THE BROGDEN CLAIMS.

Patea Mail, 9 August 1881, Page 3

THE BROGDEN CLAIMS.

The on sc of Alexander Brogdeu, James Burden, and Henry Brogden, suppliants, against Her Majesty the Queen, respondent, came before Mr Justice Richmond in Chambers at Wellington, on Friday, sth. The suppliants appeared to show cause why all proceedings in this action should not be stayed on the grounds mainly that the claims in the petition were disputed within clause 32 of the general conditions of the contract set out in the second count, and that such claims ought to be submitted to arbitration in the manner directed by “ The Government Contractors Arbitration Act, 1872.” After hearing argument, bis Honor reserved his decision.

Major Charles Heaphy, V.C., an old New Zealand settler, died during a visit to Brisbane. It has been decided to establish a Wellington branch of the Irish Laud League. Cable from Sydney says that H.M.S. Emerald will proceed to Auckland August 31. The police at Dunedin have discovered fifty packages of spnrions teas, sx Eingarooma, in bond. Professor Black reports that it contains deleterious substances. Proceedings will be taken against the consignees. Two Irishmen charged with attemping to blow up the Town Hall at Liverpool have been sentenced, one to penal servitude for life, the other to fifteen years. Walnuts and liquorice have been distributed among Auckland settlers with a view to encourage their growth as marketable commodities. The new Under Secretary for the Colonies at Home is Mr Courtney, formerly a writer of parliamentary leaders for the Times. Ho is a quiet, well read, philosophical Radical, and a pleasant friend to know. A largely attended meeting was held at Timaru on the 6th to discuss the question of forming a Woolen Factory in Timaru. An influential committee was appointed to report on the whole matter at an early date. Great interest is evinced in the movement. News has been received in Wellington that, the Rev Farther Larkin has been committed for trial lor manslaughter at Honolulu. He had designed a school, which fell in the course of construction killing a Kanaka boy. Alluding to the Meat Freezing Company, the Manawatu correspondent of the Wairarapa paper asserts that the effect of the proposal to export meat has already caused a rise in the prices, and that, at a recent sale, cattle fetched £2 per head more than they have for the past three years, although fat stock of all descriptions is most plentiful. With the view of encouraging orange cultivation, the branch of a tree laden with fruit has been exhibited in Auckland, the exhibit bavmg been forwarded from the Bay of Islands. The grower says there are thousands of places in the North where the orange would grow to perfection, and that it is purely the result of neglect or want of skill on the part of our settlers that the orange groves in the North do not supply the whole of the New Zealand demand. At Auckland, Samuel Keys and William Ambrose Duesbury have been committed for trial, for feloniously impairing, diminishing, and lightening eight pieces of the Queen’s, coin, called half-crowns, on or about the 7th July. A man, detained by a snow blockade, telegraphed to his wife ; “My dear, I have every motive for visiting you except a locomotive,”