CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 298, 9 May 1913, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A HAPPY EXCEPTION. The delays in transhipping goods from Wellington to New Plymouth are proverbial, which fact makes an instance to the contrary all the more acceptable. A case involving a very smart performance in this respect has come under our notice in connection with the transhipment of a consignment of casing for the Taranaki Oil Fields Acquisition and Development Company. The casing was on hoard the Kuapchu, and | pending its arrival, work was being delayed at Moturoa. Mr. E. GrilViths, the local director of the company, got in touch with the New Zealand Shipping Co., the Wellington Harbour authorities, and the Union S.S. Co., with a view to getting quick dispatch for the stuff. The Ruapehu arrived in Wellington about half-past eight on Saturday morning, and the easing was transhipped to the Tavinui, which left Wellington for this port on Tuesday evening, and was delivered on the ground at Moturoa on Wednesday. CO-OPERATION. Co-operation is in the air nowadays. Lord Plunket recommended it to the attention of the farmers of New Zealand before he left for the Mother Country, and a meeting of agriculturists at Hawera has decided now to form a Farmers' Co-operative Organisation Society. The United States are seeing the rise of a new school of thought which holds that co-operation is the solution of the workers' troubles. Mr. A. J. Portenar, a Brooklyn Labor leader, says that the strike and the boycott are achieving success only at a cost to the worker out of all proportion to the advantage. Increases in wages do not always mean an improved position, since the cost of the product, which the worker must buy, often grows faster than the wage of the producer. But cooperative trading would enable the unions to make their own terms at once. "When will we learn," asks Mr. Portenar, "that the purchasing power of our wages is a level to which all our other activities are as naught?" STAFFORD HOUSE. It is cabled that the British Government has accepted Sir William Lever's offer of the gift of Stafford House, and that the building will be used as a museum for London relics and the accommodation of distinguished visitors. Stafford House, one of the most historic mansions in London, was recently purchased from the Duke of Sutherland by Sir Wiliam Lever, of the well-known soap firm of Lever Bros. It is between 80 and "90 years ago that Stafford House became the property of the ancestors of the Duke of Sutherland. Where the stately building now stands once stood that Queen's Library erected by Caroline, the blue-stocking spouse of George 11. It was the second son of George IN., the Duke of York, who cast envious eyes on the site and had the old library pulled down that he might build himself a lordly pleasure house. This was in 1825. The duke, however, was not particularly wealthy, and in his extremity he availed himself of the more plentifully lined* purse of the Marquis of Stafford, who advanced him the necessary cash for his building operations. But two years later, and before the house was finished, the duke died, and it was that catastrophe which led the Marquis of Stafford to step in as a kind of foreclosing mortgagee. It cost him, it Is said, £72,000 to complete the transaction, and from that date until last year Stafford House has been numbered among the assets of the Leveson-Gower family. But £7*2,000 is by no means the price in the market of Stafford House. The Marquis of Stafford provided another £30,000 for the completion of the mansion, while in the intervening years more than a quarter of a million has been expended upon the structure. Its glories are chiefly internal. Quadrangular in shape and not over-imposing in design, for the Duke of York is said to have been his own architect, the chief external features of the mansion are the portico of eight Corinthian columns on the north front and the six similar columns which decorate the south and west sides. ' Bnt the interior of the house has been the theme of many eulogies. Samuel Rogers called it a "fairy palace," Ettv described its hall as "the most magnificent room in any palace or mansion in England," Beaconsfield declared the interior not unworthy of Vicenza, while Queen Victoria once remarked to its hostess, "I have come from my house to your palace."