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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4235, 16 October 1874, Page 2

It never but it pours ! There is no sooner a ,-certainty of the San Francisco mail service being carried on jointly by New South Wales and New Zealand, and a probability of the late contractors, with the help of the shipbuilders on the Clyde and the Tyne, making proposals for a renewal of their engagement, than wo find the Americans anxious to have a finger in the pie. The American railway companies and the owners of the Pacific mail line of steamers are at loggerheads, and telegraphic despatches from New York to San Francisco state that the quarrel is likely to eventuate in the establishment of an American line of steamers by,the railway companies, to secure the trade of Honolulu, New Zealand, and Australia, and “ to run exclusively in the interests of the railroads and their European connections.” The telegrams add this positive statement : “ The name of Cleland Stanford has been prominently mentioned in connection ■with the enterprise. The latter, if the negotiations are successful, will visit Europe and purchase the necessary ships. ■ In the meantime, the Australian line could be supplied by the steamers Vasco de Gama and Vancouver., It is also said that, failing any satisfactory arrangement with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, tie railway magnates will establish a China tud Australian line in their own interests”;.

I?- would-appear, from newspapers received b/ the last mail, that the report of a Comipission appointed to report on the claims of i British subjects, as a sort of set-off against the American claims, re the Alabama, had : been published. This report extended to 750 pages of a bluebook. The claims that had to be adjudicated upon were 470 in number, and of these 261 were disallowed, 181 were allowed, and 28 were dismissed as not coming within the jurisdiction of the Court of Inquiry. The sum of £400,000 was decided to bo due to British subjects, principally on account of cotton taken, it was acknowledged, on behalf of the Unitad States Government. Claims respecting goods seized from blockade runners, or for goods acknowledged to be for the use of the Confederates, were not allowed. The Times reports of the labors of the Commissioners —one of whom was chosen by the Queen, one by the President of the United States, and one jointly—lt might be wished that all the proceedings under the Treaty of Washington had been as satisfactory as those under the Mixed Claims Committee. 1 *

Mb. McG-iluvrat is the last of the members of the House of Representatives who has addressed his constituents. He spoke at Riverton yesterday, avowed himself in favor of the abolition of Provincialism in the Middle as well as the North Island, and received the approval of his constituency in a vote of confidence, accorded to him without a dissentient voice. His views on immigration—which are briefly stated in our telegraphic columns — have already been to a considerable extent acted upon by the Government. Mr. Murray is the next of the members of the Lower House who will address his constituency.

A vert remarkable statement was made to the British Association- for the Promotion of Science, at its late meeting at Belfast, by Professor Tyndall, the President for the year. In his introductory address the Professor gave a statement!, which is reported to have been very clear, of his religious views. He is reported to have said that he charged “religion, especially Christianity,' with being inimical to human progress,” and he did not hesitate to assert his belief that “ in the nature of things there cannot be any harmony between science and religion, and if man is to progress, the latter must be sacrificed in the interests of the former.” He ignored faith altogether, and declared himself a materialist. We know that in Victoria a sect has sprung up, and has several able men at its head, who have passed from belief into unbelief, and who do not now scruple to avow the doctrine that “ Christianity is the invention of the enemy of mankind,” and that it is “doing the Devil’s work.” They have an organ which reports all the horrible crimes it can find in the journals of the world in support of its peculiar views—and a rare pandemonium its pages represent. But we had not thought that the time had yet come when views such as those of Professor Tyndall would be put before, and apparently received by, such a body as the British Association.

We commented, a few days ago, on the nature of the evidence given before the Magistrate at Port Chalmers in the preliminary inquiry into the supposed murder of a seaman by the second mate—Dodd —on board the barque Oneca. The allegations then made, and the hints of further revelations, were such as to lead to the belief that the state of matters on board that ship, and the conduct of the master throughout the voyage, were such as to call for a very scrutinising inquiry by the American Consul, if not by the British authorities. The full report more than confirms the impression conveyed by that forwarded by telegraph. There is not the slightest doubt, if the evidence is true—and upon it, as given before a higher Court, the prisoner has been convicted of manslaughter—that the master of the vessel is one of those inhuman brutes who have disgraced the mercantile navy in time past, who have all but disappeared from the British marine, but are still to be fouqd in number too great under the American flag. He seems to have resorted to systematic ill-treatment of his crew, to have forced the second officer to follow up his system of treatment, and to have been quite prepared for more than one murder. The chief officer, the cook, the stewardess, several of the seamen, and one or ..more of the apprentices, all have given evidence of the most serious characterevideneoiwhich, we trust, the authorities will see it impossible 'to overlook. So frightful a case has never, in our recollection, come before the public of New Zealand.