ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES. London, December 7.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 338, 30 January 1889, Page 4

ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES. London, December 7.

Mb Jambs Farmer has lefb for the Cape, in order to be present at his second daughter's wedding. He will proceed thence to New Zealand. Mr Farmer l'efcains his seat on the Board of the New Zealand Antimony Company, and will take the opportunity when in Wellington of visiting the Company's minea at Endoavour Inlet, and reporting on them when he returns to England. At the meeting of the Irish National League in Dublin, on Saturday, Mr Hutchinson, M.H.R. of New Zealand, was amongst the speakers. Mr Hutchinson will assist Sir Thomas Esmondo and Messrs Dillon and Deasy in their coming colonial campaign. T *ady Onslow is, I hear, an amatour actress of no mean ability, and tho privato theatricals given on one occasion al Clandon are the talk of Surrey. His Excellency may after all take out his coach, trusting to being able to make up a team in New Zealand, but it would never do to risk hia famous bays on such a journey. I hear on what should be first-rate authority that the Governorship of Queensland was offered to and refused by two peers before Lord Knutsford tendered the post to Sir Henry Norman. The noses of the Home "Rule papers are sadly put out by the rumour that Sir Henry Blake is to succeed Sir H. Robinson at the Cape. To have dispossessed him of Queensland only to provide him with a far more coveted and important appointment would be to have blundered indeed. On dit in the city (and as the tit-bit came from Mr H. S. Marks it ought to be true) that only one share was applied for in Mr Williamsons Champion Copper Mine Company. The directors did not proceed to allotment. I fear the attempt to float the West Tokatea properties has also failed. It is a pity that at the meeting of the New Zealand Midland Railway last week no shareholder protested against the excessive salaries ot the directors. The sum ot £750 per annum for an ordinary director with, I am told, £1,000 a-year for the Chairman, is surely out of all reason. During the financial year just closed the P. and O. Company paid the Suez Canal Company, for ships and passengers, over £203,000. This shows how impossible it would be for the New Zealand Shipping Company to shorten their steamers' passages by using the Canal. The "Athletic News" says that the Maoris have improved five hundred per cent, in their play since they first came to the North of England. " "Faulty picking up and poor passing were very noticeable," says a reporter of that journal, : '\vhen I saw them at Hull not long ago, and now they play like a book," The gate at Swinton (£184) was the largest taken so far on the tour, but I venture to prophecy there will be a bigger one at Manchester, when the team meet "All Lancashire." This will be far the most im portant match the New ZeSlanders have played yet, and should they win it will effectually clinch all discussions as to their status. I could wish the team were in better fettle for such a test. Truth to tell, Mr Scott has been forced to work his boys mercilessly of late, and they want a ''spell" badly. The Liverpool match was a mistake (as might have beon anticipated on a Thursday at Fairfield), wretched, in fact not worth going for, and a day's rest would have given several cripples a chance of get ting round. Mr H. Rowley, the once famous football player, i 3 home from New Zealand for a holiday and has witnessed several of the Maoris' victories. Nehua, who did not accompany the team to Ireland, played for Broughton against Swinton at Manchester last Saturday. The Yorkshire Committee profess to think so little of the Maoris (as they call them) that they talked of matching a fifteen new to county football {i.e. novices) against them. This, however, was before the New Zealanders made such a fight against Swinton. Experts pronounce this game one of the most interesting 1 games ever witnessed in the Manchester district. Lord Onslow, having expressed his desire to be introduced to the leading New Zealand colonists at present staying in England prior to his departure to assume the Governorship of that colony, a number of members of the Legislative Council and others waited on His Lordship on Tuesday at his private residence in Richmond, and were introduced to him by Sir F. D. Bell, the Agent-General. Amongst the gentlemen presented to His Lordship were Sir W. Buller, Sir Julius Vogel, Mr Gisborne, Mr Kennaway, and Sir J ulian Penrose. Dr. Neville, Bishop of Dunedin, sails for New Zealand next. week, proceeding thither via Melbourne. A marriag-e is arranged to take place between the Hon. Thomas Allnutt Brassey, only son of Lord Brassey, X.C.8., and the Lady Idina Neville, third daughter of the Marquis of Abergavenny, K.G. Mr Douglas Sladen is about to deliver two lectures in Boston, Mass., on "Australasian Poets," these being; the first of a series of lectures in America on the same subject. An interesting discussion on the subject "Should the colonies have a voice in the appointment of their Governors ?" took place at the Edinburgh Australasian Club on the Ist December. Mr Parkinson, of New Zealand, spoke in favour of the election being left entirely to the Imperial Government, on the ground that the governor should be an independent man, and unfettered by colonial party politics. Mr Carvosso of Queensland argued that the colonies should be allowed to have a voice in the matter, and that the names of the probable governors should be submitted to the colonial Governments for their approval before the appointments were made. Mr Napthine urged that Imperial Federation should be cairied out and thus all difficulties would be obviated.