ECHOES FROM THE CAFE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1726, 28 July 1883, Page 2

ECHOES FROM THE CAFE.

So some ot our honourable members (Vare they not all honourable members?") have been indulging in that high class amusement known as "stone-walling," aucl. much they got .for their' trouble. They proved mo3t conclusively their own hopeless weakness, audthat ; the majority of the House were determined to go on with business at whatever cost -to their own personal comemencc. Of course, each one to his own taste, but I must say that I would not like to sit-in the House for twelve hours at a stretch. I once worked for thirty-eight consecutive hours, stopping only for meals, but I enjoyed it so little that Ido not intend to do it again. Among the " stone- wallers" I noticed the name of Mr Harris, M.H.JEt. for Franklin North. He, it' may be remembored, was the worthy who told his constituents before he was elected that he would give the Whitaker Miuistry a fair- trial, and yet rushed from ' tha steamer by which he went to Wellington up to the House to give his vote in favour of ousting that same Ministry. His vote was thrown away, as the attempt praued futile, but the breach of his promise to his constituents was none the less dishonourable. The '• stone- walling '* was* disgraceful waste of the country's time and money, and was worse than useless. The l.overnmeiit are quite amenable to reason, and had they been met in a fair and proper spirit would have been ready and willing to listnn to any objections to the estimates ns proposed, and to make any reductions which it could be shown miyht he made without detriment, to the public service, but when they found that their opponents were determined to' obstruct out of "sheer cussedhess," the .only course left them was to put their foot down and carry their estimates throuch.

The moat obstinate of the "stone* wallers " seems to have been Mr Fish, M.H. K. for Dunedin .South. I asked a gentleman, who had been « resident of Duucdin for some considerable time who and what Mr Fish was. He told me that he was a man of but little education, and no standing in the city, which all the Otagans think should be the capital of New Zealand. He was elected to the mayoralty because no good man offered himselt for the position, not pn account of any special fitness for the o'fice which ho was supposed to possess. What brought him prominently ' before the public was the compilation of sonic statistics in connection with the Harbour Board. They were very simple, such as might have been compiled by any schoolboy, but there was a good deal ot discus* sion in the newspapers about them, and people who did not take the trouble to study them came to the conclusj/A V.hat Mr Fis>h was a very clever man^fc 'hat he was not, and is not, but he is pc^» s '3d of a certain amount of shrewdnes^Bßr' a good deal of ambition, so he managed to get himself elected a member ot the House of Representatives, and thus was enabled to take a prominent part in the high class amusement known as " stonewalling."

On Monday, under the heading, " DiV covery of Kauri Gnmin New Caledonia — Concessions to an Auckland Merchant)" thero appeared in the Herald a long tele* pram from Sydney, announcing that the French Government had eranted to Mr Adolphus Oppenheimer, of Auckland, a tun years monopoly to dig for and export kauri gum from New Caledonia. ■If I were an Auckland merchant I would not feel flattered at seeing the term applied to Mr Adolphus Oppenheimer. The individual in questioti is an accomplished linguist, a clever correspondent, and quite an adept in the art of advertising. He performed ay> and coup in the latter respect when he was in business here. He wrote a highly eulogistic article on the standing and merits of the firm of A. Oppenheimer and Co., from which it appeared that they occupied a leading position here, and had it issued ns a supplement to one of the weekly journals, the article being surmounted by a wood-cut of the firm's premises, which wood-cut, by a singular mistake, represented the whole block of which the firm's premises formed but an insignificant part. Hundreds of copies of the newspaper and supplement were sent by mail to America and Europe. Singular to relate, that supplement was not published in Auckland, and it was not until a copy was sent from America that the affair was known here.

4t Much to the surprise of everybody, the mail steamer Zealandia arrived in harbour on Friday evening, bringing letters and newspapers from London dated June 14th — thirty-six days being the short time occupied in transit. I be* lieve that, by employing faster steamers between here and San Francisco, even this fast time can be beaten, but this proves the truth of the Premier's assertion that our present n:ail service is the quickest wo can have, and he proved most conclusively that it is the least costly. It seems probable that before long New Zealand will have the San Francisco mail service entirely in her own hands, New South Wales being supplied, if at all, by a branch boat. In that case, the company will be able to dispense with one steamer, and so will be enabled to supply three faster boats for the same subsidy as we now pay, or possibly for less. With faster boats on the Pacific, greater facilities for forwarding our mails across the American continent, and by using only the quickest steamers between England and America, there seems to be good reason for the belief that it will not be long before we are within thirty days' communication with London. As soon as thai is accomplished a trip to Old England will be a simple matter, as a three months' holiday and £100 will "do the trick," so good-bye., I'm off.

On Wednesday morning we had one of the largest conflagrations seen in this city, the factory and a large portion of the stock of the Union Sash and Door Company, (that is not the full title of the company, but it is enough for the purposes of indeutification) being burnt. The heat and glare from the fire were tremendous and had it not been for the rain which was fortunately falling at the time, the consequences would havo been even more serious than they were. Hundreds of pieces of burning wood Were carried by the gale which was blowing at the time in the direction of the city, and the householders to leeward of the fire owe the escape of their build* ings almost entirely to the fact that the rain extinguished the burning timber before it had been carried far. The tire brigade, despite the want of proper appliances, workecT'iplendid.ijr, and did much to prevent , JsLM£s4d w the fire. There is the lip*yffifojii# 6t talk about incendiarisn^betng sfcyject&l, but I do not believe that, tnereAu^tny ' ground for the auspiciob^&pij alKroba* bility the origin of the' '-firelwiM^HMbe discovered, but I do not think'^^^^Bare is any good reason to a<Awsffi£v^^Km/tn number of incipient firiavH&yrc^^^^^H covered at different tim£» b^^^^^^^H pany's watchman, and ;'my onjj^^H^H^ that, with such an iiiiiiin||m^Bmiiil ot highly inflammable matod§hffftfii)jNhe former fires succeeded iri nupig^qefi a hold as to make it impo^ibi^^&titfgmsh

i Erery cloud has its silver 'lining, and things are seldom so bad as they might have been. The loss by Wednesday's tire is a yery serious one, but there is consolation in the fact that, no lives were lost, nor are any poor people rendered homeless by the casualty. lam afraid that in some cases the loss will prove a seiious one, as there are people , whose, main source of income was their dividend from their shares in this company, which divi* dendthey^are'not likely td get' this year, bui the maJ9 ( r f portion of tfie.diwc^loss j 8 covered by insurance, and the' company are in a position tp x c'arry, on business, so tluft 1 th<i oensation of divideada ia w\

likely to la«t longer thah a your. Possibly the directors may be able to pay a dividend, in spite of the loss, through n smaller oilo than usual. Mutters would have worn a more serious aspect had there been no insurance whatever, which was the case at one time. Thero was a rather curious anomaly in connection with that same matter of insurance, No company would accept a risk on the buildings or stock, but several companies insured the interests of shareholders. St. Mukgo.