The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, February 4, 1911. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 950, 4 February 1911, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, February 4, 1911. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

“ This property” —referring to a house and section —“has been hanging fire in the market at £700,” said an Kastown resident to a representative of this paper recently, “ and I bought it. I grubbed the gorse, renewed the fencing and painted the house, and within three mouths was offered £3OO on my bargain ; but I’m not going to sell.” It is surprising what individual enterprise can acconij 'sh. It is this spirit of progress on the part of its citizens that has forged Wanganui ahead b] leaps and bounds. When their tramway scheme was first mooted, the croakers —many of whom, now affluent, were penniless when they arrived at our sister port —opposed the movement tooth and nail, but their misrepresentations were scouted and they were outvoted. The tramways are paying handsomely, and are a valuable asset to the town. A further loan of ,£25,000 for tramway extension, was carried this week, also loans of ,£15,000 and £II,OOO for water and drainage extensions. Wanganui’s patriotism is a bright example of true citizenship. Perhaps it is not fair to compare our little town with Wanganui, but one cannot help noticing by comparsion, the lack of enterprise and total indifference and apathy in municipal affairs on the part of a number of our citizens. Glance back at the past: When municipal gas works were mooted, the ratepayers, influenced by a few pessimists, rejected the loan, and subsequently “ paid through the nose ” for their shortsightedness ; water and drainage, so essential to the well-being of the community, was asked for, and a loan placed before the ratepayers, but apathy and misrepresentation came out victorious, the loan was rejected, and as a consequence we were held up to ridicule throughout the Dominion. Our obsolete hall was destroyed by fire, and our Council has decided to again lift the town out of the ruck by asking the ratepayers to sanction a loan of £2BOO in order to provide the town with a modern ball. Once more it is rumoured that the Jeremiads are wailing, and at a recent Council meeting a

Councillor stated that “a certain influential citizen was dead against the proposal because it was too much !” Ye gods, ' what does this “ influential ” citizen want for a paltry ,£2,800? Will the Councillor tell us vvh:;t this “ influential ” citizen has ever done lor Foxtou’s prosperity. Surely the time has come when there should be a shaking up of the dry bones. Let the flag of progress and optimism be unfurled above the miserable tattered rag of sordid greed and municipal stagnation.

All loyal subjects throughout the British Empire will be pleased to learu that the person who published the seditious libel against the King, which has been proved to have no foundation, in fact, has been punished to the full extent of the law —a year’s imprisonment. The punishment in this case does not fit the crime.

In 1892 the Duke of Clarence died, and King George thereupon became heir apparent to the Throne. The Duke of Clarence was betrothed to Princess May of Tack, and after his death a marriage was arranged between Princess May and King George (then Duke of York), which was duly solemnised on July 6, 1893. It has from time to time been alleged that when King George was a young sailor at Malta, with no hope of ever succeeding to the Throne, he married the daughter of a commoner. That marriage was legal enough then, but the death of his brother immediately made it void, and the prince had to separate from his first wife, who w?s provided for generously. The Bishop of Durham, speaking last year at the reunion of past and present students at St. Hilda’s College for Schoolmistresses at Durham, said it had been slanderously stated that King George had been secretly married to a lady not of Royal rank, and that his marriage with Queen Mary was therefore not legal. He wished to say with absolute confidence, from absolute knowledge, that this slander was an absolute fiction.

The Archbishop of York, preaching at the church parade of the Yorkshire Hussars Yeomanry, said : “ We may be thankful that King George is worthy of our personal loyalty, which you have to show, not only by wearing his uniform, but by speaking up for the King when you have the chance, and when you hear those backbiters who not are ashamed to say anything about their King. It belongs to you loyally to stand up and defend him. You may thank God that your King George is an example to every man; of the kind and dutiful life which everyone of his citizens ought to live.” In the course of an address to a congregation of Friendly Society members, the Dean of Norwich said: ‘‘We have now upon the Throne a King who, to my personal knowledge, is a man of intense self-sacrifice and high character. Against him one has heard brought two accusations, brought, as I think, by that part of society which is no society at all; but these things percolate down, and it is just as well that when speaking before a mass of people one should give the lie to those two accusations. In the first place, the King is sometimes accused of insobriety. You may take it from me, on undoubted authority, that that is a libel. As far as his close friends have noticed him, he has never been intemperate throughout his life, but, on the contrary, is more a man who, even from the point of view of health, has to be abstemious, and who has no desire to be anything else. I want you, generous-hearted men, who hear some light, stupid talk with regard to this irreverence to our King, to say with absolute confidence that there is not a more sober, temperate, quiet-living man in this country than King George. The other accusation is still mote unworthy. It is that prior to his marriage he had what is called a secret morganatic marriage, with children by it. That is absolutely root and branch an untruth. He has now undertaken the greatest responsibilities which any man can undertake, and I ask for him justice, fair dealing, confidence, loyalty, and love in his task.”