THE PARISH OF CHRISTCHURCH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9065, 14 April 1908, Page 7

THE PARISH OF CHRISTCHURCH.

(By Frank Morton.)

Christchurch, if you come to .think of it, is a very small place. Not, you understand me, so much in the .matter of population as in the matter of point of view. Really, yov> know, vo refer to Christchurch as a .city is much aa though one referred to a basking sun-fish as a terror of the deep. Christchurch is a villageovergrown. Once that is conceded, I am prepared to admit that Christchurch is a very delightful village indeed in some matters. Its climate is pleasant most of the time; its streets are broad and quiet; its pretty little river is really a credit to the parish. But its parochial impulses are nearly always foolish. Take the latest instance. The New Zealand International Exhibition that closed last year was, wisely or unwisely, held at Chriatchurch. To Christchurch went the plums and the pickings, the opportunities of the first bite. Christchurch was not slow to . take advantage of that. The city charged double-rates to take visitors to the Exhibition on its trams. The cabs tried to extort double fares, until they were threatened witft starvation. " And so it was right through. Bat the people Of New Zealand provided the Exhibition, and stood the cost of it. In any other country, the Exhibition city would have had to pay in proportion to its. direct benefit; and if Christchurch had been a city, with the true civic spirit, it would have been glad to pay. But Chrirtchurch is a village—extended. When the Exhibition buildings were cleared away—again, at the expense of the whole country—it was found that Hagley Park, the tract of common land on which the buildings had been erected, was not so clean and tidy as it had been before the buildings were commenced. Wherefore, all the principal villagers were very much excited and aggrieved, and the Christchurch Domain Board passed fierce resolutions in a great heat. In the end, the Board demanded that the Government should pay £SOO to enable the Board to make Hagl-iy Park tidy again. The Hon. George Fowlds, the Minister immediately concerned, a moat indulgent and worthy man from .Auckland (1 believe,) considered the demand excessive; but after some haggling, offered £450. The Board chattered fiercely some more, but finally accepted the offer. Member?, we are informed, "spoke strongly of the action of the Government." I pray you, smile with me. Christchurch has had all the best of the bargain, and all the best of the fun. Christchurch has had most of the profit, and very little of the expense. And When a too-indulgent Minister, on a demand of £SOO pays £450—£450 that the country should never have been asked to pay— Christchurch is terribly perturbed over the £SO of plunder withheld, and "speaks strongly of the action of the Government." It's a glad world. And Christchurch, they tell ne,is a citv. Go on!

Writing editorially npon the question of immigration and wages, the Auckland "Herald" says:—"The labour organisations concern themselves with those national actions which tend to make work pleptful or to make work scarce; and upon this ground are protectionist to a man where their own trades are concerned. And yet they oppose immigration, under the delusion that it will lower wages, make a surplusage of labour, and generally depress the prosperity of the country, when, a3 a matter of fact, and for reasons which must be plain to every intelligent person, wisely-regulated immigration will tend to raise wages all round by assisting to develop the natural resources, and to expand the secondary industrias of the dominion —checked now for sheer lack of labour —and by thus affording constant employment at profitable work for an ever-increasing number of skilled and unskilled •workmen." A poultry farmer who consigns large quantities of eggs to the Government poultry depot, administered, says the Auckland "Herald," an amusing "rebuke" to the local staff the other day. On several occasions the authorities had written to the farmer complaining that his consignments of eggs were usually two or three short in each case, though the latter stoutly protested that there had been no deficiency at his end. At length in one of his boxes was discovered a piece of bacon addressed to the egg-tester, who was at a loss for a time to understand this generosity, until it sudenly struck him that the inference to be drawn was that he might as well have bacon with the eggs. For Children's Hocking Cough at night Woods' Great Peppermint Ctire. 1/(5 und 2/6.