The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 1870.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 175, 27 July 1870, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 1870.

i Masonic Goldmining Company. — As , will be seen by advertisement, a call oi ten shillings per share has been made by this Company, aud is payable during the current week. Outward Mails. — We have been requested to state for the information of those who have Indiau correspondents, that the Suez mail will be dispatched by the RaDgitoto which arrived at Hokitika this morning, and may be expected to sail from Nelson on or about Friday next. The San Fraucisco mail closes ou Thursday next, the 4th inst. Telegraphic. — We learn from the Wellington papers that Mr. J. W. Blackett, agent for the Telegraph Construction aud Maintenance Company, has arrived at Wellington from Melbourne. Mr. Blackett is understood to be in communication with the Government with a view of undertaking to. lay a cable between Australia aud New Zealand, the company offering to complete arid, maintain the line in consideration of their having a monopoly of the. inter-colonial telegraph for a term of years. Colonial Exhibition. — An Exhibition of manufactures and produce is to be held in Sydney next month, at which the Australasian group of colonies is to be well represented, but we have not yet heard of any articles being sent from Nelson. A gentleman writing from Sydney to a friend here, says — " Ido not think that Nelson should be behindhand, as with her ample stores'of coal, timber, plumbago,&c, together with her domestic manufactures of cloth, flax, jams, &c, she would make an excellent show." We can fully endorse this suggestion as it must ultimately tend to our advantage to make kuown to the world our plentiful natural resources, together.with the advances we have made in manufacturing the raw material at our disposal. Nelson Waterworks. — We have lately I'eeeived many enquiries relative to the accounts of the receipts and expenditure connected with the waterworks, many persons desiring to know why the I particulars of the assessment and amounts paid are not' published for general iuformation. On making enquiry from 'the Collector we learn that on the Ist of April in each year the assessment is made and the raie books are then, for one month, open to the inspection of the public who, however,, .do not appear to take much" interest in the matter, as during the present year but three persons have applied for leave to inspect the books, which, we may state, are audited every month by the Provincial Auditor. Once in every year a return of the assessment an : d amount received is prepared for the Provincial Council and is published in the papers. The Collector assures us that he is always ready and willing to afiord to any individual ratepayer any information he may be desirous of obtaining. The Board of Works and the Press. — Certain remarks, which in justice to ourselves we cannot allow to pass unnoticed, were made yesterday by some of the newly elected members of the Board of Works with reference to the scantiness ; of the newspaper reports of the proceedings of that body. . Standing prominently forward among those who were ambitious of having their ipsissima verba retailed to the public was Mr. Percy, who was of opinion that the speeches made at the fortnightly meetings should be fully reported in the local journals. Allowances are always to be made for words spoken in the i excitement of victory, and consequently, we are not disposed to believe that Mr. II Percy was altogether in earnest when he , stated it as his opinion that the business s was got through with greater facility by ■ all the members speaking at once, and at ! the same time expressed a wish that full | reports might be given of the proceedings. .Those of our readers who have occasionally been present in a public room when Various persons have been conversing on different subjects will be in a position to form a moderately correct idea of what constitutes a "debate", in the Board of Works, and will understand the difficulties that stand in the way of giving anything

1 like a faithful report of what is said, but, independently of this, we question whether 1 the speeches of members on ordinary matters are possessed of sufficient interest to the public to justify their publication in the columns of the newspapers. Occasionally when certain principles are being discussed, it may be interesting to the ratepayers to learn the opiuious of their representatives in the Board, but it can hardly be a matter of importance to them to learn by what process of reasoning the conclusion has been arrived at that a load of gravel should be put here, or a ditch cleaned out there; it is quite sufficient for them to know that it has been decided to do this or that work without being informed of the particulars of the discussion that led .to the decision. If, however, - the members of the Board still insist upon the necessity of all their sayings as well as of their doings being made public we will endeavor to gratify their desire by obtaining as nearly as possible a verbatim report of the proceedings at one of their forinightly meetings.

The "Australasian" on Protection. — -"The horae-ieech hath two daughters, crying 'Give, give,'" says the Book . of Proverbs, and protectionists all over the world emulate the rapacity of the horse-leech's offspring. It was so in England and it is so in the Uoited States and in Victoria. In a weak moment the head of the present Administration, when the chief of a former Government, surrendered his couvictions as a free-trader and yielding to the clamour of the least instructed portion of the community, consented to make protection the bisis of our fiscal policy. As a matter of course, that concession has led to increased demands for protection. The tariff which was to exclude British and foreign merchandise, to keep all the gold in the colony, to diffuse universal prosperity, and transform 1 Victoria into a fool's Paradise, has disappointed the expectation of its enthusiastic partisans. It has not repealed the laws of nature. It has not dotted the country with manufactories, covered our mountain slopes with viueyards and olive gardens, nor "scattered plenty o'er- a smiling land." Therefore the Melbourne disciples of Colonel Sib'thorpe, assembled in public meeting at St. Patrick's Hall, have insisted upon the imposition of additional and heavier duties. When Mr. 'Lazy Loon experiences what he calls " a sinking," he has recourse to a nobbier of braudy, to remedy the inconvenience.-.- The relief is only . temporary;-. • In fact, the stimulant increases the evil it is intended to allay. Whereupou Mr. Lazy Loon takes double the quantity of brandy,; and takes it twice as often. By -persevering in this system of counteracting, the; "deplorable depression*' from which he suffers, he eventually succeeds, in landing himself in a fit of delirium tremens, uriderthe influence of which he cuts his throat, or* puts an end to his life, by hauging, drowning, or poison. He has protected himself out of existence, just as America has protected its mercantile marine off the face of the ocean. If, on first experiencing the "sinking," Mr. Lazy Loon had gone to a i respectable physician instead of to the dram shop, and had been advised to work hard, eschew stimulauts, and obey the natural laws of hygiene, he might have been a prosperous aud happy man. And in like manner, if every description of iudustry were left to start, and sustain itself iu the bracing atmosphere of healthy competition, and if shallow-minded, and shortsighted politicians would only bring their miuds to believe that God's laws are infinitely wiser and better than anything which colonial sages are capable of devising, we should riot witness the humiliating spectacle of a room full of people looking for more protection and talking childish nonsense about an "alarming decrease in the circulating medium." There was a protectionist once, JEsop tells us, who when his bullock dray got bogged, flopped down in the mud, and implored Jupiter to extricate it for him. The answer, which the god made is still on record, and we recommend it to the attention of the friends of protection. As the decree has gone forth, says the Australasian, that the tariff must be increased, and that there is no necessity for the importation of numerous articles that now reach us from abroad, we trust we shall not be considered guilty of presumption in suggesting to the protectioiiists|the application of their principles to an article^of^universal consumption— to

wit, tea. We have made a careful calculation which leads us to the conclusion that' tea might be grown here so as to be retailed, with profit to the producer, at abonfc half a guinea a pound ; the difference between that price and the price at which it is now sold representing the difference between the value of labor in China and Victoria. A protective duty of Bs. or 93. a pound would bring up the cost of the imported article to the consumer to the required figure. In the year 1869, duty was paid upon' 5,175,4431bs of tea, the value of which may be roughly estimated at half a million sterling. ' Thidc of that 1 We might keep hdlf'a million of money in the country, and employ some thousands of our population in plantiug, hoeing, watering, gathering, sorting, drying, sifting, roasting, twisting, manipulating, artificially colouring, classifying, and packing tea if we only had an. import duty of Bs. or 9s. a pound upon the foreign article. Why should go on paying half a million per annum to a harde of igaorant underpaid pagans when our owu soil and climate are admirably adapted to the growth of tea ? Why should we continue to " buy in the cheapest market" what we can raise at our own doors, at not more thau quintuple or quadruple the price we now give for it ? Only imagine the number of masons and slaters who would be employed in the construction of sorting, drying, roasting, and packing houses ; and what brisk employment would be afforded to ironfounders in making the pans which are used in the various processes. We are conscious that we are borrowing arguments from the armoury of the protectionists, but we trust they will excuse us, in consideration of the practical direction which we are giving to their efforts. To be sure, the consumers of, tea in. this colony might object to pay half a guinea a pound for the materials of the beverage which " amused the evening, solaced the midnight, and welcomed the morning" of Dr. Johnson, but all genuine protectionists will bear us out in the assertion that thoy never consnlt the interests of the consumer, and that protection, rightly interpreted, means the plunder of the mauy for the gain of the few. A Mes. G-oyder, the wife of the Surveyor, geueral of South Australia, died lately from taking an overdose of Batty's seJasive. This is called a Colorado romance: — Seven miners exploring the mountains, found an enormous chunk of gold. They fought for its possession till all were killed but one. It was too heavy for him to carry off, so he sat down beside ifc and starved to death. — Philadelphia Ledger. If the Eastern Budget is to be believed, the Emperor "and Empress of Austria have this Ea3ter performed in the throneroom of the Imperial Palace the ancient ceremony of washing the feet of a number of poor old men and women. The feet of the women were washed by the Court Chamberlain and dried by the Empress, while Prince Hoheuloe and the Emperor performed the saras office for the men. After the ceremony their royal highnesses hung round the neck of each of the poor people a bag containing thirty pieces of silver, and they were then sent homa in court carriages, each with a battle of wine and a dinner.

Mr. Francis Ronalds, Inventor op the Electric Telegraph.— The uame of Mr. Francis Konalds was lately recorded as having received the honor of knighthood. Who ia Mr. Francis Ronalds? was a question more likely to be asked than answered. Mr. Ronalds is neither more or less than the originator of our telegraph system. To him does not indeed belong the merit of having been the first to conceive the idea of conveying signs to distant places by means of electricity; that was suggested by more than one person in the last century, but never put into a practical'shape. Mr. Ronalds however, was the very first either here or abroad, to invent an electric telegraph so constructed as to be capable of extensive application, and so far back as 1823, he fully developed its principal and mode of action. Still, earlier, viz. in 1816, he . had constructed a working telegraph, and on offering it to the then Government received an auswer which can never be too often cited as an instance of official complacency : — " Telegraphs of any kind are now wholly unnecessary, and no other than the one now in use will be adopted." Nothing daunted by this apathy, Mr. Ronalds matured his invention, N and ia 1823, published a "Description of an Electric Telegraph, and of some other Electrical Apparatus," in which, after fully describing his invention with figures and diagrams, he predicted in these striking works the uses to which it was capable of being applied : — " Why should not our Kings hold Councils at Brighton with their ministers in Londou? Why should not our Government govern at Portsmouth almost as promptly as ia Downing- street? Why should our defaulters escape by reason of our foggy climate? Let us have electrical conversazione offices all over the kingdom if we can. Give me material enough and T. will electrify the world." Mr. Ronalds was too far ahead of his time, and too purely a man of science to secure a hearing for his discovery in those early days; and it was left to others to mature his idea, and to establish the system which his prophetic eye had foreseen would one day trausform the world. It was not till 1837, fourteen years after Mr. Ronalds' pamphlet, that Messrs. Cook and Wheatstone took out their first patent. The science and practical skill of these and other eminent electricians have brought electric communication to its present advanced state, but the great fact remains that Mr. Ronalds was the first to demonstrate practically the principle, which they have developed. At last, thanks to Mr Gladstone's sympathy with genius, the special merits of Mr. Ronalds as a pioneer in this great field of action have received public recognition. Mr. Ronalds, although still an active devotee in science is now in a very advanced age. A little longer, and his honors might have come too late. Several years ago, the Pall Mall Gazette called attention to his place among great; inventors, and urged his claims to some public acknowledgement. " Rome was not built in & day," but in ■ in these modern times of railways, telegraphs, and goldfields, cities spring up ia a few months where there had previously been a desert. The latest instance of this is Port Said, the City of the desert, which already possesses a newspaper. With, mavellous rapidity there has sprung up ia 1 a few months a town built with great regularity, with large streets, enormous squares, a spacious harbor with two piers, a lighthouse with a powerful electrical light seen at a distance of twenty-five miles, spacious quays, public fountains, , vast warehouses, a number of churches, a hospital, workshops, and a large number of commercial establishments, of which the number is ever on the increase. In a case heard in a London police court the other day, a foreign detective ia court said that for the prevention and defectiou of crime, and the exposure of frauds and villiany of every description, English newspapers were worth more than all the police in Europe. Return of Our Commissioners. — Dr. Featherstone is expected out" in November, (says the Canterbury Press), Mr. Dillon Bell will probably remain longer. "My dear wife," as the man said when he looked at his last milliner's bill.