MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2655, 21 August 1871, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

The necessity for a Minister of Public Works is being canvassed by some of our contemporaries. Tbe Timaru Uazettv says : office would require a man of considerable ability, ami great powers of administration, accompanied with a thorough knowledge of things and pf. men matters of no mean importance. On scanning the antecedents of our public men, wc can only see one man who seems specially aadpted for such an onerous trust —if he Avon Id take it. AVe mean the Hon. John Hall, formerly PostmasterGeneral. He is a man of great colonial experience, both in and out of Parliament!;, and we may say, without being thought invidious that he would possess the confidence of the country, as Minister of Public Works, beyond almost any other man. Mr Hall is generally reputed as being fond of his own way, but men who thoroughly knoAv their business mostly 'are—and he, of all men, Wovfld not 1 let the grass giW under bis feet, and this iVJdstHvhab Ave Avant.' More failures are imminent at QueenstoAvn. The local paper Says'the" present crisis may be traced to tw'o distinct oausCs, viz., exiles l sive investment ‘ in leal estate, ami overbuilding or iinplovbments, thus locking up capital; relying ‘ tod' dutch bn the future 1 . And in another part; Of'the Same paper we are told that the 'loi’al' money market is frightfully and’'aV V patural cousc;. mieuppf the' credit systeqr is being extinguished. An “ old inhabitant ” av 110 has always paid his Avay, and does not owe enough to become insolvent, complains that he cannot get “tick.” Poor fellow ! Dunedin is not the only place Avberc colds are prevalent. The sudden changes of the weather at Queenstown haAje produced, in its strongest form, influenza, Avliicb seems to have attacked, more or less, every man, Avoman, and child in the district. Bomc of these are suffering very seriously from colds ; while, in some cases, a Avholo household is almost prostrate with ttie coinplaiuf;. On the 18th inst, Mr J6lm Dcavc, R.M.-, who is leaving Tokomairmv where he has rc-

sided since the district was formed, was presented with a valedictory address and a purse of sovereigns by a number of old residents. The forcible removal of the toll-bar gate at Fairfax by a carter last week, in consequence of his being aggrieved at the state of the road, when compelled to pay toll fees, is likely to form a case for the decision of Mr Maitland, JLM.