A LONDON FINANCIER

Gisborne Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1738, 2 May 1906, Page 3

A LONDON FINANCIER

Mr E. N. Senior, a gentloman well known in financial circles in London, is at present on a visit to New Zealand. He has been in dose touch with tho colonies for the past thirty years, and has made several visits to both Australia aud New Zealand in IPs capacity of secretary to the Tru.-t and Agency Company of Australasia, Limited, a direotor of tha Austrai au States Mortgage and Agency Company, aud Loodou teorela-y cf tho Australian Paßotal Company. On my asking Mr Senior to give mo his impressions of New Zealand, ho readily consented to do so His first visit to the oolonv was during a period of depression,

ony was during a period of depression, n 1886. “So severe war the depression,” he said, " that I wrote a report for my company stating that New Zealand was oo the vorge of backroptoy, and that only the development of the frozen meat trade and possibly the butter trade oouid save it.” Mr Smior even then had considerable faith fn tbs frozen meat trado, and the remarks made in his report wore almost prophotio. New Ztaland, he says, really does not know how much it owes to the Nelsons in this ma'ter. They groppled with the industry on a large scale in its initial 3tages, and the work they did was sueh that the co ony might vary well orect a monument to them.

Mr Senior haa been occasionally to New Zraland since his Scat visit, and has noted the remarkable progress the colony baa made with a groat deg Joe of pleasure. On hia present visit, tbough hia travels have been confined only lo the North 1-laud, he baa noted that g-eat improvements have been made by the farming community in their holdings. The genera! progress of settlement, he also considers, ia very remarkable, thriving towns like Daonevirko having arisen on sites that were thick bush when he first saw them not so many years ago.

I asked Mr Senior bis opinion as a man well versed in the values of property what be thought of the prioes at present being

paid here for town and suburban property, and be gave his opinian with no uncertain sound. Both oity aad suburban property, but more ospecia'ly suburban lands, he considered were selling at icfhted prices. Agricultural land also, he thought, was fairly high priced, the values being based upon (be present prices of wool and butter. “ We cannot,” he said 11 expect these prices to last, and New Zealanders seem 100 prone to fix land values upon a momentary fluctuation of the markets rather than to base them upon average values extending over a cycle of years. Mr Senior was glad to not'oe during his travels in the Nurth Island a tremendous diminution in the number of rabbits on the pastoral country. With regard to the English money market, Mr Senior is convinced that money will not bicome any cheaper for some considerable tirno (o come. When be left Loudon, only a few weeks ago, there was a tremendous demand for monay all over the world. Mr Senior remarked that the New Zaa land Government have a wonderful a-set in the capabilities of tho country for sport. He was quito prepared to give the Government every credit for what they

bad alreudy done, but they hod not done euough. At present the coaoh services and the accommodation in several instances aro wretched. Mr Senior advocates the opening of 10,000 aoros of the Government reserve for deer in the Wairarapa to the public, and the keeping of the remaining 20,000 acres as an absolute sanctuary for all time. A plot of bosh in tbe 10,000 acres and two p ots in lbs 20.000 acre block should be cloured and grassed, and, if that were done, tho deer would thrive and be come still more numerous. He also advocates the stocking of suitable waste lands with red deer and other big game on a much more extensive soale than has been tbe case in the past. Mrs Senior, who is paying her first visit to New Zealand, is an enthusiastic salmon fisbor. She also accompanies her husband on bis deer-sbooting expeditions, and, though she does not shoot herself, Bhe takes part iu tbo stalking. She is charmed with New Zealand, and is looking forward to paying tbo colony another visit in three or four years' time,—H.B. Herald special.

Where can Germany turn without encountering tbo Anglo Saxon powers or her Frankish neighbor ') She moves c=ase!o3sly to and fro, seeking for a weak spot in tho iron wa'ls of territorial circumstance that environ her. Whenever Bbo socius to have found a woak spot iu tbo path of world-empiro she finds hereelf encountered there by one or other of the Great Powers, alrraly in possession. If Germany were more conciliatory she would undoubtedly do better, but sho has the unfoitanato habit of givirog offence because she docs rot realise that tbo meamro of her ambition is not to bo regarded ns tbo measure cf practical politics. England bns looked with carolessntst upon thrir German exploitation of Asia Minor, but before Asia Minor is thoroughly explo r'd Go-jiiny makes masked attacks, in the name of tho Porte, upon the road to

Indie. This is indicative of what commonly happens Germany socks to oust from their possessions and interests such countries as Britain, America, France. And if wo con philosophically admit that thie is very natural wo must as roadi'y admit ihnt- it is rqually natural for as to obj ct to bring ousted. And wo havo tho morn justification in that tbo AngloSaxon count'irs roadily wolconoo the individual German lo their bosom. Thoio is no racial antagoniim botweon us, but the most perfect racial accord. It is merely a national egotiun —if a natural national egotism —wh''ch inspires Germany with the passion for replacing a kindred flag by its own,—New Zealand Hoia'd.

Tho family of tho lato Sir Julius Vogel havo recently come iu for some bequests under tho will of tho late Mr Benjamin Isaac, of the firm of Isaac and Samuel, commission merchants, 22 Great Winchi-ster-street, London, who died on Jtecomber 15, 1903, aged 82, and loft estate of the gross value of £359.327. Under the will the testator l.u-quoathi-d £6OOO in trust for Fhocno Vogel, /’OCOO to Frances 'V'g-' , £3OUU in tleii.y E. Vogel, aud 1 £3OOO to Julius Vogel.

I No human bolng was ever absolutely I healthy in rniud or body without rogular I oeoupation ; nnd wo would prefor to hove I no experience of a community of which I tho members worked only four or six I hours a day. Nothing domoralisos moil and women so rapidly as sloth nnd idleI ness ; ami the demand for a six or n four hours' day seems to us, from this standpoint, simply ignoble. But ovon if wo discount the moral aspoct of tho question, no language can be too s' ong to oondemn the absurd and fantnstio misoonooptions of ccouomio law on which the Bix hours’ movement is oonfossodly based. —Auckland Star.

A leceully published report of a street I railway company in an eastern city gives an interesting summary of tho manner in I wbioh most of the people who are hurt on its lino no.-ivo their injuries (-ays an I Amorican magazine). Out of about 400 I people injured during the year, 188 were I hurt while stepping oil a mov ng oar, aDd I 78 in trying to board a moving oar. Thus, I 216 persons, or over half tho whole numI ber of injured, soem to have met with misI fortune through their own hardihood in I disregarding tho oompany’a rule, “ Wait until the oar stops.” It is very probablo I that a largo proportion of tbe-o 216 I were women, who got oil the oar I baokwards. This haste—inability to I " wait UDtil the oar stops ” ia only ono of tho Bymptoms of that American [ disease “ hußtlephobie,” wbioh often oauses a wholo trainful of people to rise

from their seats and stand in the aisles for five minutes boforo the train gets into a station, and makes theatre auditors £0 rostless that they have to begin putting on their wraps and moving toward the exits bofore tbo curtain falls, fearful lest they be one minute late in goiting to tbo sidewalk.

I It is probably difficult for many a , farmer to realise that in ono part of the , world immensely larger than New ZeaI l«nd, sheep are drtestod. But west of the Rocky Mountains, what is known as the 11 range ” war, between the cattleman and I the sheepmen, has been ragiDg for many j I years, and is to-day carried on with little less bitterness than ever. Tho oattlemen, I as the first oomors, claim that they have I the boat right to the grozing on the ranges, and they complain, with some I reason, that their hords oannot exist where sheep sre run, as the latter eat tho country bare. 11 Wba'over excuse the settler on some far oreek in tbo upland ranges may find,” remarks a recent American w.iter, "when he sees tbosbeep ormingdown over raoges where his cattle have herded, he prepares for war; for where tho sheep have travelled his cattle will no longer find provender that season.” Trouble of a more or less serious obaraoter often ensuep, for the oommnn cause against sheep gives the cattlemen an opportunity to organise, and

it frequently happens that all the young eatt'emen of a district will combine some night and raid a abeep man’s country, tie up the sher p-herder, and then shoct and stampede bis sheep. Thousands of sheep are said to have been driven over precipices in Colorado and Wyoming, and to a lesser degree the same sort of thing went on in Idaho, and is still practised in Central Ortgon, where the "range war” is moet porsistent. Occasionally a herder is killed, sometimes the sheepmen catch the cattlemen within range of their rifles, and so the war goes on. Two years ago in the h'gh desert country of Oregon fifteen men with olubs raided a fluok of 0000 sheep one night, and killed most of them, and a month or two leter 2800 sheep out of another flock of 2700 were shot by nine masked men, in the presence of the tiedup sheep-herder. Io most of tho States now there is what is

known as a " dead line.” On one side of that invisible but reoogaised boundary sheep may be herded in safety; if they cross is it is at the risk of their owner, possibly at the risk of the herder’s life. The trouble will know no settlement, we are told, until the whole country is under feoc?. In the meantime, especially in Oregon, both sides carry repeating rifles, ostensibly for shooting coyotes, and the oattlemeD, who have been a law onto themselves for so long, still carry matters with a high hand.