The Waikato Times. "OMNE SOLDM FORTI PARTIA." TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 1875.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 441, 16 March 1875, Page 2

The Waikato Times. "OMNE SOLDM FORTI PARTIA." TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 1875.

The intelligence that Mr Vogel Las succeeded in raising the four-million loan is nothing more than was to be anticipated, — in fact it is almost impossible to conceive a country so financially rotten that it cannot raise money on the London market at a price; and there can be little doubt that the money could have been raised without the Colonial Tl on surer visiting England at all; but on that account, we are not to complain that he has put the co!uny to the expense of his travelling, as it is to be tak' ii for granted that by hi^gresencahe was enabled to jorrjctly place the position of'di^olony before tvs eyes of the great firm through whom, the money lias been raised. If by his presence the loan has been taken at a fraction higher, his expenses are not worthy of a moments thought. An eighth-per-cent., for instance, on four millions, amounts to £5000, a sum very far beyond the most outrageous estiaute for his expenses. The rate at which the lo in has been contracted — 93, bearing interest at Ah per cent — brings th^ rate of interest the colony will have to pay up tov^i fi^ptid^r- o^er £4 16s 9{-d por cent. As was to b# anticipated; those terms aio not so favorable as those on which the last loan was contracted ; this is owing to money at that time having been worth only 3 per cent., whereas by the latest advices from London, -£ per cent was being paid ; this shews, therefore, that the credit of the colony stands as well as ever it did, in .spite of the piognostications- of those who stated, if they did not believe, that the credit of the Colony was nearly expanded to fracture. It is a common thing to hear clouds expressed by se+tlers in the Waikato, as to the completion of the railway to Ohaupo, and still greater unbelief exists as to it's being carried further South for many years. These people forget that the success of the whole scheme depends upon its completion, unless the trunk line is constructed, our expenditure on the sections built cannot fail to be unrcmunerative, whether success be looked for in direct returns from traffic, or indirectly by the opening of the country to settlement. The object of railway construction in every country has not been to commence somewhere and eni at "no place ; " on the contrary, it has always been to bring two or more large centie^ of population into direct and cheap communication. The credit of the Colony, and the elasticity of its revenue, will enable us to carry the scheme out without any great delay beyond the time necessary to construct the works, we are half w^y across a nairow chasm on a plank too narrow to be turned upon; we must either go on, or in a financial sense, be dashed to pieces at the bottom. The money will be forthcoming and the interest will have to be paid, if to do so, it isnecessaiy to impose an income-tax, and that which we should very much li';e to see, a heavy tax upon every aore of unimproved land in the country ; such a tax as would make the speculator disgorge and throw open land to people who will help us to bear our burdens.

Mr Dixon, fr-oelary of the Auckland Acclima hzation Society, lias received a small quantity of Manilla tobctcco seed fur gricuitous distribution amongst country settlers in the Province, also a parcel of sugar-beet. As the supply of tobacco seed is very limited, it would be as well for those desirous of trying it in the district to apply at once to the above-named gentleman. We have received Vac following letter :—": — " Sir, Is it the duty of a pe^oniu charge of a public ferry to put a person across a river, and then leave him on the brink of it, the said person being the worse fur drink 1 1 ask this, as a few driys back, a man jin my employ was so treated, and if I had not hastened to his assistance, would most undoubtedly jaave been drowned, as he was quite unable to get up the steep bank of the river where the ferryman jharl left him. I have no ill-will towards the said ferryman, but I think perhaps by the insertion of ifchis, it will make him show a little more of Christian feeling, and so hope you will find room. — I am, &c. J£aruvvahinawri, March 11th, 1875. Veritas." fWe believe that no person in charge of a ferry, •should allow a person in the state described, to cross &t all, but if the btvict letter of the law weie acted t.iD to, many an inebriate would have an airy bedjroom.—En. W.T. ] Some circlets or evil disposed person has set fire #o the buah at Eajt Hamilton. It haa bern burn"}n# for about three dyyi and m not likely to go out .till it has completely destroyed tho bush. Wo v oral ,of di<-i b'l-Juaon will bo considerable losers by the /leatr ictiun of Ihcir fuev/f.od. All should bo ear > /ul dunr'V; th'S thy v/tMthev to &oe tliat ;>ll the /fiatciio 1 ; r.hey taiow dr,/ i nvc PxHn^ni ih" 1 ')■-■ if <

seen in another column. * Judgo Beckham arrived by coa«h last evening, he will sit for the fiist time in the District Court on Thursday morning. There are only three cases set down for hearing. A correspondent writes us from Harapipii — Messis A. & J. Sherrot of this place have lost from twenty-live to thirty sheep from being worried by a dog. The weather in this district is still very dry, and the much wished for rain seems as far off as ever, and the consequence is that feed is very scarce, and all the paddocks are looking very brown. From the 2 1st of the present month the post office will be closed (as the present Post Master is about to resign unless some public spirited individual will take the billet), but as it is, in the language of the immortal Sam Weller, an office where all the duties are performed gratis, free for nothing. I do not suppose the Chief Post Master will be inundated witli applications for the situation. During the past eight years it has been carried on on the aboveKj;ei*ms. The Wflivarapa Standard concludes as follows an article*! Party Government : — " In this colony wouldHoerlY^Lnisters have never aimed to acquire and deserve the support and confidence of the principal constituencies in the country; but only the support of a majority of the members of the House, who have been held together by far different influences from those which the holding of common opinions on questions of paramount interest are apt to generate. Had Mr Stafford, instead of Mr Vogel, moved the abolition resolutions, and the latter, on their being carried, had appealed from the House to the country, there would have been for the first time the prospect of two really great and distinct parties being organised, both in Parliament and in the country ; but this is not the case now. The action taken by Mr Vogel last session has a striking reseinbfrdfce in one respect to that taken by Sir R. Peel on^pe question of the repeal of the Corn Laws. The one fflte broken up the provincial party, which otherwise would have been all-powerful in the event of a dissolution, and the other broke up the protectionist party, which had been organised under his leadership ; but there the resemblance ends. Sir Robert Peel resigned office rather than be the instrument to carry into effect a policy he had been elected to oppose. Not so Mr Vogel. No such disinterestedness from him was to be anticipated He has shown too great a readiness to reap the fruits of his ownapostac}'. He has inflicted a blow on the provmef^^arty from which it will not recover in a hurry; he hopes to secure a new lease of power by the discomfiture of the party he once led, and which he has now betrayed. Had he remained true to the party which placed him in power, the division of both Houses and country into greai and distinct parties would have beon rendered pos sible ; but, under the circumstances, the prospect is more remote than ever of true Parliamentary Government being established in New Zealand." In the course of a recent leading article the Lyttelton Times says :—": — " At the instigation of the Premier, the Government has undertaken to create a new constitution for the colony. There having been no strong expression of public feeKng for oi against the scheme, but little discussion has ibllowed and there has been no expression of public opinior to guide Ministers in framing their measure. More over, the author of the scheme has been away like a nanghty little boy who has thrown a lighted squit among a knob of old women, and to add to the troubles the " barrister of colonial reputation," whe was to have gathered the materials for the work, has declined the task. Without Mr Vogel to explain his meaning — if he had any — can it be expected that the Cabinet will agree even en the first principles — to say nothing about details — of a bill which has not originated with them, of which the majority kuow absolutely nothing, and concerning many important points of which they must as a matter of course differ very materially. Can we suppose for an instant that when they come to consider" the various points seriously, Dr Pollen, oi Auckland, will agree with Mr Reynolds, of Otago, or Major Atkinson, of Taranaki, take the same view as Mr Bo wen, of Canterbury. They may try to be thoroughly colonial in their views, but the separate and conflicting interests of their own several provinces must prevail over any purely theoretic form eft government. A country littler furnishes us " Hawke's Baj Herald," with information relative to the construe tion of bridges, which may be useful to some oi our local Boar(C^ s He states that in his neighbourhood the practice has been adopted of forming the stringers of bridges over small streams — such aj usually crossed by culvert bridges — of live poplai trees. Two or three of these are thrown from bank to ban.:, then the cross pieces are placed in position, and the earth and installing are spread over the woodwork, and raised to the proper height. Shoots rapidly grow out of the stringers, and bind the earthwork together much in the same way as gorse growing on railway emb ■ kments serves te keep them firm, aftd to prevent the occurrence o1 landslips. This idea of a cheap and economical bridge seems to us a good one, and well worthy oJ being carried out here, where the poplar grows readily and thrives well. It is a tree adapted te the soil and climate, and can evidently be made useful as well as ornamental, as our correspondent points out. Up to date, says the Mohia correspondent of the Bay Telegraph,' there have been eighteen Scamperdown and four sperm whales caught here this season, giving, I suppose, about sixty tuns oi oil altogether, which at £60 (about) per tun, reaches the nice little sum of .£3,600. There arc fourteen boats engaged in the work. There was a turtle cauirftt here the other day, greatly to the astonishment of the natives, who had never seen one before. In harpooning the animal, the shell completely bent the iron, insomuch that they concluded it was a taniwha they had caught. It is a pity that they did' not have sufficient nous to turn Mr Turtle over on his back, and there let him l»ido until wanted. The best parts of the calipash and calipee, I am sadly .ifraid, were wasted. Another strange fish was also caught recently. This one was of a vivid red color, weighing between four and five hundredweight, and had moderately-sized wings (!) This was only put down by the native mind to be a " taniwha." The '• New York World " thus enumerates the seven blessings confeired upon the United States by thirteen years of protection to native industry : — " 1. Universal strikes; hundreds of thousands of working men out of employment, and an immense increase of pauperism and consequent crime. 2. A ialling-off of immigration to the extent of 50 per )ent. A stream of emigrants from the United States to Europe, nearly 1,000 having left during :he week ending 21st November from the port of New York alone. 3. A total stagnation in the jotton, woollen, and iron industries, the price of -ages reduced, and mills running only four days in ;he week. 4, A plethora of money (such as it is), which can be had for three or four per cent, on "ill, which no one is crazy enough to invest in nanufacturing enterprises. 4. Almost general .t.ignsition in the wholesale and lefcail trades, 6 \n unpiccedcnted falling off of imports, w'n. h 1 ' v'u ' ' - (I|> ''i'v/iv tl.it, t!i Him, hed imports m il:o ».»m> lmin.ViuM piosperons. 7. A ruined expoit >VMie foi all kinds of uwuui ucturo.s.

and tFjitfifiilneskoi 1 the statement. Weashail doubt^ less torn nexti tf it be .true that Captaia Hoit has ceased to have any connection with the firm of Messrs Brogden, and has taken the ' Press Agency ' in his own hands. It may, be better or worse, who can tell, either for the ' Agency,' the public, the firm, or Captain Holt, if this supposition be correct. Whether "the firm" has any control over the Agency at the present time or not, we do not attempt to affirm or deny, but one thing is certain that it had absolute control over the Agency a few months since. Some two years or more past, when the rival Telegraphic Associations were running against each other, Mr Montrose, who was the part proprietor of the l Agency,' now in existence, applied to ' the firm ' for aid to carry it on. After some consideration, his request was complied with ; the firm advanced money, and Captain Holt, who was then Mr James Brogden's Private Secretary, was appointed Manager. Mr Montrose was discharged by Captain Holt, and Mr. M'Carthy appoinWl in his place, and this appointment was made by Captain Holt while being still a* servant of Mr Brogftento. All accounts until lately were audited and paid by<them, and it was well known throughout the Colony the Agency belonged to the contracting i %ByjL e na( * imported. The statement by Captain HolffT||ttounts then, doubtless, to this and nothing more. He still retains his position as an employe of the firm, with a hypothetical power of managing the Press Agency. The firm directly may not control the Agency but its satellite does, and this | statement comes at a not inopportune time. The j Press of the Colony has been unanimous almost in condemning the conduct of the Agency since under the uninformed management of Captain Holt. There has been a talk for two years among the evening papers to form a rival Agency, and lately some oi the morning publications have joined with the mal- [ contefrfcs< A niggard spirit and underpaid Agents i are -affirmed to be the causes of discontent. One thing ia certain, the colonial Press ought to be enabled to maintain a Telegraphic Agency without the aid or co-operation of a firm of Railway contractors. " Daily Telegraph." • A woman was at the bottom of the agricultural strike in England, says Kate Field, and th's was the way of it : — Mrs Vincent, wife to the editor of the Leamington Chronicle ( who, by the way, lived many years in Massachusetts, and got to be quite a Yankee ), was running that paper in her husband's absence, one day in February, 1872, when a farm laborer walked into the office and said : "We are going to have a meeting to-night, and we hope the CfyKqmck will send a reporter, and make England heaiy^'V'l dont see the necessity," exclaimed the assistant — a man. " I do," replied Mrs Vincent. " There is nobody to send," argued the assistant^ditq^'.v " Some one must be found," answered Mrs Vincenf. Some one was found, and the report did make England hear, and the revolution followed ; Hodge for the first time called for his rights and took a long step towards getting them. Kate who grew a redder Republican than ever in hei English sojourn, thinks there are serious grounds for fearing that "thi English revolution of 1895 may rival in atrocity, as well as in beneficence, thai of the French 100 years earlier." The profits from wool this season promise to be enormous, remarks the Queenslander, which adds thatf,* a firm of absentees, whose runs are in th« Downs and Western districts, had over £30,00 C profits last year. This season they will, in all pro bability^have a still larger income, four-fifths oi whic&rgoes home to England to support the partners. The total expenses of the stations do nol reach .£lO,OOO per annum. These are huge profits; there are many similar cases; but not a soul in the country would begrudge them were the o a ners of these princely properties paying anything like a fair equivalent to the country that protects their property, and from which they extract so much wealth. >: It will give some idea of the steaming powers of the new steamers of the Torres Straits mail line when we mention that the Brisbane, on entering Port Phillip on her first voyage, in the early part of the present mon£h, met the famous fast paddlesteamer Golden Crown, which was about to return to Hobson's Bay, and she prepared for a race with the Brisbane. They steamed side by side up the West Channel, and towards Hobson's Bay, but aa they approached Sandridge the Brisbane drew ahead and won the race. The Brisbane made the run from Sydney .to Hobson's Bay in 45 hours — one of the fastest passages on record. The new volunteer regulations which are shortly to come into force do not seem to meet with the general approval of the force to which they relate. In one direction (observes the " Post ") they will certainly act very prejudicially. The minimum numbeY of a" company is now fixed at the uniform number of thirty, whether in town or country, and all provision for the formation of contingents of less number is omitted. In many country districts it is quite impossible to keep up a company of thirty o^cient men, but because thirty cannot be found, it is surely a great pity to refuse the services of twenty or twenty-five.