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New Zealand Mail, Issue 53, 27 January 1872, Page 16

A farewell address was presented by the Auckland Catholics to the Kev Father Yinay of the Waikato district previous to his departure for France. The address was signed by over 200 of the principal settlers in the province. As affording an illustration of the influence of forest trees on rain—a subject of the greatest importance at this moment the " Wanganui Chronicle" mentions that, more than once in these close quiet evenings, a settler on the No 2 Line has cot only seen the scud of rain passing over the bush land lying iu the upper district, but has actually heard the fall and patter of rain in that direction, while not a drop fell on his own dry and parched lands. Steps are being taken in Auckland to work a seam of coal recently discovered near the Frith of Thames, and supply the Thames goldfield. Nearly all the wells in Auckland and Onehunga are dried up, and great inconvenience is felt through the difficulty of obtaining water. The programme of a proposed society, to be called the Land Tenure Reform League of Victoria, has been issued, and whatever objection may be taken to some of the items *it contains, it cannot be denied that the ends which it will be its endeavor to attain have received the sanction and approval of many of the most eminent political economists of the day. They are as follows:—"1. The immediate cessation of the sale of all Crown lands. 2. The fee simple of the public domain to vest in perpetuity in the state (that is, the people in their corporate capacity). 3- Occupancy, with fixity of tenure, subject to rental for revenue purposes. Transfer of tenant-right. 4. Land already alienated from the state to be repurchased by the state. No re sale to individuals to be permitted. 5. The gradual abolition of all indirect taxes whatever. The revenue of the state to be derived solely from the rentals of the land." In other words (says the " Melbourne Argus" the undertaking in which the public are invited to take a part involves nothing leas than the accomplishment of a complete social revolution. The Melbourne "Argus" notices the death, by an overdose of opium taken to produce sleep, of a young man named J. Selby Bennett, about twenty-eight years old, a locomotive engineer by profession, who is said to have friends inNew Zealand, from which colony he arrived in Victoria eighteen months ago.