THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 60, 11 March 1871, Page 2

THE WEEK.

In his charge to the Grand Jury on Monday last, the Judge mentioned casually that he had heard that money was scarce, and up to very lately I held the same opinion, at which I had arrived, not, like his Honor, from mere hearsay, but, I regret to say, from hard practical experience. Now, however, I begin to thiuk that it is a mistaken notion, for I am quite sure that unless money had, not only not been scarce, but on the contrary been exceedingly plentiful, both with private individuals and public bodies, it would never had been thrown away in such a manner as we have witnessed in Nelson during the last week. I don't know that a newspaper writer is quite right in commenting upon what takes place in a Court of law when two individuals choose to resort to it to obtain a remedy for their real or imaginary wrongs, but, on Thursday last, we had such a warning against

rashly going to law, that, on the other hand, I am not quite clear that a contributor to the public press would be justified in refraining from specially icferring to a case which, if brought under the notice of possible litigants, might induce them to pause before making themselves practically acquainted with lawsuits and their probable results. We see a farmer who, has a grievance againsta mercantile nVm for not i-nsuring to the lull value a quantity o/corn whicb/'he sends to them for sln'^ment, con^quently he puts the whole machiuery,of the law in motion to recover what he believes to be his rights. There are attorneys, barristers, and special jurymen, writs, pleadings, declarations, aud all sorts of mysteries of which laymen know nothing until the trifling bill of costs is presented. All these little luxuries are, it seems, absolutely necessary beforo you ctm get the few pounds that are owed to you, aud then, if, as in the present case, i he plaintiff is fortunate enough to obtain a verdict, ho pockets perhaps some five and twenty oounds. But there is stil'h a per contra, and although the losing party is supposed to pay the costs, there are a few little incidental expeuses which the successful litigaut caunot call upon his opponent to meet, and the result is that although he wins his suit, he is still a poorer man than was the case prior to his commencing the action. Of the bill that the losing side will be called upon to pay I having to say s iy, but of this I am quite sure, that both plaintiff and defendants are losers by the transaction, and that nobody is one whit the better off with the exception of the legal gentlemen engaged. This is one of the instances to which I referred as showing that money is not so scarce as is generally supposed, for no one in this hard matter-of-fact age would voluntarily take upon himself to transfer a portion of the filthy lucre, after which we are all striving, from his own to his fellow man's pocket unless he had a superabundance of it. The other case to which I alluded as proving that there is no scarcity of money is an entirely different one. We have from time to time been led to believe that the colouial treasury was in .-nything but a plethoric state, but it is a real pleasure to find that this is entirely a mistake; the Government, on the contrary, having more money at their disposal than they know what to do with. There is one characteristic feature of our present Government that I do like — there is none of your miserable cheese-paring economy about them, they have the power of spending the public funds and they do it in right good style, like jolly good fellows as they are. Now, suppose some parsimonious lot had been in office who pretended that it was their duty to see that not a peony was spent unless there was an absolute necessity for such expenditure, does auy one suppose that our carters and laborers would have had the work that has lately been provided for them by the substitution of nice, new, fresh-looking telegraph poles for, the weather-beaten old things that so lately disgraced our streets ? And then does not every one know that there is no totara in Nelson (totara it appears is necessary, because red pine, after a five years' trial has proved that ifc won't rot), and so our kind thoughtful Government send us all the way from Wellington some beautifully-sawn posts of that particular kind of timber, for, once having made up their minds to be liberal, they don't care about freight and wharfage and extra carting ; they like to do the thing handsomely, and are not to be deterred by any such trifling consideration as that of expense. I cannot conceive anything pleasanter than living under a liberal Government in a wealthy country like New Zealand, where there is plenty of mouey to spend on luxuries. We have had our usual sitting of the Supreme Court during the week, but there was a very small amount of business to be transacted. However, that which we had to do, we did well and thoroughly. There were only two unfortunate prisoners to be tried for some trivial offence, but we had our characters to maintain as loyal subjects, and upholders of tho majesty of the law, so we summoned twenty-seven grand jurors and six and thirty petty jurors, and a whole cloud of witnesses,^,rfd I am sure it must be a source of thejffreatest gratification to the two priscapFs to feel that so many respectable houJ^iolders displayed, at considerable inotfTvenience to themselves, so mark^f^m interest in their welfare as to cgjjfregate at the Provincial Hall, 'from JT parts of the town and country. W We are feeling the loss of the Airedale considerably just now. lam told that we are not likely to have a steamer from the South for a. long time, as the Taranaki which was expected here to-morrow or next day is, it is rumoured,, about to return from Wellington, where she now is, to Dunedin before paying us a visit. If this be the case, some alteration is evidently required in our inter-provincial

steam communication. Our Government is extremely anxious to conciliate the residents in all the larger provinces and consequently, as there was some little difficulty as to which should be the port of call for the American steamers, has arranged that they shall touch at all the ports that have a claim to the honor, quite regardless of the expense that such an arrangement will eutail. Nelson, lam sorry to say, is not to be one of the favored portions of the colony ; hut I have been considering a little plan whereby her communication with the other provinces might be considerably increased Teetotallers are very fond of going into iutricate calculations to prove that if their desired converts would drink so many glasses of beer the less they would have a larger sum of money at their disposal for other purposes. Now I think a similar theory might be carried out in other matters, for instance, suppose the authorities, instead of spending the revenue upon erecting new telegraph posts in places where they are not altogether necessary, were to lay out the money on improving the inter-proviucial steam service. Our streets would certainly not look so well as they do with the new posts, but then the convenience of having regular commutiicatioij with the other ports would not be a b|d set off. I won^rer how many poles it would take to pajpfor a steamer subsidised to look us ugpt intervals of a fortnight or so. P The mention of teetotallers aud liquor reminds me of a 'questiou I am desirous of asking. I want to know whether there is any affinity between malt and beer ; at present I am disposed to think that there is not, and for this reason. A year or two ago barley, from which malt is popularly supposed to be made," was five and six shillings a bushel, now, I believe, it is only three, and yet beer continues v at the same price. Some people think there ought to be a proportionate reduction, and I am not prepared to say that they are altogether wrong. The brewers ought to feel greatly indebted to me for thus publicly suggesting how they might dispose of a larger quantity of their manufacture. lam exceedingly sorry to find, from advertisements in the newspapers, and posters that are exhibited in the shop windows, that we have some dishonest people amongst us. I can imagine a kleptomaniac appropriating the coin of the realm or something that he could convert into money whenever he had the opportunity ; but the abstraction of a bishop's gown is a refinement of theft for which I was quite unprepared. What can the thief propose to do with it ? Had the robbery occurred two months earlier, one would have imagined that he purposed personating one of their lordships at the General Synod, but at present we can but exclaim in blank amazement the title of one of ßulwer's novels, "What will he do with it ? " F.