Here and There

New Zealand Tablet, 17 August 1916, Page 11

Here and There

AN EXPENSIVE LUXURY. There is much sympathy in Ireland with Lord Rosebery's description of the Viceroyalty as a useless and costly sinecure (writes the Dublin correspondent of the Times). The Lord Lieutenant receives a salary of £20,000 a year. In addition, he draws £4500 a year for the expenses of his household. This consists of a considerable number of of whom the most \ important are the State Steward and Chamberlain, the Comptroller, Ulster King of Arms, and the Master of the Horse. The Chapel Royal, which is served by a dean, a subdean, and a large number of honorary chaplains, is also a part of the Viceregal establishment. A further sum of £SOOO a year is paid by the Board of Works for the maintenance of the Viceregal Lodge and grounds and of the Viceregal apartments at Dublin Castle. The total cost of the Irish Viceroyalty to the taxpayer is certainly not less than £30,000 a year. The Lord Lieutenant, as Lord Wimborne's evidence before the Royal Commission showed, is no longer a great figure in politics, and during the last ten years he has ceased to be a centre of social activity. The social life of Dublin was stagnant under Lord Aberdeen Lord Wimborne has had no opportunities to revive it, and the country is now so well accustomed to j the lack of Viceregal functions that it would probably make little complaint about their permanent withdrawal. A good many Irishmen think that the Viceroyalty, especially on its social side, was always an anomaly, the correspondent adds. They would rejoice at the establishment of a Royal residence in this country, on the ground that Nationalists as well as Unionists would be ready to welcome the ' real thing.' There can be no doubt that under the finance of the Home Rule Act the Viceregal establishment would be a very extravagant luxury. It is curious that Lord Rosebery's motive in urging the abolition of the Viceroyalty of Ireland, in his recent letter to the Times, should be the same as that which led Joseph Hume nearly 100 years ago to begin his campaign with the same object. Three times this rigid economist failed to induce the House of Commons to save the £60,000 a year which the Viceroyalty cost; in 1830 Daniel O'Connell strongly opposed the step. But Hume lived to support a Bill, introduced in 1850 by Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister of the day, to abolish the Viceroyalty and the Chief

Secretaryship, and to create in their place an office of Secretary of State for Ireland. The second reading of the Bill was carried by a majority of 225, but the Duke of Wellington opposed it, and it was quietly dropped. THE TRANSPORT OF TROOPS. An American paper, in the course of an article exhorting the United States to make ready for eventualities, pays the following tribute to the despatch with which the British Government transferred troops from the opposite ends of the earth to the theatre of war : ' The events of the present war show that the ocean is now a highway for any power whose ships control it. We have just witnessed the transfer by sea of a Russian army from Eastern Siberia to France a sea voyage three times as long as that across the Atlantic. We have seen a huge army gathered at the Dardanelles from England, France, and Australia and the distance from Australia, to the Dardanelles is far greater than the distance from Asia to our shores. There gathered for the attack on Constantinople a host of fighting men drawn from the great island-continent of the South Pacific, and they were joined by the fighting men of the British Isles, who dwelt on the opposite side of the world. From the northern and the southern hemisphere, the transport steamers have carried with speed and safety over the two greatest oceans, masses of troops ten times as numerous as our whole mobile army. If any army half the size of that which attacked the Dardanelles was landed near New York or San Francisco in a time no longer than that occupied by the British and Australians in reaching the Dardanelles, we should in the present condition of our forces be utterly at its mercy.' - } COLORED BANK NOTES. The Bank of England is the only bank which always issues plainly-printed white paper bank-notes, whatever their value. Other countries' use printed notes in colors. The Russian notes are printed in all the colors of the rainbow. For the one-color Russian notes, blue, yellow, or bright purple inks are most favored. The 100-franc note of France is printed in four colorsblue, pink, black, and yellow. German notes are mottled, while those of Austrian banks are extremely vivid in color and are printed in two languages, Slav on one side and German on the other. A Swedish five-crown note is a little yellow thing, while that for 800 crowns resembles a big blue poster, for Swedish notes vary in size according to their value. Everyone has heard of the American ' greenbacks,' so called from the green ink with which they are printed. RICH PROVINCES. Quite apart from strong sentimental reasons, French people want to get their lost provinces of AlsaceLorraine back because of their actual value. In the provinces are some of the greatest potash mines in the world. These mines alone yield £4,000,000 worth of potash every year. Naturally, while the Germans have owned them they have made many millions out of them, supplying the world with potash, and with fertilisers from the rock salt which is mixed up with the potash beds. Another fact about Lorraine which will surprise most people is that it has half the world's supply of iron ore, as well as huge untapped coal deposits. For the coal alone France would like Lorraine, for she is short of coal, and has to import 10,000,000 tons a year. Altogether, the return of Alsace-Lorraine will increase France's annual income by some ten million pounds, so" there is a business side as well as a sentimental one to the recapture of the lost provinces.