and they all seem to be making good money at the business. The latest recruit to the ranks of the kinematograph entertainers is, I hear, Mr. McDonald, who has for several years past been the Government Tourist Department’s artist and photographer. Mr. McDonald took up the moving-picture hobby three or four years ago, and is now an expert at it, one of the best in Australasia, I am told. He has succeeded in getting some very fine biograph pictures of typical New Zealand scenery—geysers, active' waterfalls, Wanganui river rapids and so forth, and also some entertaining bits of Maori haka and poi-daneing and canoeing. I have so far only seen a private view of these pictures, for they were Government property, but arrangements have been made for them to be shown to the public, and Aucklanders will probably have a chance of seeing some of the material that the biograph man picks up in their own country’. Meanwhile the various picture shows are showing all the world and his wife on their screens; it is a little lesson in geography, and the manners and customs of all nations. (What strange ideas, though, one picks up, of the Parisian’s daily- life? The “fake” pictures are fearfully and wonderfully made). And the picture proprietors show’ their knowledge of human nature by sandwiching in here and there a pathetic fake, “death-bed” scene, or some touching and edifying domestic episode, in which virtue is triumphant every time, of course. You see moist-eyed women and “kids” coming out from these shows in tearful esetasy at some bit of moving pathos (or bathos). “Was not it lovely!” they are all saving. Yes, the bogus death-bed picture draws like a magnet. It is the biograph man’s trump-card, the kinematographie “East Lynne.” Our Defences. Although nothing definite is yet known with regard to the locality of the headquarters of the additional four-gun fieldbattery’, which, under the new establishments, is to be raised in the Wellington district command, it is practically certain (says the “Dominion”) that it will not be situated in Wellington City. From an examination of the district and the distribution of the lines of transport by rail and road, it seems probable that one of three courses will be decided upon by the authorities: (1) The battery may

be stationed at Palmerston, from which centre the guns may at any time be sent through to the East Coast on the one side, or to the West' Coast—Eoxton, Wi> nganui, New Plymouth—on the other; (2) a half battery may be stationed at Palmerston, and another at Napier; (3) one half battery may be stationed at Wanganui, and the other at Napier. It is also probable that the field engineer company, raised to 212 under the new establishment, may be eut up in mnch the same way—a detachment of 100 at Wellington, 50 at Palmerston, and 50 at Napier. The whole company would, of course, come together on mobilisation, either for peace manoeuvres or for the necessity of war. New Governor Arrives June 22 The new Governor, Lord Islington, is due to reach Wellington on June 22, and will be officially welcomed the same day at a ceremony to be held at the old Parliamentary Buildings, the stage erected for the Royal memorial being retained for that purpose. A public reception will also be given at the Town Hall on the evening or the Governor’s arrival, or as soon after as possible. Lord Islington's appointment to the Governorship of New Zealand is in pari the outcome of a friendship of many years’ standing between him and Mr. Asquith. From a political point of view, Lord Islington no doubt rather welcomed the change. A man of independent thought, he had already crossed the floor of the House on the tariff question, and now, during the last year of two, he had begun to feel an estrangement from the principles of that part of the Liberal party which Mr. Asquith does not lead. He was at an impasse, faced with the prospect of becoming an unattached independent, and consequently being squeezed out of Parliament. A' man of broad views and some knowledge gained by travel, the new Governor welcomes enthusiastically his transfer from the national to the Imperial field. He is a strong believer in Imperial Federation, and is delighted at the prospect of being able to assist in the movement in a position removed from controversial politics.

A Splendid Record.

Mr. Ernest Short, of Parorangi, Feilding, at the Argentine Centennial Show, has won four first prizes and the world’s championship with Record-breaker 111., a ram lamb, and a pen of ewe hoggets. The reserve ram, Godwin IV., beat 30 English exhibits. A message received by Dalgety and Co. states that Argentine breeders are delighted with the show.

Defence Training Camp,

The Advisory Board appointed to report to the Government upon the mast suitable sites for a military training camp in each Island has submitted its conclusions. The board comprised Mr. W. C. Kensington (Undersecretary for Crown Lands), who was the chairman, Colonel 11. D. Tuson (Adjutant-General), and Mr. James Strauchon (SurveyorGeneral). An extensive site near Waimarino, on the North Island Main Trunk railway, was selected for the North Island, and an area near Waimakariri River, six miles from Christchurch, was found to be most suitable for the South Island. As a preliminary, the requirements of a suitable area were determined and set forth by’ the Commission as follows:—A central position in the Island to enable troops from each district to concentrate with comparative ease and economy and in the shortest possible space of time; accessibility’ to a constructed line of railway, if possible within a radius of four or five miles from a railway station J tliat the site should contain flat land, well drained, with a sufficient water supply, on which to erect the buildings required for the accommodation of the troops and an adjoining area of undulating land over which the training and manoeuvres of the troops could be conducted; that the sites should be selected with a view to their possible extension in the future, both through enlargement of the permanent camping ground and the manoeuvring area. For the immediate present it was considered that 20 acres on which buildings costing up to £3OOO could be erected, would be sufficient, for the camping site, and that 5000 acres adjoining, with future extension (if necessary) up to 10,000 acres, would be sufficient for the manoeuvring ground. The Board obtained detailed

ports from the Commissioners of Crown 'Lands and chief surveyors for the districts affected, and numerous sites were thus reported on. They then personally inspected Crown lands on the Waimarino Plains and near Karioi in the North Island, and sites on both sides of the River near Christchurch, the Balmoral estate near Culverden, and areas in the Upper Ashley and Oxford districts of the South Island.

Waimarino was selected as the North Island camp site on account of its central position, it being almost equi-distant from Auckland and Wellington, 2-14 miles from Napier by railway and 243 miles from New Plymouth. It would also be possible, states the report, for east coast troops to come by way of Motu, Rotorua, and Taupo, whilst the railway lines in course of construction •would materially shorten the times now occupied by troops arriving from the Bay of Plenty, North Taranaki, and outlying districts. The site is in close proximity to Waimarino station, on the North Island Main Trunk line, and the construction of about three-quarters of a mile of light railway, cheaply formed, would enable trains to be taken right up to it. The land is comparatively flat, and gives ample facilities for railway requirements. The site also has the advantage of a main road from both North and South, and also of a road which is being formed from Warmarino station in the direction of Rotoaira and Tokaanu. This would be extended from time to time, and thus form a line of road on •which troops can march to distant points in the manoeuvring area, accompanied by military wagons and equipment. Four sites for camping have been selected, any one of which is admirably adapted for the purpose. The soil is of a light pumiceous nature, with a slope just sufficient to provide easy and effective drainage. Patches of native forest afford shelter from the prevailing wind. There is ample flat ground for drilling. The total area is 37.600 acres, of which the Crown owns 32,435, about 5,165 acres being inferior native land, which would have to be acquired. Tlie altitude of the site is 2.600 ft. above sea level, the rainfall is about 50in. per annum, and the climate is bracing and well adapted to ensure the health of the troops when in camp. There is a plentiful supply of timber and numerous streams of good water. As the land is unsuitable for close settlement, and -there is no settlement of any kind near the proposed manoeuvring area, no damage would be occasioned to private property, while the nature of the country provides excellent practice for manoeuvres, and there is ample distance for the safe firing of long-range artillery. Reasons are given why other North Island sites were rejected.

A consideration of the physical features of the South Island forced upon the Board the conclusion that the site should just be within the Canterbury district, and readily accessible from other districts. Many sites were reported upon, and the Board finally selected a site on the south bank of the Waimakariri River, about six miles from Christchurch, 230 miles from Dunedin by railway, 369 miles from Invercargill, 148 miles from Greymouth, 220 miles from Blenheim (by road and railway), and about 280 miles from Nelson by steamer. The land was granted by the Crown to the Board of Conservators of the Waimakariri River, as an endowment to provide funds for the protection of the river banks, but as the sole purpose of the endowment is to provide funds, the Board suggests that there could be no objection to an area of Crown land of corresponding value in another part of the district being exchanged for the proposed site. The endowment contains 12,115 acres, but it is considered that 4.800 would be sufficient for the camp. The site is practically flat land and old river bed, without bush. There are, however, slight depressions in the country, which would afford ample ecope for the manoeuvres of troops. The Board had an embarrassing number ®f sites proffered in both Canterbury and Otago. These were situated at Culverden. Oxford, Upper Ashley. Burnt Hill, Broken River, and Waitaki, ia Canterbury; Outram, Henley. Dunlwck, Waihemo, Clinton, Birewood, and Waltahua, In Otago; and Lumsden, in Southland. bat in every ease they lacked the central advantages of the Waimakariri site, and generally required to be purchased at a high eost. Cabinet Ims accepted the ComaaissionY (•commendations.

Masonic Presentations. fjord Plunket, Past Master of the New Zealand Grand Lodge of Freemasons, was presented last week with a magnificent epergne and two side dishes from all the Lodges, a greenstone paper weight from the Nelson and Marlborough Lodges, and a set of Regalia from the Grand Lodge. The principal presentation was made by Grand Master Bro. C. J. N. Griffiths, Blenheim, who said that what had been done by Lord Plunket for Freemasonry during his term of office, and the manner in which the Craft had flourished under his vigilant care and superintendance, had impressed Masons with the conviction that they owed him a lasting debt of gratitude for the constant anxiety and untiring zeal he had always displayed for their welfare. Lord Plunket made suitable replies. Wellington Hotels. At the annual meeting of the City Licensing Committee all the licenses were renewed. The Chairman (Mr. Haselden, S.M.), commenting on the remark that alterations to certain hotels would be attended to, and that' there was to be a licensing poll IS months hence, said: “That fact is not lost sight of. The Bench would not tolerate some of the houses now in existence but for the fact that there is to be a licensing poll in 18 months.” Religious Education. The Mast'erton School Committee applied to the Wellington Education Board for permission to introduce the Nelson system of religious education in the school. It was pointed out that a new committee had been elected practically on this question, as a large majority of the parents wished for the Nelson system. The Board resolved to decline the application, as it had previously decided in the case of Te Aro school. The chairman (Mr. Robert Lee) remarked that the Board had taken up the position that it was administering a secular system. The Effect of Retrenchment. Effects of the Civil Service retrenchment last year are still to be found in the number of applicants for clerical work at Wellington. Mr. T. M. Wilforrt, M P., since his installation as Mayor of the city, has received very many such applications for employment, or, in default of that, for temporary assistance. He estimates the average number of callers of this nature at fully 150 a week—■ not all different individuals each week, for the same faces are seen and the same stories are'heard again and again. Apparently the situation of many is very distressing. In regard to manual labourers, it is not anticipated, at the present time at least, that there will be the same state of affairs there was last year. Still, many will feel the pinch of winter. Mr. Fisher’s Tash. Mr. F. M. B. Fisher, M.P. for Wellington Central, intends to introduce a number of measures at the session of Parliament opening this month. He proposes to bring down a bill to amend the Municipal Corporations Act in the direction of extending the franchise so as to make the qualifications the same as is the case for Parliamentary elections. It would be on similar lines to the bill which he introduced two years ago, which passed the Lower House by a large majority, but was thrown out on the second reading in the Ta-gislativc Council. He will also bring down a bill to repeal the Second Ballot Act, as he did last year. Another measure which he proposes to try and get amended is the Advances to Workers Act, which he considers should make it possible for it worker who has acquired a property on which a house is already built to obtain a mortgage thereon, instead of, as is the case at present, only being allowed to borrow for the purposes of the erection of a now dwelling. He will also go with the bill which proposed to grant to employees one clear day’s rest in every week. Tlie bill was referred last session to tlie Labour Bills Committee, which heard a good deal of evidence, but the bill never found its way buck to the House.