NEW ZEALAND: GENERAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 32, 7 August 1902, Page 19

NEW ZEALAND : GENERAL.

Oveb £1000 have now been collected in Wellington for tht Governor's Veterans' Home scheme. Owing to the increase in the shipments of stock to Australia the Union Company is putting on a speoial steamer from the South Island. A new woollen mill was formally opened last week in Napier. Large orders for the company's products have already been reoeived. The building of the memorial cairn to the late Sir John M'Kenzie was completed laat week, Wednesday was the anniversary of his death. The Ohristohuroh Master Bakers' Association has (Bays the Prett i decided that on ani after August I, the price of bread per 2ib loaf shall be 2Jd at bakers' shops, and 3d delivered. Mills for the manufacture of hats from the raw material were opened at Wellington on Wednesday. The Mayor &et the machinery in motion and was presented with the first hat turned oat. The reading matter in the Tr lad for August is particularly interesting, whilst the illustrations are up to the high standard always maintained by this bright monthly. In oonsequence of Sydney having been declared free from plague vessels arriving from that port will not in future require to be fumigated. The medical examination of passengers will, however, be continued for some time. The new post office building at Gore is almost completed, some interior painting alone remaining to be done. It will be well on in December next, however, before the authorities will shift into it. Our Chrietchurch correspondent informs us that it was a ram of 120 guineas, not 100 as mentioned in his letter, that was Bubsoribed in Darfield for the Christchurch Catholic Cathedral building fund. In the course of a discussion on the small birdß nuisance at the Selwyn (Canterbury) County Council, one councillor mentioned that boyß in the district were making £ I per week selling birds' egg-a. Mb Seddon, speaking to the National Committee of Organised Labor at Walworth, declared that England could easily bear the expenditure of £8,000,000, the cost of old-age pennonß, under a scheme like that of New Zealand. There were 20,302,032 sheep in the Co'ony on April 30 last' being an inoreaae of 68.923 over the total on the same date in 1901* The increase in the North Island was 60,038, and in the South Inland 8885. A Wellington firm has been inttructed to buy up £10.000 worth of poultry for the Home market. Tae order ia said to be the outcome of the satisfaction of a large firm of dealers in London with recent shipments from this Colony. At a meeting of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, called to oonsider the State Fire Insurance Bill, it was resolved that in the opinion of this Chamber it is inexpedient that the Government of the Colony should embark in the hazardous business of inauranoe against fire. The Junior Reform Club of Liverpool entertained Mr Seddon at dinner. In the course of a spaeoh he declared that England was now in the same commercial rut as in 1897. He urged her to keep her trade with naval supremacy, for if she lost one she would lc-e both. He recommended the Government to subsidise ships in addition to fixing a maximum for freights. The Ashburton Agricultural and Pastoral Association has finally decided on securing for the county the servioes of a dulyqualified veterinary surgeon, whose income shall be not less than £300 per annum. A guarantee for this amount has been freely signed by a large number of agriculturists aud pastoralisus. Sir J. G. Ward has received a cable from Mr Seddon stating that in the medical examination at London University the lists in three of the four Bubjeots were headed by New Zealand students— namely, Mr O'Brien (of Christchurch) and Mr Allen (of Auckland), who carried off gold medalß and scholarships of the value of £140 arid £60 respectively iv open compt>tition. Ths residents of St. Albans having carried rating on unimproved values some time ago, and finding now that it will press very heavily on certain classes of ratepayers, are looking around for some means whereby they can rid themselves of the trouble. If reports are to be relied on, they evidently took a leap in the dark, and are now repenting of their folly. An old Wellington boy, writing to his relatives in that city from Port Elizabeth on June 22, cays : — ' There has been a revolution in the Army Service Corps, The Imperial Government has imported cheap labor, 5s a day all found, consequently throwing the civilian clerks here out of employment. Men who have shouldered the rifle nearly all through the campaign have been thrown out of work to make room for men who have been sitting tight in England while we have been fighting. Loyalty rewarded ! ' Viscount Kitchener's recommendations in hie final despatch include the following New Zealanders : — Colonel R. Davies, Majors F. Abbott and E. Bartlett, Captains A. H. Stevenson, C. Somm-r-ville, Potter, and Johnstone, Lieutenant W. Morrison, Sergeantmajors Piokett and White, Regimental Sergeant-major G. Blaok, Quartermaster-sergeant Mitchell, Sergeant Smythe, Corporalß Cato, Burns, and Beck, Lance-corporal Tuorpe, Private Caßsidy,and Sister Peiper.

The annual meeting of the Bank of New Zealand was held at Wellington on Friday. The directors' report etated that the profits, after providing for expen =ea of management and for all bad and doubtful debts, were £289,501, from which had to be deducted interest on £2,000,000 guaranteed stock (£80,000), leaving £209,501. Of thiß Bum the directors have allocated £37,000 as follows :— Further provision for B^nk of New Zealand Estates Co assets in liquidation, £22,000 ; in reduction of Colonial Bank property and premises account, £5000 ; in reduction of Bank of N.Z property, premisea, and furniture, £10,000 ; leaving a balance in profit and loss of £175,501. This, the directors propose, Bhall be disposed of as follows :— Statutory payment io Asset* Realisation Board, £50,d00 ; dividend at the rare of 5 per oent. for the year ended 81st March on the share capital (£427,319), £21,366, leaving a surplus to be paid over to the Assets Board of £101,135. The chairman, in moving the adoption of the report, etated that advances were higher by £330,000, and the profit earned on ourrent bankingibutiness exceeded that of last year by £15,000. A judgment of interest to anglers and acclimatisation societies was given ia the Appeal Court, Wellington, on Monday, in the case of Campbell v. Mao Donald. This was a case in which an appeal was made against the conviction of the appellant by Mr James, S.M., at Wairarapa, for fishing without a license, the facts being that appellant had, with the consent of a neighbor, fiahed for trout in a stream running through hia neighbor's property without having taken out a license. The Fisheries Conservation Act, 1884, expressly provides that nothing oontaiued in that Act shall apply to any person taking fish in water of which he is owner, nor to any person authorised by such owner. The Court were unanimously of opinion that although in the strict sense of the term no person U the owner of water of a stream running over his land, but only of the bed of the stream, he is the owner of the water in the ordinary meaning of the term, and that upon the construction of the Fisheries Aots the whole word muet be given its ordinary meaning in those Acts. The Court therefore held that appellant had committed no offence, and the conviction must be quashed. The Court also held that the Acts give no authority to require the taking out of a license to fish or to impose a license fee, and that regulations for that purpose, which had been made under the Act and aoted upon for many years, are ultra vires and void. The appeal was allowed, with £10 coats.