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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 175, 6 August 1874, Page 2

Harmonic Society.-— This Society will give the usual quarterly concert at the Provincial Hall to-night, when Gounod's Mass will form the first part, the second being devoted to miscellaneous rnußic. New Telegraph Office.-— We understand that the vacant piece of ground between Mr Stanton's and Mr Webb's in Trafalgar-street has been purchased by the General Government as a site for a new telegraph office. In this the public convenience has certaiuly not been considered, as the intimate connection between the post and telegraph offices renders it necessary that they should be close together instead of being a quarter of a mile opart ns for the future they will be. The Provincial Government should surely be consulted in a matter of this kind, upon which they are the best fitted to give advice, instead of which tbe first that is heard of it is that the land has been bought and all the arrangements made. Tbe Wellington correspondent of the Canterbury Presa writes as follows under date July 21 :— The Budget speech of 1874-5 has been made. This year the statement has been made earlier than for many sessions past; and it was the shortest, and I take leave to think the most successful, Mr Yogel has ever made. I need hardly say every member at present in Wellington was in his place; and as this is one of the occasions on which the public muster strongly, the galleries were crowded. At half-past seven, Mr Yogel began, and for one hour and a quarter he spoke with the air of a man who knew he controlled the position. " I told you it wonld be so " was the burden of the song as sung to his supporters, and " will you believe me now?" the strain in which he addressed his opponents. Of course there has not been sufficient time for members to weigh the speech and the policy sketched iv it; but on the whole it is considered highly satisfactory. A surplus of £207,000, which is unparalleled in tho colony's history, would close the mouths of most quasigrumblers. The extreme interest with which Mr Yogel was listened to was noticeable. Now and then he met with responsive cheers, as when he acknowledged that the ad valorem duties had yielded the increase which the opposition of last session declared they would, aud when he declared that defence expenditure must be to a large extent a permanent charge. Didn't the Hous. prick up its ears when the Premier came to the question of provincial borrowing. The burly Superintendent of Otago was all ears then. And how dexterously Mr Yogel has snuffed out of existence the new batch of little pigs at the moment of their conception 'you will have seen by that portion of the speech dealing with provincial borrowing which was fully telegraphed to you. But how hardly and yet quietly be hit Mr T. B. Gillies. " See how be mismanaged the affairs of Auckland, to bring that large province into a state of bankruptcy; ergo what would the colony have been brought to if he had controlled its finances," was in effect the question put to the House. Only once did Mr Yogel descend to bathos, aod that was iv the midst of his exordium, when contrasting the New Zealand of 1869 with the New Zealand of 1874, he said the difficulty of the Government had been to know what to do with its surplus. A visible smile went round the House, and even Mr Vogel'a colleagues joined therein. The proposal to increase the salaries of the civil servants met with general approval, but a good many think it might have been a little larger. The Premier at the conclusion of his speech was loudly cheered.