WELLINGTON ECHOES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 210, 14 December 1910, Page 3

WELLINGTON ECHOES

(From Our Own Correspondent.) December 10. The most notable echo is the whistle of the Prime Minister's train taking him off to Rotoura for a much-needed rest. Before he started he got something to help him enjoy the same—it was a tonic from Stratford. The Liberal Association of that lately much-discussed centre sent him a resolution of congratulation and sincere conviction in re his fine vindicatory speech, of which we were all talking last week. The signed name, "McCluggage, president," recalled the fight so recently ended and so well. At Palmerstpn another bottle of the same tonic was presented by the Liberal element there. The compilers went further, declaring their faith in the now vindicated purity of political life. Between them these friends of the cause were celebrating the Government victory of the session-,* This as .admitted on all sides to rave been very striking and complete. * *■- * ■ ■* ■

As the journey proceeded the incense of press notes on the session rose in all directions. They are a general tribute to the usefulness and big volume of the work .lone. If there were five months of talk there is a good deal to show for it. Every interest got something to remember the five months by—criminal reform, destitute persons' relief, labor, defence, commerce, public health, local matters of many sorts —all these, with licensing and gaming, .caused some think 1 ing, some talking and sonic legislation that will be remembered'with thankful appreciation. If the water schemes and National Provident Fund had been alone, the session could never have been considered barren. Add them to the rest of the programme, and you have a session to be proud of.' If we could do with a little less Hansartl, which means fewer opportunities for talking, sessions would approach as near to perfection as anything human can.

Tiie echoes .it this point run ahead into, next year —the Coronation. Of course everybody would like to be oi" the crownins party, but as everybody cannot, it is thought that some dozen or so of the Legislature may go with the Prime Minister. The elections, however, have turned off the tap of Imperial hospitality, ami all is chaos. I cannot hear of anyone who wants to impress the English public with the sight of a worthy Dominioner, but no doubt they will*be as plentiful as blackberries in the autumn, and perhaps as troublesome. Shake hands with the King, fraternise with the Commons, tell everybody that everything is much better done by the free and enlightened under the Southern Cross, walk past, the Lords lik«> dirt—it's an ambition. What would you? x

.Some of the wisest men in the world are sneering about the trip Home by Dr. Findlay. They hint at- all sorts of hidden reasons for this thing, which for all their wisdom they consider unaccount- . able. For our part, we average persons cannot follow these hinted reasons. But then we are not the wisest of men like the critics. It is enough for us that the Attorney-General is wanted at the Privy Council to oppose Mr. Skerret, K.C., who I is retained by the whilom owners or al- | leged owners of the Te Akau block, who want to dispossess the settlers holding : from the Government, with £50,000 , worth of property at stake. Were that ! not enough we should not want any- j thing more than the Webster claims, j which have run into an international affair, with the Senate of the United' States behind the claimant's assigns. The original Webster was glad enough to accept the fraction of land the first colonial Government allowed him out of the enormous areas he had got from the Maoris before our day for a few muskets, and that sort of trade. He handed the lot over to his creditors, and the representatives of these having discovered Webster to have been a Yankee, have set the pride of the Bird of Freedom to Work and we have this squawking. The idea is that what the independent Maoris ( sold must be respected to the acre by the Dominion on half"a million—please look sharp about it! There have been pleasanter situations—what?

Dr.. Findlay is a good lawyer, a better pleader, and a man of the world. That is enough to account for his trip. By the way, Dr. Fitchctt was in London about this very business last year, and gave some soft answers, but they do not appear to have turned away this wrath of lawyers waving treaties on the international platform. By the way, I hear that not ono of the chiefs who signed the Webster deed took any part in the Treaty of Waitangi. It is apparently a complication.

Of course there were scores of men treated the same way as Webster, who had bought lands at the rate of, say, 100,000 acres for a blanket, with a chisel and tomahawk thrown in, sometimes,' and a stick of tobacco, perhaps. But then they did not happen to be American citizens. It would not have mattered much, for there was not enough land to go round, these gentry having bought many times the area of the two islands. The' Maoris were more inclined for the blankets and muskets than for the study of niceties of surveying. Had they been left to manage the business these landed gentry would probably have received as much land apiece as would have accommodated a cooking oven, out of which they would have emerged mere savory morsels. They naturally preferred the colonial methods of settlement. They grumbled—but what would you?

One of the most famous of these was one Jones, well known to the early settlers of Otago, who found him established as a great colonising power at Waikouaiti. It was a prosperous settlement of farms and fisheries doing regular business in Sydney, and "Johnny" was popularly supposed to be the owner by purchase from the Maori of vast tracts of country surveyed by a wave of the arm. But when Sir George Grey came on the scene he surveyed the estate with that inflexible pen of his which he was wont to use after the manner of autocrats bent.on the advancement of the people. Forty years later he said that "Johnny"' had taken it like a lamb. Those who knew the famous pioneer said he was not by any means a lamblike character. Anyhow, he had to take it. The descendants of Webster's creditors are lucky to be able to plead America after all theso vears.

On the whole, T don't think it necessary to account for Dr. Findlay's trip l)v the suggestion of a desire on his part to enter the House, of Commons to seek there the, =uoeev= which his friend Dr. Chappie has not yet obtained. He has j sift? which three years' experience, in the Council have developed much. If he had been in the other place the development would have been greater, for it would have had the advantage of a bit of fighting—a thing not frequent in the Council—hut we need not follow the sug- . gestion. Neither need wc bother about 'that other suggrstion that Dr. Findlayi wants the High Cnmmissionership. But there are people here so strangely constituted that whenever a politician casts a look towards Britain they raise the cry of "High Commissioner." Jhe Doctor may have his ambitions, but this ia not one of'them. ... , .., **■- - » —■ • t.~..-m-+&v- ■■:•»!*

convenient interviewer. This persistent creature got him on his- return from Vienna, where lie had been attending the Refrigeration Congress of the world! lie seems to have done good work there as High Commissioner. The only man uiiong the British delegation with long .earl varied Parliamentary experience, he took the lead and got a resolution tarried affirming the desirability of removing all restriction on the entry anywhere of refrigerated provisions, subject' 1 to all proper precautions such as are used by reasonable people. But he found himself up against the agricultural interest everywhere and has frankly said so in order .to ..keep our expectations from running away with us apropos of the successful resolution. .Anyhow a beginning has been made and the Congress has decided that refrigerated foods are as wholesome as fresh. This is a great point, for Sir William says that even among the elite of Vienna, well-informed men of the world who have travelled, he found an impression that frozen meats are poisonous and certain to introduce cattle diseases of all kinds. That they carried his resolutions is largely due to the fact that he explained all about the careful, up-to-date procedure in the works and'dilated on the inspection—that inspection which some of our agriculturalists are persuaded is an unwarrantable, interference with the-liberty'of the subject. We may hope some day for developments. .;:■ oa, the whole—Bravo, Sir William! May your shadow never be less!

The water-power schemes are being pushed ahead fast, I understand, and there is an advertisement for the post of electrical engineer at £BOO a year. Public opinion favors Mr. Birks, who furnished one of the two excellent reports issued with the Public Works Statement, but it is said that someone else will get it. It is a mean salary to offer for a first-class man. anyhow. We want the very best that money can buy, and money is buying them up at big prices Everywhere.