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Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 314, 15 January 1902, Page 1

Mr Seddon, in explaining himself to Mr Fowlds about, the delay in paying the Auckland volunteers who attended the display in Christchurch on the occasion of the Royal visit, makes the astonishing statement that £SO would cover the whole of the unsettled claims. Seeing, however, that the Auckland claims alone amount to £SOO, on the basis of the Government offer, he is pretty wide of the mark. Evidently, Mr Seddon himself has only a hazy idea of the magnitude of the liabilities so unnecessarily contracted when the Royal couple were in the colony. Needless to say, the Government have not been very liberal in the offer they made to settle the matter. Local volunteers are wrestling with the problem how they are going to pay 2s 7id for food in camp out of the , 2s 6d per day offered to them, to say nothing at all of the expense of os 6d per dav they were put to for meals when travelling by train which they are also expected to pay out of the miserly half-crown. Evidently, it is not the desire to make political capital against the Government that is causing the volunteers to kick.- It is the disappointment at. unfulfilled promises and the anxiety to pay the debts they incurred on those promises. —Auckland Observer. General Andre, the French Minister for War, is described as tali, very thin, with an ascetic, careworn face, and a complexion which suggests perpetual jaundice. He recalls the figure of some hooded, seventeenth centuiy monk, though his pince-nez and long, black drooping moustache, detract considerably from his monastic appearance. ‘He is a man who secs everything, hears everything—and says 'nothin 0 ' A relentless will is imprinted on" that yellow, lued, uever-sm..-jng face of his ; a will which v.'i.t • fide everyone and eveiything, a will which will stop at nothing to gam its end, and which will remorselessly pur. • sue any plan or project to its conclusion. General Andre is silent, like ! sesscs an extraordinary power of work 1 most really striking men, and he posand is a born reformer, AlUmna'- ' P.°° r h ™ KUl ’ am ' one who "rules j. ! uuc - .. ft oes about inspecting here,

inspecting there, inspecting everywhere, no detail escaping him, no want of efficiency or readiness passing unnoticed—or unpunished, lie lias personally visited every garrison on the frontier and coasts of France, and also the garrisons of Algeria, Tunis, and Corsica, and everywhere his visits have been followed by far-reaching radical reforms. The French general whose name is most familiar to Englishmen, General Mercier, is no longer on the active list, and the possibility of his ever again holding a command is extremely remote. Mr Seddon deals Boers, pro-Boers, and the detractors of Mr Chamberlain a nasty knock when lie sends along with his scathing remarks a thousand fresli New Zealanders to the front King Richard is himself again !—'Wellington Times.