Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1901. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 25 October 1901, Page 2

Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1901. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A good deal of dissatisfaction has been expressed about the vote of £1,500 for Post and Telegraph Offices at Greymouth. This dissatisfaction, we imagine, arises from a misapprehension for the vote for the present year should be ample to carry out the promise made by the Premier to a deputation who waited upon him on a recent visit to this district. What Mr. Seddon then promised was that an entirely new structure would be put up. That this would extend over two years, it being necessary in the first instance to put up a new operating room at the back, and afterwards the main building in front. The vote of £1,500, we take it, is for the erection of the operating room, and next year will see the larger vote for the main structure. This at all events is the view we take of the present vote, and it is in keeping with the promise made. Of course if it is subsequently found to be intended for repairing the old office, the residents will raise, as they did last year, a firm protest against such a mere waste of money. The edifice is not only old and rotten, but has been declared insanitary and a danger to the health of the employees. In face of this the Government is not likely to throw £1,500 away in attempting to make a " silk purse out of a sow's ear."

The Chinese have completed the task of disinterring their dead, and storing the carcases—what remains of them—in an unsightly shed in the cemetery. The appearance of that portion of the grave yard, where the removals were made from, presents an unsightly, not to say disgraceful and shocking appearance. Headstones are seen lying about in all directions, while the ground is heaped about in a manner suggestive of an utter disregard for_the feelings of Europeans. As a race, the Chinese are not desirable in a colony like New Zealand, and the Legislature has fixed a poll tax of £IOO to keep them out of the colony. Seeing that our Legislature does not like the celestial, that it does its utmost to prevent an influx, it is but reasonable to suppose that those members of an undesirable race who do come among us, if not required to conform to our laws and customs, should at the least be prevented from doing acts that violate public propriety and sentiment. Yet, strange to say, they are allowed, by permission of the Colonial Secretary, to carry out functions that shock a whole community. Such a function—in the disinterment of the dead—has been carried out in the Greymouth cemetery, for the second time in our history, and will be repeated at regular intervals unless our local authorities take immediate action. The matter was brought before the Borough Council last night, when the Mayor was instructed to take all necessary action to prevent like occurrences in the future, and Mr. Mathieson can be relied on to do his duty in th 9 matter. What really is required is a separate burial ground for the Chinese, where they may bury their dead and carry on their barberous and superstitious rites away from the view and hearing of Christian people, who, attaching a sacredness to the abode of the dead, are shocked at the desecration of the cemetery by tho'annual Chinese Feast of the Dead, and by the revolting proceedings of the past month.