NEW ZEALAND : GENERAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 32, 9 August 1900, Page 19

NEW ZEALAND : GENERAL.

Th c estimated population of the Colony on June 3U was 800,207 The increase during the June quarter was 1821.

Readers of the Triad must be very difficult to please if they are not satisfied with the August number. All tastes are catered for in the articles on art, music, literature, and other subjects.

In the Te Awamutu sly grog-selling cases in the Auckland district eight convictions were recorded against I.j persons, the fines ranging from £\"> to £40, the total fines being £'tf\, and co&ta £.->li Ss.

Information has been received in Napier from Tauranga that 10 Maori children and two adults were drowned last Sunday while crossing the Motu River, 2"> miles from Opotiki, through their canoe upsetting. Three bodies have been recovered.

Mr. G. E. Butler, a young Wellington student, has been successful in carrying off the gold medal of the Antwerp Academy againßt all-comers. After leaving Wellington Mr. Butler studied in the Lambeth and Paris schools before going on to Antwerp.

Tin: inquiry into the management of the Stoke Industrial School is still proceeding. The scope of the investigation has been extended to live years. We shall, later on, deal with the evidence as a whole.

The endowments beld in Canterbury for University purposes include So.mi acres of agricultural and Hit, 2o4 acres of pastoral land. The Otago University was endowed with lot ),()(><> acres of pastoral land in Ot 'go. and afterwards became possessed of 10,("Iim) acres set apait in Southland.

There are indications that the oil industry in Taranaki will receive a great impetus at an early date. It is stated that a company will shortly be floated with a capital of fiO'iuu, to carry on boring in the v.cinity of Inglewood, where a syndua o ha* already obtained the right to bore, and expects to acquire, over 20.00u acres. It is proposed to expend no.oot) of the capital in thoroughly prospecting the country.

Wha'l e\ r.u we may think of our Arbitration and Conciliation Acts in this Colony, it is satisfactory to know that our legislation in this respect is highly thought of in the United States. Here is what the Cul/m! /<• Standard and Turn s, Philadelphia, has to say on the matter — The New Ztalander has not yet realised the idea of Macaulay in connection with London Bridge but he is able to give the United States points in common sense ways of government. In New Zealand no such thing as the St Louis strike scandal would be possible, because by the laws of the country strikes are rendered impossible. All labor disputes muat be settled by arbitration, the Court being a statutory tribunal whose jx nwnnt I is regulated in such a way a* to make it absolutely impartial and beyond suspicion. Is there any valid reason why we should not have a similar law here ' Noi.o that can be imagined, save the vested interest (so to i-p"ak) that some iuiin iduaK may have in the perpetuation of labor troubles.

Our Matata (Bay of Plenty) correspondent, writing on July 30, says . — Yesterday it was our melancholy duty to bear to their last resting place the mortal remains of a Maori called Whiripo, a very old and faithful soul, who from the first arrival of the missionaries became a good and faithful Catholic. He leaves behind him a great number of descendants, as may b * seen by the following : he had 1.5 children, seven of whom are still alive ; he had ~>2 grandchildren, of whom 17 are alive ; and 2.") grcat-grandchildrea, of whom 20 are alive — altogether 44 alive and 4(> dead. He had frequently received the last Sacraments ar.d recovered again. He was old enough to draw a pension, but too weak to go anywhere to claim it. Of all his children not one is outside the Catholic Church, and all of them who were non-Catholics joined the Church before marriage. A laige number of relations had come to his burial, his last words wen*, ' Weep not for me, but for yourselves and your children.' May he rest in peace.

A non-Catholic veteran writes us from Auckland :—ln: — In your issue of June 2S I notice your correspondent mentions that * The r efforts souirht to be made locally to commemorate Waterloo happily proved abortive.' Let me tell you — as an old veteran who was present and took part — that the veterans' parade numbered fully 160, all with their medals on. The Artillery band led us, and we

marched through the principal streets under the command of Captain Leahy (a Roman Catholic). On arriving at the R.C. Cathedral the order was given for the Roman Catholics to fall out, and on this order three left the ranks, the other veterans, together with the band, marched from Wyndham street through Queeu Btreet to St. Paul's English Church. Thousands of people lined the streets to witness the veterans' church parade, so that your correspondent was 'an absent minded beggar ' when he mentioned that 'it happily proved abortive.' Let me tell you truthfully that we are so Batiefied with, the buccess of that veteraus' ehuiub. parade that it is to be continued next year. In fair play I think you should insert these remarks.

With reference to the resolution passed by the Melbourne Peace and Humanity Society condemning the New Zealand Government for dismissing the chief of the Hansard staff, Mr. G rattan Grey haß received a letter from the Rev. Dr. Rentoul, M.A., of Ormond College, Melbourne University. Dr. Rentoul says : Bad and brutal as the thing attempted, and in part accomplished, by the Metropolitan Board of Works in Melbourne was, it was dwarfed by the scandalous barbarism and vulgarity evidenced by the treatment you have suffered from the Seddonised Parliament in New Zealand. The threatened dismissal of employees in the M.8.W., Melbourne, was not carried out. We stopped it on its way. Only a bombastic • censure ' on Mr Reitz was passed, though since then it has been followed up by his name being omitted in the list of those entitled to promotion. We feel, and all my society share intensely in this feeling, warm sympathy with you and Mrs Grey, admiration for your splendid courage, and abhorrence of the despotism, mean and cowardly, which has put you to such ' spoiling of your goods ' for your loyalt 1 ' to a citizen's rights. I am anxious to know how thia will affect your life. At our first public meeting next Wednesday our society will pass a resolution of sympathy with yourself, admiration for your courageous loyalty to the principles of freedom, and condemnation of the despotism and narrow-mindedness of the Seddonite Parliament.