NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16486, 27 February 1914, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A correspondent supplies the very gratifying information that the gentleman referred to in these columns on Tuesday as the “ late Mr Charles E. Douglas,” a West Coast explorer and surveyor, “is still hale and hearty, living quietly in Hokitika.” Many people who have not the pleasure of being personally acquainted with Mr Douglas will be glad to learn that so worthy a pioneer is still in the land of the living enjoying the rest and appreciation he has so well earned.

Sumner and New Brighton claim that they cannot afford to provide decent facilities for the surf bathers, while Timaru makes a handsome annual profit by doing in Caroline Bay what the Christchurch seaside boroughs leave undone on their own beaches. If the two boroughs really are in the impoverished condition suggested by their excuses, they had better let private enterprise serve the bathers and reap the profit. But surely all that is required is a small display of enterprise on their part. The simple fact is that Sumner and New Brighton havo realised hut dimly in tho past the advantages conferred upon them by Nature. They have grown to regard holiday-makers as a dispensation of Providence instead of as sources of profit requiring to be handled in a businesslike and enterprising way.

Life can bo exciting in Argentina on occasions. “Last night an unknown man started firing his revolver off for fun in Monte Caseros,” ran a paragraph in a recent issue of a Buenos Aires newspaper. “ A sergeant and three policemen chased him on horses but they were kept somewhat in check by the unknown ' directing his fire against them as they came up the street. Ho wounded two, knocking one off his horse, and then the sergeant, who is a courageous follow, sent the others away for help and a doctor, whilst he himself attacked the man. Eventually he caught him but on the road to the station the man escaped." The gentleman with the revolver had shot two policemen and he got away on a policeman’s horse, but it. does not appear that his escapade aroused very much interest. The newspaper recorded the incident in a brief paragraph placed among some other local news.

A great many people rubbed their eyes in London last month when they discovered whole pages of their daily newspapers to bo occupied by explanations of why ambitious young men ought to join the Army. The War Office has decided that recruits can be secured by 'the methods that private enterprise adopts in selling pills and soap, and its advertisements are big and impressive. They announce that “to all single men of good character between eighteen and twenty-five years of age the Army offers good wages, good food and unique opportunities for sports and games—the surest means of keeping a man fit for service in the field.” The prospective recruits are assured that they will have comfortable quarters, opportunities to see the world and chances to save money and acquire knowledge of skilled trades. “You have seen that a private is well off in the Army,” ■ intinues the seductive invitation, “ but any steady and well-conducted soldier with ambition may well look forward to promotion and consequent increase of pay and improvement of position. The chance of being offered a commission as officer has been made greater of late, and may certainly be considered as a possibility by any ambitious young man who joins the Army.” The War Office’s new venture is expected to fill the ranks of the regular Army, which really is able to offer a young worker bettor pay and wider opportunities than industrial life affords him.

The abandonment of the naval manoeuvres on the score of economy and the issue of supplementary estimates providing for the expenditure of the best part of a million sterling on oil fuel give colour to some recent reports regarding the Admiralty’s difficulties in securing fuel for the new

warships The price of the crude oil has risen to £4 or £4 10s a ton and Britain has battleships, light cruisers and destroyers designed to use it exclusively. The rates ruling to-day mean that oil is about four times as oxpensivo as coal on a consumption basis. “ A flotilla of twenty destroyers on exercises burns *vAJO tens of oil a day,” says a London newspaper. “Even at £4 10s a ton the Admiralty is unable to procure enough cil, or nearly oncugh, for peace requirements. Under tho circumstances the flash point has been reduced from 20OF to 150 F, and in some cases the oil contains so much sulphur that tho effects of the fumes are highly injurious. Even under theso conditions oil is so scarce that it is probable that a number of torpedo craft will shortly be taken out of active commission.” Apparently tho Admiralty erred in not making sure of its supply of oil oefore building warships which could not burn coal in their furnaces.

Auckland people are discussing the possibility of establishing a model garden suburb within a few miles of the heart of their busy city. About three miles seaward from the Auckland wharves, towards the B'auraki Gulf, there is a beautiful block of Maoriownoa land, called Orakei, fronting the Waitemata for a mile or so, and directly facing the North Head of the tiarbour. This block, of some six hundred acres, an exceedingly valuable one already, is chiefly used for grazing purposes, and all but a small plot in Orakei Bay, whore there is a native village, is leased to European farmers. There are some fine groves of pohutukawa on tho cliff-edges, and the whole Orakei seafront is a very picturesque part of the southern shoreline. For a long time past private speculators hi ve been ousting-longing eyes on Orakei, and it would be a splendid piece of land io cut up into infinitesimal sectious at “ boom ” prices.

The Auckland City Council, however, is blocking the speculator, and is endeavouring to acquire the land through the Government as a new suburb for the already overcrowded city. Tho idea is for the municipality to retain the freehold and to lay out the block, excluding a small area for the present Maori owners, as a model suburb, with wide streets, gardens, decorative buildings and a sea esplanade. The scheme is as yet only in its early stages, and the little tribe of Maoris is inclined to resent the rather masterful fashion in which the Auckland municipality is counting its garden city chickens while offering a none too generous price for the property. Orakei is the headquarters of the tribe that sold the site of Auckland to the white man three generations ago for a very small consideration in trade goods and moUoy, and the little remnant of the old landowners deserve to be treated well. Should Auckland acquire the site it will have an opportunity to show Australasia what it can do in the way of hygienio and beautiful town planning.

An Auckland visitor to Akaroa, writing in the “ New Zealand Herald,” declares among other strange things that “ Pompey, the penguin, shares with Pelorus Jack the unique distinction of being protected by Act of Parliament.” This will be news indeed to Pompey, as well as to the other inhabitants of the delightful little seaside town. Akaroa’s mascot, with his “game” foot and his knowing look and his domesticated ways, has not been singled out yet for the distinction of. Parliamentary protection, a “ tapu ” which he scarcely needs as he is regarded by the local, folk as one of themselves and as of • hardly less importance that the Mayor of the borough.

The story of a special Aot of Parliament having been' passed for the protection of Pelorus Jack has secured such wide acceptance that it seems almost sacrilegious to question it. For the Auckland visitor’s own information, however, it may be mentioned, that the lone dolphin of the Marlborough Sounds has never been protected by statute. The truth is that the species to which he belongs, Risso’s dolphin or grampus griseus, is under the general protection of an Order-in-Council, which states that it “shall not be lawful to take such fish in the waters of Cook Strait or in the adjoining sounds or bays.” This Order-in-Council close season expires on May 31, 1914, and it looks very much as if the celebrated pilot of the French Pass steamers would require no further protection. He has not been seen for many months past, and the local people are concluding that he has gone to the bourn from which no good fish rcturneth.