News of the Dominion.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 22, 29 November 1911, Page 4

News of the Dominion.

OUR WEIXINGTOHT LETTER. W November 25. iZie Election*. POLITICS— nothing but politics now. They are everywhere, those Candidates and their touts. Meal-times seem to be a favourite opportunity for canvassers —generally women —to besiege the Wellington man’s castle with voluble inquiries as to how the household is going to vote. The canvasser, as a rule, is as persistent as a King Country mosquito. She won’t be put off, and you ean’t very well put her out. Occasionally a mere man canvasser calls, but he is careful to select a time when the male head of the family isn’t at home; he relies upon the good nature and tong suffering of the womenfolk, whom he cross-examines as insistently as a Police Court lawyer does a hostile witness, as to their political leanings, if any, and their sentiments on the aubjeot of Liquor. Then your breakfasttable is bombarded with epistles whieh may contain either a cheque or a bill, but which, when you investigate them, turn out to be Twelve Reasons Why Wellington Should Go Dry, or something of that sort. You turn to the morning paper for surcease of sorrow, but find • nothing but election news —columns of leaders, scarifying those wolves in sheep’s clothing—-Mr. Massey and Mr. Herries, or Sir Joseph Ward and Sir John Findlay—according to whether you take the '’Times” or the "Dominion.” The cables about the suffragette ladies who use catapults and the investigation of the Arabs’ inwards per medium of Italian bayonets make a little side-play, but after all its nothing but politics in some shape or form. Thank Heaven Christmas is coining, and we’ll be rid of it then. Our local candidates keep things lively in the small city and suburban halls these evenings. That is, judging purely from the newspaper reports. I wonder really who attend these election meetings? I have never yet come across a man who confessed to going to one, except, of course, the unfortunate newspaper reporters, who for their many and grievous sins are forced to attend and record the maundering!! of these tenthrate orators. Have had to do it myself, for many manifold iniquities, and I freely confess I would far sooner listen to one of Mr. Baeyertz’s modest speeches at a Competitions “festival,” or sit out an afternoon session of those same competitions, deliberately, and without cottonwool in my ears, than attend the average political meeting. Such is my aversion to the candidate breed. However, there are many who do go, judging by the "crowded and enthusiastic” audiences who applaud Mr. Fisher to the echo, vide "Dominion” reports, or the “ringing cheers” whieh greet Dr. Izard, as per "Tinies” columns. The candidates are all very busy, and all are "confident of victory,” as the favourite bulletin goes. Probably one of the best, the most “ solid ” candidate offering for a city seat is Mr. Robert Fletcher, the chairman of the Wellington Harbour Board. Mr. Fletcher is not a brilliant man; his speeches do not scintillate with bright gems of wit, nor is there anything Machiavellian about him. He is just a plain blunt man, like Mark Antony. A bueiness man with, I believe, a genuine love for his city, and a desire to make it better. Transplanted into Parliamentary life, to which he is yet a stranger, he would make himself respected; for, if no orator, he is no weathercock. His opponent, Mr. Fisher, is more at home upon a platform, and has a certain gift of ready speech. His popularity has waned considerably since his first election, nnd I look to see Mr. Fletcher displace him in Wellington Central. For Wellington Rast there are four candidates: Dr. Newman, Mr. McLaren, Mr. Bolton and Mr. John Brodie. Mr. McLaren will most probably distance all three opponents. Dr. Newman is getting a good deal of support from the women and the Civil servants, but I don’t think the majority of the constituents are disposed to always take him seriously. Mr. R. A. Wright will go back to the House ns member for Wellington South. He is a very progressive Liberal, and one of his strong points to bls unquali-

tied support of the Defence scheme. His opponent, Dr. Couzens, is one of thole who delight to call themselves “antieonscriptionists”; he has achieved some fame of a sort by hie denunciation of the “ persecution ” of the few eallow youths who did not want to be drilled.

Mr. Herdman (Opposition) will most likely retain the Wellington North seat, but his principal rival, Dr. Izard, will give him a very close run. The other contestant, Mr. Carey, is the chosen of the Labour party, and is supported on the platform by Mr. Edwin Tregear and Professor Mills, from Milwaukee.

For the Suburbs seat, a lively fight is going on between Mr. J. P. Luke < sitting member), Mr. J. E. Fitzgerald (Advanced Liberal), Mr. F. Moore (Labour), and Mr. W. 11. D. Bell (Opposition). Mr. Bell is a brisk and rather clever young man, weH educated, and with a goorf platform style; hut his matter is by no means brilliant; and he has so far failed to advance any very cogent reason why the electors should throw steadygoing Mr. Luke over for his sake. Mr. Wilford is safe for the Hutt. So, enough of candidates for the present. The Curfew Bell of Penrhyn. Some one suggested the other day—it has frequently been suggested by more or less intelligent persons—that there should be a curfew law in New Zealand towns for young people, who shouldn’t be in the streets after eight or nine o’clock at night. It may be news to those reformers, and others, that there is already a curfew law in force in a place under the Government of New Zealand, and officially within New Zealand’s boundaries. This privileged spot is Penrhyn Island, one of our little South .Sea atolls, away up north of the Cook Group, and well towards the Line. Here is the law; it is embodied in “The Penrhyn Village Regulation Ordinance, 1910,” printed in the latest report on the Cook Islands, and it bears the approving signature of E. F. Hawk (Resident), J. Eman Smith (Resident Commissioner), and Lord Islington (Governor); —"With the written consent of the Resident Commissioner, a bell shall be sounded at each village at 9 p.m. every evening, after which ail noises shall eease and the villagers retire to their bouses. The Island Magistrate may fine any offender under this section not exceeding five shillings.”

That’s something short and sweet in the way of legislation. It doesn’t leave much room for evasion, or for legal quibbling. But there are no lawyers on Penrhyn; if there were the Island Council, which is responsible for the ordinance —would straightway pass a bill of four - lines forbidding anyone to engage one of the fraternity under penalty of £5 or a month on the roads. Penrhyn should be an ideal, place for the “anti-everything” apostles. Anyhow, the Islanders are easy-going, goodnatured children of Nature. They don’t worry overmuch about anything, otherwise we’d probably hear of a little revolution against the curfew that tolls the knell of love-making under the cocoanuts in the stilly hours of the soft tropic night. Tanniamnni's White Pioneer. (Mr. Alec. Bell, the oldest white resident in Taumarunui, who, according to the Press telegrams, felicitated the Prime Minister on his speech up there this week, is an interesting pakehaMaori. He is superior, considerably, to a lot of the genus pakeha-Maori, although he “took to the blanket,” as the bush-saying is. He always remembered that he was a white man and a decent Scot. It was btek in 1863 that Alec. Bell first set foot in New Zealand. He had been on the gold diggings in Victoria, and when the Maori war broke out he joined one of the corps of military settlers that were raised in Melbourne for service in this country. He landed at New Plymouth with his company, and the first soldiering duty he did was to go out to a farm near the town where the Maoris had murdered an incautious settler. Later he served through the Hauhau ■wars on the West and East Coasts. In his campaigning on the East Coast, where he served at the siege of Ngatapa,

Te Kooti's hill-castle, and other fights, Bell was accompanied by his faithful wife a Maori girl from the Upper Wanganui. After the war she took her white man with her to her native village at Taumarunui, where her father was a chief and a big land owner. This was Christmas of 1874. Bell settled there and raised a large family, and acquired a high reputation amongst the Maoris as a courageous square-dealing pakeha. I first met him years ago at Taumarunui, long before the tide of civilisation invaded this quiet spot at the meeting of the waters. Taumarunui was a pretty place then, with its old-fashioned native kainga and its grove of fruit trees, on the green flat ringed by the wooded ranges. It is very different now —a noisy bustling town, with its railway, its telegraphs, its lock-up, its sly-grog shops and other tokens of white man’s sway. Too noisy for Alee. Bell now; the old man says the clamour gives him a headache, and he’d like to be onee more in the old sleepy Maori Taumarunui and hear, instead of the engine’s whistle, the bellbird’s twinkle and the tui’s song. Dr. Kwwna OV New Zealand. Dr. Carl Ktnnin, who has been lecturing in New Zealand on behalf of the North African Mission, left for Sydney last night. He did not forget to pay us a little compliment before he went. "New Zealand,” he said to an interviewer; "is the smallest of the four Dominions I have seen, but it is also the most beautiful, the most British, and the most advanced.” Touching the native race, he said, "You have done better in the way you have treated the Maoris than in any other part of the British Empire or any other colonial power. You have made friends with them and gained their respeet. They will become in the end a new rivulet whieh will flow into the Anglo-Saxon race.” Altogether the Dr. likes New Zealand greatly; he wasn’t here very tong, but he is a keen and shrewd observer.