Untitled

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 278, 27 December 1865, Page 2

We have heard from an authority not to be doubted that some intentions exist to change the course of the Main Trunk Road from the Kawarau, and that at a considerable expense it is to make a detour to the Arrow. The cheapest and shortest road isjthat required, and was thought the question had long ago been settled. Messrs Cobb and Co's tender has, we are given to understand, bom accepted for the conveyance of the Invercarfill mails to Kingston. The retrenchment scheme has had the effect of making this a weekly instead of a bi-weekly mail. The mail will close here every Thursday and leave Invercargill every Tuesday. The telegraph wires have been landed in Queenstown, and are in course of being carried to their proper places previous, we hope, to being at once stretched along the poles. To cart the wires out along the route, and then allow them to remain useless on the ground, would be an excess of folly ; and we trust Mr Superintendent Dick will see justice done us, so that the promises so often and so long made shall at last be fulfilled. We observe that a portion of Southberg and Company's machinery, for their reef claim at Skipper's, has arrived in Queenstown, consigned to Messrs Hallenstlin and Co. The vote of 2,000/ for a bridge over the Shot" over is, we are informed, to be expended on that part of the river known as Foster's Ferry. We beg to remind the publicans of the district that this is the last day for them to send down their license fees for the annual licenses. The Rev Father Martin will, we are informed, visit the district in the course of the week. The ' Oamaru Times,' speaking of the manner in which the country districts were deprived of their just share of the revenue, says "it was simply from want of proper generalship. Had the country districts got their wants attended to before the Dunedin interests had obtained what they have striven for and secured—and this might have been effected through a combination of country members—there is little doubt that greater liberality would have been shown towards them. But it was a very repetition of a strategem which has often been successfully accomplished in the past: «First obtain for Dunedin all that she wants; and then should any other place want it, refuse it. Let us cajole the country members into lending us their support in matters which little concern them, and afterwards cast them off should they be presumptuous enough to crave even a crumb for their own little Pedlingtons.' It was a pity that that little grant of £35,000, and ten years' interest thereon, had been settled ere Oamaru and other places similarly circumstanced had got their wants supplied. As it is, the opportunity is gone, and regret is idle."

It is notified that the tender of Mr D. Proudfoot has been accepted for the construction of portions of road and approaches to Gentle Annie Bridge. Amount, 1284/ 4s 6d.

Of the labor market in the province, the 1 Evening Star* says:—" Our large contiactors are offering nine shillings a-day for common laborers, and still cannot obtain a sufficient number. Labor on the Goldfields is much wanted, and four pounds a-week is willingly paid for the rudest services. Female servants are not to be obtained, and we know of many instances during (he last few weeks of female domestic servants refusing forty pounds per year! In the Provincial Council the other evening it was officially stated that * the Immigration agent had applica. tions for four times the number of working men that there were seeking employment.' These are facts which cannot be gainsayed. That many people have left the Province during the last year is true, but the cause of their leaving has not been fairly stated. They left, not because they could not get employment of a remunerative character, but simply because recent gold discoveries in an adjacent province had presented temptations too golden to be resisted. No one willing and able to labor need be reduced so low as is stated. But there is a street-corner class who will not work."

The Governor has declared the following persons naturalised subjects of Her Majesty under the "Naturalisation Act, 1865": Dominic Galosi, Joseph Gregori, Nivard Jourdan, Francis Del Moute, Stephen Passinetti, all Roman Catholic priests, Auckland; Bendix Hallenstein, Queenstown, Otago; and Edward Dow, Collingwood, Nelson.

The 'New Zealand Advertiser,' in its Summary for Europe, says:—" However, the Middle Island Association is established, and they have commenced work, while in Otago the Separation lame is fanned by political adventurers of the Yogel class, and the ' Auckland phalanx' at the North are agitating vigorously in the same direction."

It was remarked (says the •Nelson Examiner') at the time of the New Zealand Exhibition, that the tradesmen exhibiting the varbus works of art and industry got the credit of them, rather than the mechanics and artizans, to whose skill and labor they owed their origin. The same sentiment is expressed in the following remarks from a Melbourne paper:—" Workmen should be proud of their craft, and regard it as something beyond a merely sordid spirit, if tbey are to accomplish real and lasting success; and upon the cultivation of a genuine industrial ambition among the working classes depends the true manufacturing prosperity of the country. Few projects are better calculated to foster this spirit than exhibitions of the work of real artisan competitors. The Anglo-French Exhibition now open at the Crystal Palace appears to be the most successful attempt at realising the idea; but even this falls far short of representing the individual triumphs of handicraft in£England and France. One who inspected the show with a keen desire to appreciate, thus expresses his ,disappointment:— ■ There is little or no evidence of competition. It is impossible to judge of the relative merits of any trade in England and France. I find an important French committee, much enthusiasm among the promoters and directors of the exhibition, and all over a most friendly international spirit. But the first feeling of the visitor on passing the turnstile must be one of surprise as he advances amid the cabinet work and pianos of pretentious advertising firms. Working men fashioned these cheap drawing-room sets, these sycamore chairs, and this row of highly polished pianos, but working men are not the exhibitors of them. This corner of the exhibition is simply a shop, and one in which there is no want of pushing attenddants.' It is evidently little better than a farce to call such efforts as these 'Working Men's Exhibitions.' Oue small chamber containing a hundred specimens of handicraft, fabricated by bona fide artisans, and exhibited by themselves? would do more to excite a healthy spirit of competition among the working classes than the entire contents of the Crystal Palace, with its dilettante relics of the Royal George, and pompous advertisements of Harper Twelvetree's soap.

The 'Evening Star 1 says:—"The agitation which recently took place in favor of the introduction of the Chinese into this province is likely to result in a successful issue. By the South Australian, Ho-a-Mee, an influential representative of the Chinese miners in Victoria, has arrived, and it is understood that he is deputed by Kong Meng and other Chinese merchants in that colony to inspect the mining districts of the province and report as to the advisability or not of a number of his countrymen coming over here. The Otago will bring six or seven of his countrymen, experienced in mining matters, and there can be little doubt that their report will- be the means of a large exodus from Victoria to the diggings of this province, which are actually yearning for labor."

The ' Dunstan Times' says that Mr Hislop has offered to deliver a lecture in February or March next, on behalf of the School, which was accepted with thanks by the School Committee.

We have heard the talk (says the ' Otago News Letter') of a new joint-stock company being about to be started for the establishment of a daily paper. Nay more, we heard that on Saturday last ten capitalists, in less than ten minutes, put down their names for a cool hundred each. But the affair will end, as it commenced, in talk.

A correspondent writes to the 'Southland Times' to contradict a statement made by the * News,' to the effect that a lad met his death near M'Gibbon's, at the Mataura, by a dray overturning and crushing him. The facts are stated as follows:—A man named George Turnbull, living in Gala-street, Invercargill, was in charge of a dray and two horses, and was travelling in company with two other draymen, all loaded for Switzer's diggings. At the time of the accident they were going down a somewhat steep hill f about five miles beyond Gore and Turnbull had hold of the head of his shaft-horse, when the animal, suddenly swerving, Turnbull was knocked down, and one of the wheels of the dray (which was heavily loaded) passed over him. His escape was almost miraculous, as in all probability he would have been killed on the spot but for the fact that the impetus given the dray in going down the incline, propelled it so quickly over his body as to cause but little injury. He was taken to the accommodation-house at Gore, where every assistance was rendered, and after a short time he quite recovered from the effect of the accident.

The Dunedin Correspondent of the ' Oamaru Times,' writing on the 19th inst, says:—" Our Provincial Council cannot get through a session without its usual little excitement. Mr Moss and his colleagues resigned their seals of office yesterday, and as the news spreads no one will be able without some trouble, to find out why. Everything appeared to be going on swimmingly. The obedient Government, which did not try to lead the Council, but which was content to be first in the 'ruck' and go ahead by being pushed from behind, had carried nearly all its resolutions and its Bills and Estimates were nearly all passed, and everything betokened a close of the session at the end of the week, when the Ministerial ship sails plump on a rock and goes down at once.