The Evening Star. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2514, 8 March 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 1871.

If the value of an office is to be judged of by the number of candidates for it, that of member of the Provincial Council must be great. Never* before have the electors had such a number to choose from of tried and untried men. They must be sorely puzzled to find a standard by which to judge of the relative merits of the twenty gentlemen, each of whom says, “ Elect me.” We have seen brokers in the London sale rooms with some ninety or a hundred cups of tea before them set in a row, carefully going over them again and again; sipping a tcaspoonful out of each, and ranging them in classes according to their merits. There would be class number one, “ Fine Congou, “ little tarry flavor ; ” class number two, “ Good strong tea, Souchong “ flavor ; ” number three, “ Rather iS coarse, Pekoe flavor; ” number four, “ Fine Assam tea, slightly burnt ; ” and so on. But each of these classes would have one common peculiarity, so that the market value might be estimated to a fraction of a penny per pound. It would be a great relief to an elector if he could find these distinctive features in the candidates set up for choice ; but instead of being able to classify them, he finds each one made up more or less of like materials

in different degree. Instead of a market value, therefore, he would in despair be reduced to something like the plan of chemical analysis, and mark the centesimal proportion in which each political ingredient exists. He might for instance, start with Public Works —an element which has largely increased in the estimate of candidates since Mr Reid’s defeat—and he might give to each the symbol P.W. 50. But even here he must be puzzled ; lor while all want railways, Mr Batin’es wants them into the desert where there is no water carriage, and would not have them along the coast, because goods can be tumbled from carts on to the wharf, from the wharf into a ship’s hold, to be tumbled half a dozen times over there before the stevedore has consigned them to their resting place ; on arrival at their destination they can be tumbled out of the ship into a lighter, and tumbled over there until settled into a snug berth, and when the lighter reaches the wharf they can be tumbled out of it on to the wharf, whence they are tumbled over and over into the landing shed, until they are finally tumbled into a cart for conveyance to the merchant’s warehouse. But this is no drawback to Mr Barnes, who apparently cannot see that once in a railway truck all this useless labor is saved —that time and risk of damage are saved, and that capital is economised. There are candidates who have far clearer ideas of the value of railways than he. On the land question all” are agreed ; and we may fairly set Land Reform down with most at L.R. 40, with the exception of Mr Bathgate, who sets cheeseparing in the way of cutting down fair remuneration to public servants, especially the “ big- “ wigs ”at a higher rate. In his case we will set down bigwig-paving B.w.P. 40 instead. But what a variety of nostrums is included in the L.R. 40 ! From a rational reform to a clean sweep of all our present land laws, and a complete new code ! Only imagine what a heaven upon earth for the working man Otago will be when MiBarton’s war-horse gets the bit between his teeth, and, in spite of every effort to restrain him, bolts right off with all those carefully-balanced equities between squatters and farmers ! With regard to the B.w.P. of Mr Bathgate, we cannot help thinking of the vulgar old saying, “ Cheap and “ nasty.” The cry of economy is all very well; but if you will have good work, you must employ good workmen, and good workmen can employ their time better than in working for half wages. We have no sympathy with men who are so green in Colonial legislation as to grudge a laborer of his failwages, and should very much distrust placing an office of high trust like the Treasurership in the hands of one who engaged to do the work for £l5O a year. Our expectation would be that whenever a chance of making a sovereign presented itself in another direction, the Treasurership would be neglected, and at the end of the quarter the accounts would be in confusion. Were we to analyse this B.w.P. of Mr Bathgate, we should say it was chiefly composed of claptrap, C., with a small proportion of economy, E., and smaller still of knowledge, K. The formula would stand : B.w.P. = C. 95, E. 4, K. 1. If the bigwigs suffered, what would be done to the littlewigs 1 Dismissed, of course—no work. Having seen that in the case of the majority of the candidates, P.W. and L.R. absorb about ninety parts out of a hundred of their political theories, we may leave our readers to apportion the other ten as they can make them out, and include as much honesty, H., as they conscientiously can. We have done our best to help them, so far as present knowledge is concerned ; but, as a rule, we do not like men who open their mouths too widely, or have to excuse past misconduct.

Princess Theatre. —“ Won utLust ” was repeated last night, to a fair house ; Miss Carry George and. Mr Musgrave, as before, sharing the applause. ’I his evening, the “Home Wreck” will be performed, to be followed by the laughable farce, “The Tailor of Tam worth.”

The Fire Brigade.—The business transacted at the monthly meeting on Monday was not important. Messrs J. Bowen, D. Hood, W. Birmingham, A. Mellor, and J. Knight were elected working members The thanks of the brigade were voted to Capt. Wain and Mr Hudson for their invitations to the social gathering on the 24th ult.; and to the donors (Messrs R. Pufflctt and R. Clifford) for a photograph of the Geelong engine station and brigade, and a handsomely framed photograph of the Dunedin Brigade. The next practice was fixed for the 15th, when we believe the Governor will in all probability be present. Agricultural Statistics.—The returns taken under the Census Act, 1871, at present to hand have been published. Returns have yet to come from Dun-tan, •' uapeka, and Waikaia. There are in the Province 2,012 holdings. During last year 20,3284 acres were sown in wheat (estimated yield 540.770 bushels), 49,627 ac'-es sown in oats (estimated yield 1,649,450 bushels), 3,442 acres sown in barley (estimated yield 55,026 bush Is), 4,7824 acres sown in hay (estimated yield 9,060 tons), 2,0374 acres sown in potato s (estimated yield 11,114| tons). Waitaki and Buice are the largest pro Un ing districts ; but the Lakes is very close behind.

A Novelty.—The greatest novelty in cricket is a match that was [flayed recently between an Ararat (Victoria) eleven and eleven lunatics from the local asylum. And what is more strange, the lunatics won. Tuq day was a blazing day—so hot that the female lunatics could not attend as spectators. The teams were fairly matched, and there wasn’t much to choose between the eleven hi euuc and ihe eleven hi pome The one eleven had got into an asylum ; the other was qualifying for admis-ion. It must have required some pluck to defend a wicket against a cracked bowler. Perhaps, some of these days, a Dunedin public may witness as great a novelty. We know that the enterprising superintendent of our Lunatic Asylum is having a cricket-ground formed adjacent to the establishment, where the patients will practice, and doubtless soon attain such proficieu y iu the noble game as would justly them in sending a challenge to one of the city clubs. While on the subject, we might suggest that if the city clubs have any spare material, they could not do better than forward it to Mr Hume, by whom, we are sure, jt won d be thankful y received. P-rjson Labor.—This question appears to foe a favorite one with candidates for legislative honors, whether Colonial or Provincial. Very few, however, treat it in jts proper light. Mr Mason, for example, a few nights ago dwelt npeu it at some length, pointing out the disadvantages of employing prisoners in a City, hut he entirely overlooked the other side of the question, which we will refer to on some other occasion. What we wish to cal! attention to is his statement that “here prisoners were frequently turned adrift with nothing in their pockets, and then they hafl no alternative but to resort to their old mo le of oLi.ainiug a livelihood, ” Mr Mason happens to be a visiting justice of the gaol ; the public would therefore naturally suppose that his statement is a true one, and attach to it far more importance than if it had been made by a candidate unacqua’nted with tbe rules of the establishment. But Mr Mason (more’s the pity) docs not know these rules ; for if be did, be would have known that tbe Provincial Council annually votes a sum which is distributed amongst the prisoners on their discharge from gaol. No prisoner (except experience has shown the. gaoler that he is not deserving of this bounty), is set at liberty without being possessed qf sufficient means to enable him to live honestly fpr a few days at all events ; after wh ch time, he is naturally expected to be able to shifn for himself. We know of many instances Avherc tbe governor of the gaol (to his credit be it said) has augmented that sura by a donation from his own purse; hut wc regret to say his liberality has been so often abused, that we wonder he continues to do so.

Mr Stafford and the Mail Service.—The ex-Premier is no doubt a very pleasant gentleman, and has a happy way of saying pleasant things; but unfortunately for us in Dunedin he invariably says them at such a distance from ns that we cannot appreciate them properly. Possibly bad he delivered the speecli which be delivered to his constituents at Timaruou Wednesday List iu Dunedin, an audience here would have been equally ready to applaud him to the echo at the proper time, and laugh when he laughed at his own jokes. But we are inclined to think that they would not have been so easily gulled as were the Timaru audience when the hon. gentleman referred to the subject of the San Francisco Mail Service. After stating that he should not be surprised to hear the statement by a portion of the Press that Mr Neilson’s contract had been repudiated by Mr Webb, confirmed, he is reported to have said—“ The contract is unwise in every respect, because we do not want merely to be able to say that these ocean steamers are passing along our Coast. They arc only to call at three ports besides the port of call. They arc likely to drive off a class of steamers much more useful to us, that really do largely promote tbe trade and export the produce of the country ; and these ocean steamers are to run along the Coast, for what? Just to say that we have them ou the Coast (laughter) to say to Australia, “See what fine fellows wc are ! We have got our own steamers to San Francisco, and you won’t get a sight of them.” If than could ijo into the duck that iu now hvhuj made at Port Chahne.ru, and some profit could be got from the repairs of these steamers, it might be different; but they are about forty five fed too wide, lo enter that dock. They might just as well be ten thousand miles away for any good that they could do to Port Chalmers. ” We will give Mr Stafford the benefit of his opinion that “it is as great a delusion to the people of Port Chalmers as lias ever yet been imposed by a bold financier in a confiding publicbut would remark that his statement as to the width of Mr Webb’s boats is about as wide of the truth as many more of his assertions at the same meeting appear to be. According to his idea the vess Is would have about 75ft. of a beam, which is greater than any ship afloat!

of them, together with their friends, were plentifully regaled with fruit, &e., and spent the evening very pleasantly in dancing and juvenile games. The efforts of the committee to make the evening enjoyable were highly successful. The attention of volunteers is directed to a general order, which appears in our advertising columns.

The following are the election notices for this evening Mr Birch at Murrays Rooms, at 7.30 ; Mr Fish at Masonic Hall, at 7.30, and Mr Reeves at 8 30 ; Mr Jago at Oddfellows’ Hall, at 8; Messrs Howorth and Turton at Watson’s Hotel, at 8 ; Messrs Turnbull and Bathgate at the Mission House, Russell street, at 8.30, and Mr Cargill at 9 ; Mr George Duueau at North Dunedin Drill Shed, at 7.30, and Mr Reynolds immediately afterwards.