THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 12, 13 January 1872, Page 2

THE WEEK.

1 have uot ou the present occasion to speak of a very lively week, or of one tliat has been matked by any stirring events. The close, sultry weather that we have had of late seems to have .had a' depressing effect upon business generally, which has beeu, aud still continues to be, dull in the extreme. From the country the accounts that reach us are cheerless and unsatisfactory, and tho farmers are looking forward with gloomy apprehensions to the future that is in store for

them. Brown pastures, and shrivelled corn crops are not calculated to raise ihe spirits of those who are dependent on their farms for n living. "Oh 1 for a three days' soaking rain," is the exclamation that can be heard on all sides, for the long-continued drought and scorching heat are not without lheir effect upon human beings as well as upon wheac aud oals, and from both the animal and vegetable kingdom there comes an earnest prayer for the rain for which for the last two months we have been so eagerly craving. The English mail via San Francisco, which arrived on Wednesday last, is with one exception entirely barren of any news of an interesting nature. The tidings of the dangerous illness of the Prince of Wales, although they reach us through an American, and consequently a very unreliable, channel, can scarcely be looked upon as otherwise than correct, as the various bulletins are said to have been issued by the physicians in attendance. Should these not be exaggerated, there appears to be very small hope of his recovery, and we must ba fully prepared to hear by the Suez mail, due in a fortnight's time, that his illness has terminated fatally. The sympathies of the English people have been very fully expressed on this occasion, and in a manner that must have proved most gratifying to the Queen sand the Princess of Wales. The decease of the heir to the Ihrone is au event that cannot be looked forward to without giving rise to grave considerations of the probable effect it would produce upon the political state of England, and the arrival of the next mail will bo most anxiously looked for in the Australian colonies. The commercial news is highly satisfactory, as wool, we are told, is sfill keeping up to the high rates recently realised, and shows, if anything, a tendency to rise still further. New Zealand preserved meats, it is said, are also meeting with a ready sale, and if this contiuues to be the case we may look forward to large exports of this produce from the colony. One of our representatives has during the week contrived, by the publication of an ill-considered letter, to bring about him a perfect hornet's nest. Io the space of a very few lines he has abused and ridiculed the proposed Foxhill railway, of which the Nelson people have expressed their unqualified approval, and which he himself, three months since, voted for in the House, at the same time assuring his friends here that he considered it to be a desirable undertaking ; and he has also given offence to the directors of the various mining companies hero by alluding to them in the most uncalled for manner ia terms which some of them are disposed to look upon as most insulting. Altogether he has voluntarily got himself into as pretty a scrape as it is possible to conceive, aod how he is going to get out of it I am at a loss to know. But probably he may, at

the meeting of his constituents, which it is expected he will call on his return from the West Coast, be able to afford a satisfactory explanation. Until then we must allow him to rest in peace. At his lecture last night Mr. Saunderp, while ho looked upon poli tics as a forbidden subject, threw out one or two hints which led those present to believe that he did uot accord his thorough approval to the policy of the present Colonial Government. As Mr. Stafford, who seconded the vote of thanks to him, remarked, it would be a pleasure to hear him deliver an address without placing any such restrictions upon himself. As. Mr. Saunders intends to remain in New Zealand, the probability is that, old politician as he is, he will soon again lake part in tho public affairs of the colony, and we shall then hear his opinion of what has been doing in the colony during the last few years. F.