THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 179, 26 July 1873, Page 2

THE WEEK.

Parliamentary proceedings are progressing at a pace thut entirely precludes the possibility of people at a distance possessing more than a passing idea of the principal performances of their representatives up to the present lime, No steamer having paid us a visit from Wellington for a week, we are altogether dependent upon the telegraph wires for our information of what is being done, and, seeing how liable our telegrams are to misinterpretation, it is almost impossible to form any opinion of the merits of the various measures introduced into Parliament. Bills are brought in, read the second time, and passed before we who are not on the scene know what are their provisions, and until they have bbcome law we shall bo entirely ignorant of the extent to which they may affect us. Everything appears to be going on swimmingly, and the Government so far have had it all their own way, and are likely to continue to do so. The Financial Statement, wo are told, is to be made within a fortnight from the opening of the session, and fastness seems to be the order of the day. However the drag will probably be put on wben really debateable matters come under discussion, and there are two Bills already spoken of that are not likely to pass through the House without fully trying the talking powers of the members. The one is the Miners Franchise Extension Bill, which, bo far as we are informed, purposes to give something like manhood suffrage to visitors to the colony of three months' standing, at, the expense of those who have borne the heat and burden of the dny for the last quarter of v century. Nelson members should have something to say to this. Another is the Education Bill, on which also our Nelson representalives will be able to speak with some degree of authority. But lam not in the veia for discussing politics.

In connection with politics however, these is one matter on which I should iiko to say a few words. Parliamentary Papers are beginning to«pour in upon us, and one of these which has com ■ under my notice is headed " Reports from Officers in Native Districts." Among others I find ft letter from Mr Bush, the clerk to the bench at Raglan, who it appears had, in accordance with instructions received, attended a native meeting at Aotea, and he reports for the information of the Native Minister a few speeches that were there made. The orators included a gentli-man of the name of Kopuera. It may be as well (o prefaeo what I have to I say with a retnatk of Mr Bush's relative to this kindly dispositioued individual. " His speech," he says, " waß a most extruordinary one. the speaker being apparently a very eccentric old man," and the estimate formed by Mr Bush of his character is a correct one. Kopuera has heard that 300 Ngatiraukawas, and 100 Europeans, all armed, have gone somewhere or other, it does not matter where, nnd he benevolently assures his hearers " If they are found there by mo they will be killed. The only liking I have for the European is as a relish to my cabbage." This leaves no doubt as to the intentiens of Mr Kopuera with regard to the Europeans after he luis killed them. The old rascal ! Can anything more humiliating bo possibly imagined ? That a highlycivilised European should msike a savory dish for an uncultivated savagw is not much to be wondered at, but the idea of being reduced, as it were, to the standard of the contonta of a vinegar cruet, a mere something to give a relish to a cabbnge, is rather too trying to a white man's feelings. If I were assured that my final resting-place was to be the stomach of n Maori chief, I should like to think that the honorable position in store for me was owing to some intrinsic merit of my own, and not to the mere fact of my forming a pleasant adjunct to a dish of cabbage. Ho is evidently a bit of an epicure in his way, is this Kopuera, and knows full well where the prime cuts are to be found, for at a later period of the meeting he is reported to have addressed a brother chief in the following cheerful strain : — " If your people, Hone, were making roads, your thighs would be eaten by me." I wonder if he really is an '• eccentric old man," or wMether it is that he is only natural in his homely way of speaking. As a specimen of what thirty years of civilisation will produce he ia perfect in his way, and I should like to make his acquaintance after ha had dined. I look upon drapers as real benefactors to the human race. lam referring juat now particularly to Nelson drapers, whose liberality during the past week has been beyond conception. We have all heard at intervals of a* stock-broking mania breaking out in some mining district, but that is as uothingcompareci with the stock-taking fit thnt has seized some of our most respected citizens. The symptoms of these two — diseases ehull ] call them ? — are very widely different. In the former, the persons afflicted do all they can to put money into their own pockets, in the latter the ruling passion shows itself iv a desire to benefit one's neighbors. How the fit originated it is not easy to suy, but the result is that these philanthropic dealers in soft goods are, at an " alarming sacrifice," of j their own interests, endeavoring to clothe the people of Nelson in purple and fine linen at prices that we have been accus toroed to associate with moleskins nnd blue smocks. lam perfectly flabbergasted. — no other word will accurately represent my sensations — at seeing, as I walk through the streets, notices attached to certain articles of clothing containing the information that although they are well worth 15/6, they are to be disposed of to an admiring public at the marvellously minute price of 9/7^-, other portions of drees being offered for sale at equally low rateß. 1 scarcely know which affords me the most gratification, the reflection that our Nelson drapers are so wealthy that they are in a position to lose 5/lo|- on every article they sell, or the consideration that having this amount of wealth at their disposal, they are willing to allow the public to share iheir gnod fortune with them. Most people who have accumulated riches are selfish enough to determine that they alone shall reap the benefit of their past 'toils. Not so the drapers. This reference to the highly prosperous financial condition of one section of our tradesmen, contrasts strangely with a statement made by a Fijian correspondent of an Australian paper, who remarks :— "The greatest everyday difficulty which has to be struggled against is that of finance, the absence and demand for coin." lam fain to confess-— with a heavy heart I own it — that all my sympathies are with the Fijians in this respect. This absence of, and demand for, coin is the very bane of my life, and if ever I should have the honor of being appointed the New Zealand correspondent of a Fiji newspaper, I should be strongly tempted to report that in this colony, too, the chief difficulty to bo struggled againat is that of finance. I hope I have not many companions in this misfortune, but lam a little afraid that their name is Legion. I ought to have been a parson, for I am one of tho best hands at wandering from my text and trenching upon subjects that have nothing to do with it that I know of. Professedly, my theme is " the week," but I have been running on about Bills that won't be passed for a couple of months ; I have been Bitting down to dinner — metaphorically only, please remember — with a native chief at Aotea aud talking of things that took place there three months ago; aud I have then had a confidential interview with my banker in the Fijis, and made a olean breast of it to him. In a twenty-minutes sermon — and we all know that no clergyman preaches for a longer time — no one could have more successfully kept his text at arm's length

PARLIAMENTARY.

from his discourse, and therefore I say again that I possess at least one of the qualifications of an orthodox parson. F.