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Kaikoura Star, Volume XIV, Issue 762, 7 August 1894, Page 4

Mr Buick is reported to have scored a decided success by his speech on the Lands for Settlement Bill.

The Wellington l } ress has it that it is reported Mr T. K. Macdonald is to be appointed Auditor-General I Surely this is without foundation in fact ?

Mr F. Barrett, Trefoil Farm, shipped .50 sheep by the Wakatu, yesterday, for this week’s Addington market. May they realise a good price. Mr A. S. Collins, County Chairman - left for Wellington, via Lyttelton, by the Wakatu yesterday, to attend the Conference of County Council delegates meeting in the Empire City this week. Copies of Messrs Witheli & Sons’ pamphlet, giving information regarding their patent milking machine—‘ The Brookside Patent Milker'—are obtainable at the Stab Office.

Provisional specifications have been accepted by the Registrar of Patents for an invention by Mr J. A. Parsons’ for an improvement' in carriage, buggy, gig-seats, and other scats, whereby they may be adjusted and made easy. Mr J 11. Cooper left for Cheviot, by the Wakatu. yesterday, taking with him a number of trees grown by him in his—the Kaikoura —Nursery. It is pleasing to Hud that Mr Cooper’s energy is finding a field in Cheviot for the product, of his aborieultural industry.

Here is a specimen of Parliamentary imbecility—of language, of course. The Member for Parcora says that settlers,

down South live on land that will carry but one grass-hopper to the acre. You must be a flat, man, if you think you can play upon the credulity of sensible people with such absurd statements.

The Auckland narcotic poisoning case will, doubtless, be held up as an object lesson to the thousinds of smokers of the fragrant weed. The junior Member for Christchurch considers it “ A monstrous shame that in this civilised age a man must wait until he is dead before he can occupy a section of his own.” Figure it for yourself. Mr Collins, and see how much more habitable and profitably workable land there is per head on the face of this sphere.

The Budget proposes a tax on fruit, yet the Colonial Treasurer moved to set up a Tariff Revision Committee. Until that Committee reports or fails to discharge its functions no alteration should be made in the Customs duties, certainly not any trenching upon reciprocal grounds. Freetrade in fruit should be insisted upon, it being, generally, one of the most valuable and health-giving articles of consumption.

A fine salmon trout was caught in the bay yesterday morning by Mr ‘Jimmy’ Harmer, and it passed into the possession of Mr C. Loohs, steward of the Wakatu, who banded it over to his chef de cuisine (Louis, the 'doctor' of our favourite packet), and we doubt not that the delicacy would be highly relished by- those passengers responding to the call of the tintinabulum at dinner-time. ‘ Charley ’ never fails to secure for the ship’s table any ‘ titbits ’ that may be obtainable, and his attention to the gastronomic desires of those travelling by the Wakatu is thoroughly appreciated.

The writer of ‘ Random Shafts’ in the Marlborough News warmly approves of the Bill introduced by Major Steward requiring that shearers be provided with decent lodgings. ‘ Belshazear Binks ’ says:—The average station accommodation provided for the ‘ hands ' is hardly entitled to the name. Mr Buick’s remarks on the subject very forcibly put the case: but, even then, ‘the half has never been told.’ No person who has not had personal experience can form an adequate conception of the discomfort entailed on the shearers at many Marlborough stations. Packed like the proverbial ‘ sardines in a box,’ in dirty, ill-lined, and in some cases I could name, bug-infested buildings, it is no wonder that the class has at length revolted at the abuses that have so long obtained, and now demands that its men shall be treated like human beings, and not as animated machines.