THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 105, 3 May 1879, Page 2

TH E WEEK.

I noticed the other day an extract from the Australasian, wherein" that journal, which as a rule keeps a pretty watchful eye on New Zealand affairs, commented with a certain degree of sarcastic severity upon the fashion that has recently sprung up in thi3 colony of Ministers dancing attendance upon those "savage absurdities," the Maori meetings, which have of late been held iv various parts of the North Island, and making speeches that sound like whole pages of Fennimore Cooper's novels. Now what will the Australasian say when it gets hold of the following telegram from the A'ew Zealander-.— " The sable King stands on his dignity ever so much, and Sir George will hare to knuckle under if he is to meet Tawhiao, because the latter declines to comply with the request for a special invite. The Premier considers he should be so honored. Tawhiao on the other hand replies that this is only an adjournment of the first meeting, and'no other invitation is necessary to the Government He is firm on this point, notwithstanding a letter written to Rewi on board the Hiuemoa and received yesterday urging that Sir G* Grey will be in Waikato on Thursday on other business, and if invited, will be glad to see Tawhiao. Rewi's reply, sent the same day, was to the effect that no invitation was needed other than one sent by himself. Your special correspondent, interviewing Tawhiao and Uewi to-day on the subject of the invitation, was shown the letter and reply and assured that Sir George need not expect anything more. If he does not come the natives will discuss matters amongst themselves so long as their food, which is enormous in quantity but vile in quality, lasts." There is another question too. What will not only the Australasian, say (for that we do not so very much care), but what will the colonißts think of their Premier rushing about the country, and trying by all manner of means to acrew out of this Maori King Tawhiao an unwilling invite to be present at a gathering of natives, who evidently intend to meet and enjoy their kaikai, and korero perfectly indifferent as to whether Sir George Grey and Mr Sheehan, who appear to be so eager to join them, are present "or not? Surely it is a most undignified position in which our Premier seeks to place ;bimself, and his anxiety to occupy it must cause old Tawhiao to indulge in many a chuckle. And perhaps the worst feature in the matter is that when Ministers do get admitted to these meetings they don't seem to gain much by it So at least I judge from Mr Sheehan 's late interview with Te Whiti, the incidents of which will be fresh in the minds of all who read these lines. The Native Minister certainly did not come off best in that discussion. If you happen to mention the \" fourth of the month " in the presence of men who are engaged in commerce, you will, if you are at all observant, notice that there must be certain associations connected with that particular date which cause them, involuntarily perhaps, to prick up their ears whenever it£is mentioned within their hearing. lam not now going to talk about the fourth, but I have a few words to say about the sixth, not of the month, but of this month. It ia a day that is fraught with interest ,for hundreds,— l am not sura that I may not say thousands— in this colony and eager will be the anxiety with which the London cable news of that date will be looked for. Not because those who are waitiDg impatiently for it are desirous of learning any-

thing about home politics; not that they are longing for further information with regard to Cetewayo, Yakoob Khan, or any other of those wasps that are now stinging the tough old hide of the British Lion; but on account of a totally different matter whicb, however, more deeply affects their interests. That is whether the price of wool is going up or down. On that day the first sales commence at which a large quantity of the last year's clip will be put up to auction, and on the result of what then takes place in the saleroom depends— after the years of depression they have lately passed through I may almost say— the fate of many a flockowner. And not only is it the flockowner himself who will fee affected; there's Tom Wirestrainer; who has been looking forward to that fencing job to keep him and his mates going through the winter; there's Jack Plane, who is hoping to get work at erecting a new dipping apparatus, which has been so much wanted for a long time, but has had to be put oft: till wool was higher; there are ;Beetle, Wedge, and party, who have got their eye on a nice little contract for splitting posts fand rails for the new yards that ought by rights to have been substituted last year for those shaky old things with which the woolgrower has had to make shift much against his will. So, when you come to look into the matter thoroughly you can easily understand how importonl a time will be next Tuesday and the few following days, not only for the comparatively few whose wool ,is awaiting sale, but for the colony generally. They say we are very sleepy and quiet in Nelson, and perhaps we are a little given that way. We pride ourselves upon being a highly moral and strictly honest community. Are we? Well, I believe that, on the whole, we are, but it did not strike me as being anything to be very proud of that, within seven days, we had in our law courts one man adjudged by a jury to have been guilty of fraud in the matter of insurance, and two fraudulent bankrupts deprived of their certificates. There seems to be room for improvement somewhere. The telegraphic news this week has been essentially dull, as every one will allow who has read the daily column devoted to its publication, the only place from whence anything of really thrilling interest has reached us being Wellington, and from there we have been told — I have carefully noted two or three of the leading items-(l) That the butchers are only going to send their carts \ round the town once a day in future ; (2) that the Waterworks Committee are of opinion that there ought to be a larger water supply for Wellington ; (3) that some unfortunate shopkeepers who have been in the habit of hanging breeches and boots, and petticoats and stays outside their shops have been pounced upon by the police. And it is for this that the telegraph has been extended from one end of New Zealand to the other ! I own that lam totally unable to account for the wires being loaded with Buch abominable rubbish. I can only hazard a guess at the reason, which is that the framer of these messages is so imbued with a sense of the Importance of Wellsngton that he thinks that any event whatever — however miserably trifling it may be in itself —becomes invested with a certain amount of interest simply because it happens in that town. I don't suppose there is an agent iv any other part of New Zealand who would ever have supposed that any outsider would or could care to kuow how many times a day the local butchers' carts went round. " Ick." That'a a man's name, and when you come to look at it calmly and dispassionately, there doesn't seem very much in it. And yet it is one that has been before the public in the south and west of this island a good deal of late. It belongs to the Mayor of Christchurch, a gentleman who has recently worked himself up to a great pitch of excitement over the question of holding the next session of Parliament in the town of which he is the chief officer. He has written to Borough Councils and County Councils, to M.H.R.'a present and prospective, begging and entreating them to take the same view of the matter as he does, but he has failed to kindle a single spark of enthusiasm anywhere, and his overtures have been received either with coldness or ridicule by those whose sympathies he has sought to enlist, while by the press he has been very considerably snubbed and laughed at. Latterly he seems to have realised his position and to have subsided, and it is just as well he should do so, for people were beginning to get sick of Ick. F.