Page 4 Advertisements Column 5

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 414, 13 May 1902, Page 4

The Canterbury Hall shareholders declined to sanction the proposal to convert the hall into a theatre, and repolved to invite the City Council to take over the hall for municipal purposes. If the Council declines it may be necessary to sell a portion of the land on which the hall stands. The Rev. TV. H. Cogell, Melanesian missionary, at present in Christchurch, regarding the importance of annexation of the New Hebrides by Great Britain, is emphatic in his views. He explains that he has refrained from participating in the political life of the group, and so cannot be considered an authority on the question, but he is very strongly of opinion that it has immense strategic importance to Great Britain. “If we annex it," he said to a representative of the Times, “ we at once threaten New Caledonia and France, and it must prove a thorn in the side of Fiji, The opinion of dwellers, in the group is that Great Britain is not fully alive to its importance, and is in great danger of losing it. In spite of the praiseworthy efforts of Australia in urging the Home Government to secure the islands, little notice is taken, and the islanders feel they are rather left out in the cold. Tho greatest importance of ti e New Hebrides is from a strategic point of view, as there is no great likelihood of trade developing to any extent. There is, however, trade in maize just coming into existence, and this may be cultivate i with profit, for the climate is eminently adapted to the growing of this grain. The natives would prefer the English flag tq the French, for they are 'often 'ill-treated by French traders, and would feel safer under English rule.” It seems open to question whether this brutality will tend to assuage the discontent which unquestionably prevails amongst certain classes in Russia. By a curious iroDy (says the London Times) it is the geliooimaster who has done most to makes the masses accessible to the teachings of democracy. The peasant who is enrolled in the armies of the autocrat learns to read, and when he goes home he reads what pleases himself, and the agitators of a higher grade take care to provide him with literature to his taste. The extension of the factory system has had a similar result. It has brought thousaods of men into the towns from the country ; it has cultivated their intelligence ; it has brought them within the reach of the teachers of subversive doctrines ; and it has convinced them that their new friends can show them a short cut to the millennium. The acute depression in agriculture and in trade which has visited the country of late has naturally brought recruits to the movement. How deep it goes and to what results it may lead we cannot pretond to say. Probably it has made no great way as yet amidst the dead mass of Russian apathy. “ Home Rule,” once very much discussed, Is laid aside and left to rust. Old Gladstone, spite of all his skill, Failed to pass this famous Bill, How often do the greatest fail ? And coughs make ill the s-trong and hale,

Unless the remedy they procure— W. E. WOODS’ GREAT PEPPER- “ HINT CUREj