News of the Dominion.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 20, 16 November 1910, Page 4

News of the Dominion.

OUR WELLINGTON LETTER. November 12. The Legislature and the Battle. gARLY this morning I awakened from a fearsome dream. I was standing on the verandah of my hotel or boardinghouse, or either or both as the ease may be, ■watching the Beer War, which was going on in the valley below. There was a tremendous Kittle going on all over the place, and dashing up and down in a motor-car were Lord Roberts and the Hon. Dr. Findlay. The doctor was nieeiy clothed in his regulation belltopper anti froek eoat. Mounted on the front of the motor-car was a weapon resembling a machine-gun, which the doctor was working. He would pump away fiercely at the enemy till hie ammunition, apparently, was exhausted; then he and "Bobs’’ would come dashing hack to the hotel for a fresh supply. 1, could not distinctly see, on account of •the crowd, what sort of ammunition it ■was that was carried in the car, but? I have a hazy idea that it resembled bottles, and that they were supplied by Mr. Arthur Myers and Mr. Tommy Taylor. How bottles could 'be got into a machine-gun, I don’t know, but, anyhow, the Doctor, assisted by “Bobs,” worked the trick, and there was terrific carnage, and they saved the guns, or something of that sort, and got Victoria (Tosses. And then that fabric of a Parliament fevered brain faded silently away. Now, why Dr. Findlay’—the amiable doctor, who never killed a man in his life, as far as knowledge goes—should have mixed up in this phantasmagoria I can’t understand. Neither can I understand why Mr. Myers and Mr. Taylor should have been coupled in the ammunition business. The only theory I can offer is that I have had—in common with many other Wellington,ians—an overdose of Proceedings of Parliament; and that this, possibly conjoined with hazy’ recollections of Kipling’s bottled-beer poem, “The Jacket” —

“There was every round expended, there was every gunner tight And the Captain waved a corkscrew in ’is ’and"—

is responsible for that battle (and bottle) dream, to which I have nothing to add, except that the pub distinctly resembled that old Harp of Erin Hotel, near Ellerslie, a merry old huntsmen’s meeting-place of long ago. Parliament for the last two days has revolved round the Bottle and the Barrell. 1 have never seen our M.P.’s in such deadly earnest as they were on Thursday night when discussing the new Liquor Bill. They were really businesslike, though a few of the more obtuse members had to have sundry clauses explained to them again and again by the Premier before they would sit down and be quiet. The publie, too, crowded the limited space available for spectators, and there was a long line of beautifully hatted ladies all along two sides of the Chamber. Too many auditors, in fact, for by the time the supper adjournment came the air of the Chamber was insufferably bad. The ceiling is low, and the air space absolutely insufficient when there are crowded galleries, and the Speaker would do wisely to severely restrict the numbers of the public who are admitted out of mere curiosity. As for the ladies, most of them would be better at home. It was in committee on the third reading that the big tussle came. The issue of National Prohibition was, of course, the outstanding new feature in the Liquor Bill, and this was debated pro and con with great earnestness and occasional sparks of lire from the opposing sides. Sir Joseph Ward created a big surprise when he announced that the Government had decided to substitute a three-fifths majority for the proposed 55 per cent majority to determine the cessation of local licenses and national prohibition, and to separate the two issues. And in the frequent divisions several other important alterations were carried. How the Liquor Bill Stands. The Liquor Bill passed all its stages in the Lower House shortly after midnight

last night, and now only awaits the consideration of the "lairds.” The principal provisions are:

Local option and Dominion prohibition or restoration are to be distinct issues, on separate ballot papers. The majority in each case is to be three-fifths instead of the fifty-five-hundredths proposed in the bill.

The reduction of licenses issue is cut out.

If no-license is carried in a district the hotels will be closed at the end of the licensing year following the date of the poll.

If national prohibition is carried, it will not take effect till four years have elapsed from the date of the poll. If licenses are restored in a district they will be on a basis of not more than one to every five hundred electors, and not less than one for every thousand electors. (The bill originally stipulated for four hundred and eight hundred respectively, and Mr. T. E. Taylor wanted six hundred and twelve hundred.) National prohibition will mean that no liquor is to be introduced into New Zealand except for medicinal, industrial, scientific or Sacramental purposes. Existing barmaids are to be licensed, but no new ones will be allowed to come in after the passing of the Act. They will gradually disappear. Brewers’ depots are not to be established within five miles of no-license districts. This provision is not to apply to bottling warehouses carried prior to the carrying of no-license. A clause moved by Mr. Jennings (member for Taumarunui), giving the European electors of the King Country power to vote upon the licensing question in the King Country, with a view to the establishment of hotels, if the proposal were carried by three-fifths majority, was rejected by 53 votes to 13. The House agreed to a clause moved by Dr. Te Rangihiroa providing that the Maoris entitled to vote for a Maori meml>er of Parliament should also be entitled to vote on the issue whether liquor be supplied to natives or not. This will give the Maoris power to carry prohibition in any Maori Council district.

The bill W’as read a third time and passed, at half-past one o’clock this morning. The Premier, in his final remarks, said the measure was a progressive one, containing advanced reforms. which a few weeks ago would have been regarded as impossible of accomplishment. New Zealand would be the only country in the world to take a national vote on prohibition. A Maori Forlorn Hope. Every year, about this time, the figure of the Maori is a frequent one in the streets of Wellington, the lordly Maori and his swaggering wahine. There are deputations and delegations of natives from various parts in town just now, on business connected with legislation affecting Maori lands: A particularly important one is a party of forty of fifty natives from Taranaki, representing all the tribes from Waitotara to Parihaka and New Plymouth. They have been interviewing the Native Minister about their land grievances, still buoying themselves up with hopes, which one hopes will be realised at last; they have had so many disappointments session after session. The matter concerns the West Coast native lands which are leased through the Public Trustee to white farmers. These lands are valuable, and Mr. White Farmer is trying his hardest to get the freehold of them. The Maori receives a very small rental for the lands, which are in many eases sub-leased by farmer to farmer at high profits to the first lessee. A number of these leases granted to white farmers in 1881 will shortly expire, and the present tenants are urging the Government to amend the law so as to give the tenant perpetual right of renewal .with revaluation every twenty-one years. He also would like the right of purchase. The Act of 1881 provided that the farms, on 25 years 4 lease should, at the expiration, be put up to auction and disposed of to the highest bidder, the improvements of the outgoing tenant being limited to £ 45 per a.-re. The white farmer is determined to hang on to the land, and the Maori is equally determined farmer is determined of his heritage and work it himself, or lease it more to his advantage than at present. If the white fanner gets his way, the hand will pass from the Maori for ever.

This conflict of interest* is causing a great deal of bitter feeling between pakeha and Maori in Taranaki, aad the old time racial hatred engendered by the war is still lingering there. In other parts of New Zealand white and Maori are most friendly, but around the foot of Eginont, I am sorry to say, many of both races hate each other "like poison.” This is no exaggeration; for I have spokeu to many of both races about it, and they don’t disguise their feelings. Amongst the Maoris now in town are veteran Hauhaus, who fought under Titokowaru in the West Coast war of 1868-69; there is more than one who helped to defeat the Government troops at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu and Moturoa. They fought bravely, if savagely, and they are not the stamp of men to sit quiet under what they consider injustice and robbery. They know that their only hope is in the Native Minister and the Government, and they are making a desperate appeal to “Timi Kara” and the Prime Minister to save their lands for them. One cannot but sympathise with them, for they have the first claim on their own lands, whatever interested pakehas may say to the contrary.

A great change for the better haw taken place in Taranaki in the social and industrial condition of the Maoris during the last few years. They are now going in for farming on such lands as are still under their own control (some of them have only a very few acres), and some of them are milking industriously for the factories. They only want a fair chance now that the- retrogressive influence of Te Whiti and Tohu, the olden prophets, has been removed by death. They are quite capable of managing their ow’n affairs, and have aH the makings of good and successful farmers. The Government should give them a chance. Mrs. Gow, Millio aairess. An interesting item of news cabled from Sydney this week concerns an exWellington lady, who has come in for an unexpected windfall. This is Mrs. Gow, wife of Mr. A. M. Gow, who until recently was a hotelkeeper in Wellington. He kept the Central Hotel for many years, and was lately licensee of Barrett’s Hotel, in Lambton quay. Mrs. Gow was a Mrs. Laverty before she married her present husband. The- Sydney cable says that she is taking steps to. confirm cable advices to the effect that she is the legatee of the estate of Patrick Maguire, who died recently in America, leaving an estate valued at seven million dollars. Should this good news be true, the lucky Mrs. Gow, our first New Zealand millionairess. ought to say her prayers to Saint Uncle Maguire every night. Her husband has been a treasure-hunter in his way. He was one of a syndicate which made unsuccessful attempts some rears ago to recover the gold sunk in the wrecked steamer Elingamite, at the Three Kings. Now he has got a much more substantial treasure in his golden wife. A Peer of the Wairarapa. Featherston is a proud town to-day. Tire quiet little Wairarapa town woke up ’the other morning to find that it had a real live viscount in its midst. This is Mr. Barry Squance Yelverton, who has been living at Featherston for some years. He has been advised that he has succeeded to the Ttle of Viscount Avonmore, an Irish peer, whose family seats were Bell Isle and Roescrea, in County Tipperary, and Hazle Rock and Westport, in County Mayo. The late Viscount (whose name was Algernon William Yelverton) died lately at the age of fifty-four. The deceased lord was sixth in descent from Barry Yelverton, laird Chief Biron of the Exchequer. Mr. / B. S. Yelverton, of Featherston, is the eldest son of the late A. B. Yelverton (of Castletown, Isle of Wight) ; he is a second cousin of the sixth Viscount. So now Featherston society is busymaking friends with the new lord of many manors and his family.