LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIV, Issue 3148, 6 December 1893, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

We notice in Messrs Mitchell and Turner's advertisement in our current issue that they have landed another lot of new goods. Evidently thia firm, means to prevent Ashburton ladies going to town for their drapery !if possible. We wish them every success. The Spreydon School Committee have issued a summons against Mr G. W. Russ.ell> M.H.R. for Riccarton, claiming £5 for dam. ages caused by him by breaking into the schoolroom on an occasion mentioned some timeagq. At the OhrUtchurch Police Court this morning a youth named George Oakley waa charged with having posted a letter bearing a postage stamp which had previously been used and defaced. He was fined £8 and costs, amounting altogether to £4 18s* The Wesleyan Church is evidently not inclined to slacken its zeal in the work of temperance. At the annual district meeting on Tuesday it was deeded to ask the confer- , ence, which will Bhortly be held in Christchurch,, to set apart the Rev L. M. Isitt for another year to prosecute his mission thoughou X' the colony. Mr Cambridge's little boy, "Don" died on Tuesday evening from the effects of his injuries received on Saturday last. St. Stephen's Church Band of Hope, of which the lad was a member, was in session when the news reached the hall, and the meeting was immediately adjourned as a mark o sympathy with the bereaved parents and respect to the memory of their late comrade,

Much is expected of the proposed new suffrage law of Belgium. It is based upon f>ur qualifications—intelligence, age, matrimony, and property. Graduates of colleges and universities may vote twice at each elecion. A married man wh-> has leached the age of thirty-Sve may also vote twice. A married man who possesses a certain specified amount of property may vote three time?. At the same time there are only about 1.'0,000 legal voters in Belgium. Under the propo e:l plan there will be 1,200,000 voters with a voting power of J.,800;000 vo'.es. Ihe "Times"correspondent^ Wellington says:—-A good deal of speculation i 3 rife as to Lhe probable recipients of Birthday honours lam inclined to think that if a knighthood were offered to Mr Seddon he would probably follow the example set him by his late chief and decline it. The chances aie that Mr Perceval will have the first offer, and if a second knighthood should be a£the disposal of the Colony it would be a graceful act to bestow it on Mr Steward if Ministers should decide, as they no doubt will, to reinstate Sir M. O'Rorke in the Speaker's chair. The Premier was in a quandary on Thursday last according to the "New Zealand Times." He wished to send a congratulatory message to Mrs Yates, the newly-elected i Mayor of Onehunga. The point was the proper form of address. " Her Worship the Mayor" did not sound exactly right, and " The Mayoress" was certainly open to J grave doubt, seeing that the lady had been elected to the office of Mayor. Finally Mr i Seddon adopted a form of address which no one could cavil at—" Mrs Yates, Mayor of Onehunga," He offered the lady his cordial felicitations upon having achieved the distinction of being the first woman in the British dominions to contest and win a Mayoral election, and he wished her a pleasant and successful year of office* Britishers owe a lot of money to each other, and claim a huge debt from other people. Mr A. J. Wilson in the Investors Review says: Our national debt of £700,000,000 may be looked UDon as a first mortgage upon the empire. Next to it stands the local debts, and the debts and guarantees of our railways. They foot up, these mortgages to more than £1,000,000,000 and below them again come the unascertainable sums we have put out in >jountries not under the British flag. They are a* least £500,000,000, so that we have about three thousand million sterling out on mortgage, of which two-thirds or so is upon the empire itself. This is excluslre of the immense sums embarked in private adventures abroad or at home, in the form of share capital, or in other " unsecured " investments. One. effect of the coal war has been a proposal by Sir George Elliott that the coal trade should form one vast trust for the purpose of consolidating the various colliery interests throughout the United Kingdom, Its object is stated to be " not to create a monopoly for the benefit of the colliery proprietors, but to form a combination which it i 3 believed will be equally advantageous to the coal owners, colliery proprietors, workmen, and purchasers and consumers of all classes, and therefore permanently beneficial to the nation at large," With regard to the royalty owners, it is intended to purchase their interests from time to time as opportunity occurs. Every colliery proprietor in the United Kingdom will be invited to join the company, and an experiment in profit sharing is to be made by giving the workmen, in addition to their wage*, a share in the profits, A public meeting was held in Ihe Ashburton Wesieyan Church on Tuesday evening 1 for the purpose of giving a public welcome to the members of the district meeting to this town, "x'he chair wa3 taken by Mr John Orr, who briefly expressed his pleasure at extending to the district meeting a hearty welcome to Ashburton. He then called on Rev S. Lwry to speak on behalf of the circuit. In doing so Mr Lawry referred to the progress which had been made since the first minister was appointed in 1877, when there were hardly any church members and no church buildings, now there were 253 church member in the circuit, six churches, three of which had been enlarged, and two parsonages, with seven Sunday Schools, having 476 scholars. Revs W. Mprley, J. S, Smalley, and P. W. Fairclough responded on behalf of the district meeting in veiy interesting addresses. After the public meeting a communion service was held, when there was a large number of communicants. A short address was given by Rev H. R. Dewsbury, of Chistchnrch.