THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 141, 16 June 1877, Page 2

THE WEEK.

* I don't much like that article which ap- . pearecl in the Sydney Morning Herald, the other day_regard_ng our method of fiuancing iu New Zealand, or, perhaps, I should better express my meaning by saying that lam very sorry that this colony should have behaved iii such a manner in money matters as to call forth such a rebuke as that which was righteously administered to us by that powerful and influential paper. There can be little doubt that the English money lender in advancing the last loan negotiated by Sir Julius Vogel in his expensive excursion trip to the mother country in 1875 was largely influenced" by hia promise that the colony did not intend to again enter the money market as a borrower, at all events for some time to come, and the excuse now made that he intended such au undertaking to apply to the London money, market alone will not hold water. What the lenders wanted to be assured o£ was that our liabilities were not to be increased, such a stipulation having no special reference' to any particular locality. Whether we bor^ rowed in London or in Sydney could be a matter of.no moment to them.' We, through our sponsor Sir Jiitius, entered into an i' unwritten but none the less binding bond' that we would not encumber our estate any more, and yet as soon as we were pressed for money we forfeited our word. And if, for this breach of faith, we are attacked by journals occupying a leading position' elsewhere, can we wonder at it? Irf ear not.:; All we can do is to. hide our heads for very shame. The following letter was sent to me in the early part of the week:— "Dear F,— You have a happy knack of putting what you want to say before the public in a plain and pleasant manner, and appear to care little on what subject you touch. There is a matter in which I should like to enlist your sympathies as it is one on which I feel somewhat strongly. It is that of long sermons, such as we are occasionly compelled to listen to in some of our churches. For myself I may say that I like to go to church always once aud sometimes twice on Sundays, and to feel that I am one of. a large congregation who enter heartily into the services, but I do . not care to be compelled to sit quietly and listen to tlie often long and wearisome sermon that follows; and, supposing the congregation to consist of 500 persons, I believe that my opinion is shared by at least 450 of them. I can sit out a quarter of an hour or even twenty minutes, but when the discourse which frequently contains nothing that we have not heard before stretches away into thirty or forty minutes I feel that! am being called upon to pay an unnecessarily severe penalty for the enjoyment I have derived from the service that preceded it. Could you not use your penin advocating ' some reform in this matter? If the minister feels that he cannot condense what, he desires to say within reasonable and tolerable limits, i£ would be far better that there should be T a break between the service and the sermon, thus allowing those who take a delight in the former but care little for the latter, to leave the church, if they feel sp disposed, without being guilty of any breach bf etiquette: If, ' on the other hand, the: preacher could hiring himself to understand that he was consulting the wishes of ' his hearers in studying and practising brevity, , the .necessity for adop= ting such a course, and would be to a' great extent obviated, at the • same time" he would lie spared the annoyance of observing the yawns, the fidgettings, and 4he general symptoms of , weariness which his congregation cannot refrain irom exhibiting and he cannot fail to notice.' If you would only take this matter up and deal with it as I am sure you can do, providing your views are the same as mine, you would be doing a double kindness, a kindness to the sermon deliverer who in most cases I believe means well but fails to. understand the teinper of his congregation, and to the semion hearer who would very much prefer to leave the church in an amiable than in an irritable mood. What say you? Will you plead my cause and that of hundreds o|others? " I have given publication to the foregoing letter, bui, although I fully concur in much of its contents I feel that I Cannot respond to my friend's invitation, as the subject for several reasons is one that I do not care to handle.

I see in a Wellington paper that " notwithstanding all- the efforts which have been made recently to compel the Civil Servants to remain within the Government Buildings during office hours, certain .members still find means of exit, and the public is de-, frauded of its due. In order to meet this difficulty, it js reported that a new regulation shortly will be issued to the effect that each Ciyi servant ou entering the Government buildings in the morning shall take off his boots, and deliver them into the custody of an officer, who will be placed at' each door to' enforce obedience to tl>e order. At half-past four the boots will be restored to their owners, unigss it should be necessary for them to remain for night work." Of course the fact of this appearing in a newspaper is' a sulhcient guarantee of its correctness, as a newspaper never publishes anything that is not absolutely true. I have therefore reproduced it, as some of my readers might ike to have the billet of looking after those boots, and this will give him an opportunity of applying for it in time. I warn him, however that he will require to be a smart fellow, for of all the cunuiug dodgers I know there are few who can equal thtTpenned-iip eletk who feels a craving for big' mid-day beer P.. back him to get his boots somehow' or other So the "Executive officers " have passed away, and tne Government is without a representative in Nelson, and will soon be in a similar position with regard to the other Pro-

vincial districts. As these officers, in most cases the late Superintendents, are members Xof the. House, they could not, of ; course, be; paid foritheuvgervices, '-as! the acceptance ofi emolument would bpng f^iem under the Disqualification Act, so that\they have had to dispense with those! monthly -blessings that come so regularly to Government o-ficiaTa in the shape of cheques. And yet lam willing to lay odds that they jdo get paid after all, even if a special Act has to be passed for the purpose. We, in New Zealand, are the cleverest people in existence iu legally evading our own laws. Not: but , that "it might be right to do so in the present instance, for the laborer is worthy of his hire. We sometimes see in the newspapers published in the larger towns in the colony a great" blow " about the quick despatch which vessels meet with in their ports, but I don't fiud much abouttheship Margaret Galbraith from London, in the Canterbury journals'. This vessel-arrived at Lyttelton two months ago, having a large quantity of cargo on board for Nelson, which she had the option of trans-shipping or bringing on herself. She chose the former, and only a comparatively small portion of the, .-goods have yet reacheidjhere, one merchant, as he told me yesterday, not having received above one third of his consignment. If you want to -see thei'countenance of man illumined by a truly angelic fjmile just whisper in the ear of some :6f our importers those two words " Margaret Galbraith." [The result may be comtnuuicated-in time for publication -innext Saturday's " Week." jj»