GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 131, 12 September 1910, Page 7

GENERAL NEWS.

Mr. Ginnell, a Nationalist member, during the recent English Parliamentary session caused to foe placed in the Parliamentary papers a notice that on an early day he proposed to call attention to the success of the Parliamentar Conference as a party Vssimilant, <■• d to move:—"That, in tile opinion en this House, the time has now arrived for making the party conference a permanent substitute for representative government, and extending its scope to the selection of Parliamentary candidates by mutual agreement, the elimination of ] members holding other than official party opinion, the entire appropriation of the ■ time still nominally allocated to private members by the rules of the House, but denied them toy the practice of the Government, and the provision of a system whereby no members of this House but officials, ex-officials, and officials expectant shall be required to attend meetings of the House or allowed to intervene in debate until the last three days of each | session, when the presence of other members for the third reading of the Acts of the Conference will be permitted." Berlin papers recently announced that the Colonial Office and the South-West African Diamond Regie had received information that £IOO,OOO worth of diamonds had been smuggled in one haul out of the colony, involving a loss of £35,000 to the Colonial Treasury. A detective employed in the affair ;has ascertained, says the journals, that the owners of the diamonds entrusted them to certain women, -who travelled from Luderitz Bav to. Capetown with the diamonds hidden in their clothes. The women were arrested in Capetown, but the diamond's were no longer in their possession. It is believed that they were shipped en board a, German liner bound for Europe through the connivance of the steward. The liner left Capetown shortly Wore the arrest of the women. On its arrival in a German port the ship will be searched for the diamonds. All the diamonds exported from South-West Africa have to pay an export duty of 33 1-3 per cent, ad valorem. The management of the Diamond Regie informed Renter's correspondent that it knew nothing of the smuggling except from newspaper reports, but the Deutsche Tageszeitung says it is able to confirm the accounts. At the last m n etinw of the Hastings branch of the New Zealand Farmers' Union the question of fostering the growing of sugar beet was discussed. The chairman (Mr. A. Masters) pointed out that 30 vears ago the sugar produce of the world amounted to 6.000.000 tons, 2,000,000 tons being sugar beet. To-dav the produce was something like 8.000,000 tons, beet . suigar forming twothirds of the output. Their land was equal to anything in the world for engir ibeet growing and. about fiO tons cnnld be produced to the acre, netting Ifis i>. ton. He thought it would be worth while to appoint a committee to go into the matter. Mr. W. H. Smith did nat agree with the chairman, saying it was only in countries where there was very close settlement and cheap labor that the industry would! have a chance of success. He also • pointed out that two mills in England, with a tapital of £'loo.ooo. were lying idle because of competition. Mr. 0. Brown said the experiment had been tried in the Warkato, but had not proved a success. The meeting took no action. "The very thought of a 'bov evangelist' makes me shudder,", said Bishop Julious in a recent sermon at Christchurch. The Bishop went on to sav that for a callow youth, inexperienced, without the wiidance and sober teachings of the Church, to undertake to deal with men's souls was utterly presumptions. Dealing with "revival missions" in general, he said that while he believed those conducting them were good, earnest men, that they preached the Gospel and that they 'did good, he also believed that thev lacked in many instances the proper qualifications for the permanent winning of souls. Too many people, were "converted" for five or six weeks, and then were ready to be "converted" again by the next mission which came along. Rev. Father Vaughan savs:—"T am in favor of all sport, not excluding racing. Everything tint makes for national character ought to be supported and encouraged bv Englishmen. Every true Englishman has a trend of the sportsman in his character, and when it was developed on legitimate lines it helned him to realise himself and gave > him that' indescribable something in his department and character which makes for English manliness." , In remarking that it is impossible to over-estimate the importance of the timber industry to the West Coast, the Greymouth Star states that one firma'.lone finds permanent, employment for. about 100 men. its wages-sheet amount to close on £l'6oo per month. As a result of its operations, the Railway Department receives something like £4OOO ' per annum in freight, whilst the Crown exacts its toll bv wav of rovalty to the i extent of £2OOO yearly. The average monthly output of the combined mills of the firm is about one million super-1 fk-ial feet, cut from the extensive and magnificent forests which the firm holds under lease from the Crown. The bush, which is regarded as the pick of the for- • csts of the West Coast, includes evcrv class of timber indigenous to New Zen- '■■ land. The firm has an invested capital of £2(5.000. Tndeed. adds the Stsr, the ■ strides made bv the in this part of the Dominion are trulv roarveli lous when one remembers that mills have • been established on the Coast for i"=t • over twentv-five years. The first m'lls , were erected bv Mr. J. Ma.lfroy, of TTokil tika.