NEW ZEALAND : GENERAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 27, 3 July 1902, Page 19

NEW ZEALAND : GENERAL.

It is stated that the Representative Commissioners will recommend that the Bingle electorates Bhoald be reverted to in the four cities. The Government have acquired, under the Land for Settlements Act, the Mead estate, of (>OOO acres, belonging to R. N. Bealey three miles and a-half from Rakaia. The Rev. Fathers Thomas Lane, A. C. Langerwerf, and H. J Wientjes have been gazetted officiating ministers under ' Tha Marriage Act, 1880.' Ak outbreak of anthrax has occurred near Ta Awamntu, and several cattle are dead. The men who handled the animals caught the disease, and are in the Waikato Hospital. One is not expected to live. The other two are less seriously affected. The Nelson Colonut reports that on Tuesday of last week the Rev. George Mahony received a cable message from London from the Very Rev. Dean Mahoney announcing his arrival in London, and also that he was in excellent health. Mb Seddon is to visit Wales and Ireland. In referring to Sir M. Hicks-Beach's speech on the third reading of the Finance Bill, Mr Seddon declared that his attitude in regard to preferential trade had destroyed the main interest in the Imperial Conference, supposing he represents the views of his Government. Thk Coronation honors for New Zealand are : Captain W Russell, M.H.R., of Hawke's Bay, and Dr. John Logan Campbell of Auckland, to be knights; Major Bane hop, Companion of thg Order of St Michael and St. George ; Colonel Porter, Companion o. the Bath. x Tk Whiti, the Maori prophet, whose prognostications have fo r a considerable time been as reliable aa the ordinary weather fore 1 * cast, has evidently ' struck ile ' this time, as he told the natives some days ago that the King's Coronation would not take plaoe. As a result his mana has once more been placed on a solid basis, and the Maoris are greatly excited over the matter. An Auckland message states that in St. Patrick's Cathedral on Sunday his Lordship Bishop Lenihan said that the Catholics heartily grieved and sympathised with the rest of the Empire over the King's illness They recognised the King as a friend, though the King was forced by a Protestant nation to call Roman Catholics idolaters, and to say that the Holy Sacrifice the congregation were now engaged in was blasphemy. The congregation offered prayers for the restoration of the King's health. Now and again we hear of a man asking the court for a prohibition order to apply to himself, but beyond this the case of an individual setting the law in motion against himself is very rare indeed. There is a constable in Waitara, who, if the report be true, has a very correct idea of how the law should be administered. He found his own horse wandering about the public thoroughfare the other day, and forthwith the offending owner was prosecuted and fined Is and costs by the local justices. The Rev. Father Foran, military chaplain, who it will be remembered was here with the Imperial troops last year, has published a small pamphlet entitled 'The Church under the Southern Cross,' in which he writes as follows of the Maori Missions : — ' To me personally the mo?t interesting work of the diocese (Auckland) was that of the Maori Missions — that is, of missions carried on amongst the aboriginal natives. This great work has been entrusted to the Fathers of Ht. Jnt-eph's Missionary Society of the Saored Heart— a Bociety foundtd by the present Cardinal -Archbishop of Westminster, and whose headquarters are at Mill Hill. There are 21 churches for the Maoris, many of which I was able to visit. I was filled with admiration for the heroic mispionaries, many of whom are foreignerp, who firpt of all had to learn English, and then when appointed to the Maori Missions had to acquire the language of tbe people. Their life among these poor natives is indeed a hard and tying one. They come to their work and devote not a part of that life, but the whole of it to the service of their people ; there is to be no turning back, no lifting the hand from the plough ; as tbty live among their people, so they die. A career worthy of all honor. The change which has been worked amongst the natives is marvellous. Less than a century ago they were cannibals. Indeed as late aa 1809 a well-known case of cannibalism occurred amongst them, and it is said that between 1820 and IS4O 30,000 Maoris were slain and eaten during their tribal wars. Christianity has changed all that, and a more loyal and order-loving people is not to be found at the present day. The Maoris, who have been in New Zealand for some fire hundred years, are intellectually and morally far above any of the other Australasian aborigines. I noted in the benches in a Maori church several prayer-books in the native tongue, which proved that these poor people were by no means illiterate, and I brought away with me from New Zealand a v< ry high appreciation of the natives, and a doep veneration for the noble, self-sacrificing pastors who minister to their spiritual needs.'