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Motueka Star, Volume II, Issue 93, 4 July 1902, Page 5

The very extensive agencies which are directed by the Wesleyan Methodist Foreign Missionary Society, for evangelising the South Sea Islands, involve an expenditure of upwards of £17,000. Of this amount the comparatiuely new stations on New Britain and New Guinea contribute £6OO, New Zealand £I3OO, New South Wales and Queensland £4OOO, Victoria and Tasmania over £4OOO, while Fiji at one time thought a hopeless problem for mission effort bolds pride of place with £SOOO. No financial assistance is granted from the British Conference, and it is a gratifying proof of the vitality of the church and of the selfsupporting character of the missions, that the whole amount spent is raised in the colonies, and that one third of it come from the natives who have already benefitted by the missions. Misgivings were expressed by Mr Andrew Collins at the Wellington Trades Council meeting lest the company Mr Seddon is keeping at Home may corrupt -‘our Premier.” Said Mr Collins —“Take it from roe, Richard John Seddon has been a good LaborMinister to us in the past, but I’m afraid he will come back from Home a bloated Conservative.” The Kararaea people, having no telephonic communication with Vestport or any other centre, were quite unaware of the fact that the Coronation of the King had been postponed, and so they carried out their previously arranged programme in its entirety. Generally speaking (says the Post), the men who have returned by the Zealandia have had enough of South Africa. “Am I going back back again?” one trooper replied to a query this morning. “Not I; I haven’t enough money. It takes money to make money in South Africa.” Another trooper said that a number of New Zealanders had been offered work if they would return, but he thought the country was a bit too expensive to live in just yet. From Ist April to date no less than 430 drunkards were convicted in the City of Wellington. A woman, aged 62, drowned herself at Bentford, because a man, many years her senior, with whom she was in love, did not return her affections. As illustrating the powers and functions of the Maori Council, it is related that the chief of a settlement on the west coast came home drunk. The Maori Council met and promptly fined him 15s, and threatened if it occurred again to fine him £lO. There is evidently no favour for high officials in Maori justice. The other day a Wellington lady—an ardent devotee of the prevailing parlour pastime —gave birth to twins. She christened one “Ping,” and the other “ Pong.”