NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Evening Star, Issue 3668, 24 November 1874, Page 3

NEWS B Y THE MAIL.

COLONIAL TOPIC'S. A large batch of agricultural laborers, belonging to the National Agricultural Laborers’ Union, numbering, together with their wives and families, 300 souls, principally from Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, left by the Great Western Railway on Sept. 23 for Plymouth ; whence they will sail for New Zealand in the. Crusader. Mr Alliugton, one of the union delegates, will ac; mpany the emigrants and see them comfortably settled in the Colony. The union will, during the six months, promote emigration to New Zealand, the season for Canada having ended. T1 e Warwickshire branch are consideiing a scheme for co-operative forming by union laborers. At the recent meeting of the National Bank a balance-sheet for the first year’s O' eratious was presented. The business of the Bank of Otago in the Colony was taken over on July 1, 1873, and the balance sheet embraces the result of only nine months’ working, carried on at thirteen offices, which are still open as branch; sof this bonk. Of the other branches six have been in operation for an average period of ten months, and the regaining eleven for four months. The latter, as.might be espeeted. havehitherto qnly a source of expense. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, the progress of the general business seems to have been rapid and considerable, and sufficiently remunerative to provide for the comparatively heavy charges of a concern in course of development. The gross profits, including LI, 102 5s 9d brought from last year, and after deducting interest and making provision for bad and doubtful debts, amount to L 45,568 6s sd, From this sum current charges and a proportion of preliminary expenses and other items have to be deducted, leaving L 1,565 6s 4d,-which was carried {<>rTyard. •"* ’ 4 1 ‘ - ■ • • • Frpm g return issued from the office of the. A gent, General for New Zealand, up to June SO, 1874, 39,325 emigrants have been forwarded to New Zealand, and as about 9,000 more have been sent since that date the total number of emigiants d< spaubed to New Zealand is not far short of 50 000. ’t bjs great number will be further increased by nine ship** fixed to sail in t- ia month (October), and six or seven to be laid on in each of the months of November, December, January, and February, which are likely to make a grand total of 60,000 souls forwarded during about three years.

A. precis of the last budget speech was telegraphed Home by Mr Vogel, and Hr. Feathprstup gave ij; f,o the English public through the medium of the morning papers. f ‘Anglo T Australian” says For all practical purposes th'S was just the proper thing to do, because it would set the investing public inquiring after New Zealand recmities, and give an impetus to the emigration movement.” . . . Two letters have appeared in the ‘Pall Mall Gazette,’ signed “ Charles Fellows,” in which the writer aims at showing that the whole conrs; of New Zealand linapce is inflated, The'lo’teis are certainly what may’be termed waiters,” and calculated to do some miscnief. If the Iptteps are wyittgn with a view to reform abuses, then the writer is entitled to respect and consideration, but as they bear evidence of having been provoked by some misunderstanding with some one or other of the local powers, they are, to say the least of them, open to suspicion. . . . The writer in question cannot fail to see that he to some extent defeats his own purpose, because the resources of the Colony must be immense in order to restrain the waste and the ejects ot I>hp oihbadm}D|atrat|op to whiefi he refers. For myself, however, I always view with suspicion the attacks of returned Colonists upon the Colopy they have left behind them. Certainly, if anyone wanted a man to make q> botch of a fair picture, he would apply to Mr Fellows. ' 4 J

EXTRAORDINARY SPEECH By AN M P. Sir J. D. Astley, Bart., M P. f in responding to the toast of “The county members,” at the ram show dinner at Owersby, North Lincolnshire, said lie was very proud of representing that fine o'4 corner qf North Lincolnshire. The last time he was amongst; them he would have bet anyone 1,000 to 5 that he would never be in the House. (Laughter.) His grandfather had spent a thundering lot of mon y in that game, but he had always put down in his cook a Memorandum to keep out of that way.—

(Laughter and applause ) He (the speaker) had not, however, spent a shdbng over his election, and he must say ho felt as proud as Lucifer of the honor they had conferred upon hj rn.- (Laughter.) Hut the House of Commons was not altogether a place to he coveted or desired, and he doubted whether any gentleman who was used to the country would care to be shut up there hour after hour, day a>'d nieht. There were, besides, a lot of Irish chaps (laughter) in the House, who sometimes made him very angry. He thought them were about sixty of these fellows in the House, and he believed about forty of them were the most confounded r, seals he ever saw.

(' auL'hter and applause.) He did not find fa dt; with anybody because be might hold different opinions to him, but be entirely 10- his patience when those “ covies" (laughter) came into the House and took up the whole of an afternoon and oarried on far into the night, when some pressing motion was coming on, talking abaut their li tie rotten Ireland—(laughter) whether the whisky was to be Irish or >cotch, or whether the potatoes should be kidneys or something else.—(Renewed laughter.) Such discussions as these were the things which drove him clean out of the House, andtended to make a msm more careless than he should be. These forty Irish rascals to whom' he had referred took up more time than all the r si of the members, and u;ed much stronger language ; but, unfortunately, they were divided amongst themselves. Once a discussion was got up about a prosecution against a newspaper ia I reland, called the ‘Flag of Ireland,’ They began to talk a Pout how badly Ireland was used, because the editor of that paper—they could easily imagine from its name what it was—was prosecuted, and tight or nine of them got up and almost cried about “poor Ireland !” —(Roars of laughter.) .mother gentleman f rom Ireland, who we a so umch of an Eng--1- as to keep a pack of hounds, however, got up and said he hoped that •“ England and English people would not take what had been sdd as the general feeling of Ireland, because it was only the opinions expressed by the miserable seribes who wrote in the paper in qn ation which were represented. It was true that there were several ver> far-seeing men amongst the party, but a great many had been returned to Parliament simply in the interest of Home Rule.