PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2308, 26 May 1898, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily' Times.

IT will hardly do to say of Mr Gladstone as Tennyson, with tbe exaggeration of a poet, said of Wellington, that The last great Englishman is low.

There were brave men before Agarneraxjou ; there will be great statesmen after Mr Gladstone. Bat it is hard to see where we are going to find a man to stand in his shoes.

Lord Salisbury is a High Churchman ; Mr Chamberlain caa utter earth - shaking speeches; Mr Balfcur haa written books on

metaphysics and theology ; but to make a

Gladstone we should have to roll Lord Salis- • bury, Mr' Chamberlain, Mr Balf our,' all three

' into one..; Statesman, theologian, orator, man iggof- letters, tribune of tha people, none but •Himself could be bis parallel. yV& may repeat to ourselves that he Is not and can- ' not be " the last great Englishman " ; s we may ask, with Cassius in the play : ■ -When went there by an age, since the great Flood. But it was famed with more "than with one maa ? It is certain all the same that we shall not soon find the man who will fill this one man's placs. I shudder to think of all tbe mortuary eloquence we shall have to endure from press and pulpit for his sake. For months past every big newspaper has bad his obituary notice, columns loDg, pigeon-holed, kept ready, written up to date ; and now the avalanche is about to descend upon us from

all quarters at once I I get my own little word in early — that is its only chance. Amongst the more permanent biographical records of our great man gone I would suggest a Gladstone Punch — a sixty years' collection of caricatures tracing W. E. G. through bis successive changes, from the Oxford hot Tory of Macaulay'a Eseay down to the Axeman hewing at the Irish Church and

the dream-poseessed Liberal wrecking hia party on the rock of Irish Home Rale. But at this moment wo will not reproach to him bis inconsistencies. He changed but with the changing years.

It is said that whan a. stray visitor happens - to ,go to Staffordshire, England's " Black ■ Country," one inhabitant of that inhospitable ' region saya to another, " 'Ullo, Bill ; era's a . . Btranger. |Eare 'arf a briok at 'im." In New Zealand, or at anyrate in Wellington, these little attentions are apparently cot confined to strangers, as it seems that on Monday last no less conspicuous aperaonage.than the Bight Honourable Richard Ssddon was the recipient of this kind of compliment. While inspecting the works at the new Parliamentary Buildings the, Premier was struck in Jiha abdomen, whether by chance or by Sesiga is not told, by a brick whloh fell from

a considei able height. Fo"U<naitly k aa tbe victim of ths accident subsequently remarked, the miseile met with a " soft cusbicD," aad no evil results eusued. There can be no doubt that Mr Ssddon, in his attempt to carry ont these particular worka under the co-operabiva system?, h&s managed to offesd a grpaS m&ny of the parsons whom he, profacsadJy wished to bacefifc, but the Stafforctahire system of resenting a grievance is to be deprecated, and it is to be hoped that it will not be generally resorted to ia this colony. At the same time I certainly tbiek that the parfcionlar brick whioh came' r o near causing irreparable mischief gheuld be raost carefully preserved. A't«r beiag r.nalytically examtaad, ko tbg>t it conld be decided whether the clay ol whioh it is composed belongs to tbe Tpry or the Liberal party, it might be divided into sections, to ba exhibited in tl<4 different museums throughout the colony, with a suifeabls inscription to show the important part ifc very nearly played in the history of Now Zealand, &c. Considering that, aa tbe Premier recently infoimad us,.moaey is no object at the present time, these sections of brick might ■■ appropriately be mounted in gold, a distinction that they undoubtedly deserve.

t Like other people I Lave been trying for gome time past to kaep an eys on the Spanish-- flaot, but wish scant rfueessa; in fact, vith as little success as the authorities in Washington. In Washington the prize conundrum has been and still remains — Where is the Spanish fleet 1 Ths story of a week back that the Spanish fleet had come home again to Cadiz was too thin. Not, howevw, wnt.il they had ruminated over it for a ds>y or two did the au^horifJes in Washington announce their scepticism, countermand the embarkiag of troops for Cnb?, and begin to shut up New York harbour afe night. Strange, in these days of tfkgraphs, that tbe Spaniards should bava beon able to conceal, even for a day or two, the actual condition of Cadiz harbour — whether it did or did not coatain+ha,Spanieh fleet. Threa days ago (this is Thursday) tbe Spanish fl eat turned up in West Indian waters, looked in at one or two neutral ports, and was seen steaming full speed apparently for Cluba. And that is the last beard of it so far. Before this note gets into print vre ought to hear of ifc again, aud to some purpose ; we cuj*ht to hear that ths American fleet has wiped ib . out;. At present the war drags, j»nd, until this elußi?e Spanish fleet, is wiped out, must continus to drag. Already the Americans are discounting their glory cheaply won at Manila. The " Battle of Manila " vrasa't much of a battle. Peppering the Spsoiards comfortably &t Long rar<ga the Amsr leans had not a man hurt, and were able to knock off for two'honrs in the middle of it to eat their breakfast?. Some antiqoaieu Spanish ships wsre eunk ; but now ths American commander telegraphe that he expectß severe figbticg^and will require 5000 troops, — which' isn't , pleasant news at all. The one thiog that will put matters straight is the v/iping out of the Spanish Atlantic fleet.

•■The French have retired from Kiscbi, in Wast Africa." Exactly where or what Kischi in West Africa may be it is not necessary to know. It is sufficient that the French have retired from it. As they ara in a retiring mood we may hope that thsy will also retire from all other places in our West African hinterlands into whiob of late they have improperly intruded. This will save us the trouble of turning them out. That we should have undertaken that trouble had they persisted in remaining, nobody will doabt who has noted the tone during recant weeks of the British press and Parliament. Why have tho French been so obstinate, bo unjustly and unreasonably obstinate ? Chiefly, I fancy, Ito oblige Eussia. IC not Russia's veiy bumble servant, France is at any ' rate Russia's very complaisant friend and ally. By establishing % quarrel with ub about Wosfc Africa, France has made things easier for Russia in the Far East. The fate of Talien-Wan and Port Arthur baa been determined on the banks of the Niger. It was in obedience to a "tip " from St. Petersburg' that French outposts were pushed into our territories; in obedience to another "tip" they are now to be withdrawn. M. Hanotaux excuses his backing down as due to the defeat of certain members of the "extreme colonial party" at the general elections. We need not cxiticise his excuses. He is at liberty to make whatever excuses are most agreeable to himself, provided only he clears out with despatch. If he cared to tell the he would announce that France had been used as a cat's-paw to pull the Ojn&ese chestnuts out of the fire for Ruasl*

A corrarpoiident, who feigns bimsalf j " 'Gate," sends me the following letter : — j Dear Civis, — When I read the cable telling ! us of what a French newspaper calls Mr j ChainbjrlaiuV eold-bloeded speech — which I should say cughi. rather to have boen described as full-blooded — I was somewhat puzz'ed as fco what it all meant. Were Ragland and America going to form an effeusive allidncs against the i whole world, and bring about a gsneral wa>- ? j On tblckirg ever the matter moie t'eeply, hoys- J ever, I h*ve cores to a diriereut conclusion. | What was the immediate effect' of this speech j of thfe S-jcretary for the Colonies ? Why, we learn that the Stock Exchange vas depressed, : ai:d "in a nervous state" ia consequence, j Herein, to my mind, lies the secrafi "of the •whole affair. • Mr Chamberlain had a little money to invent, and ifc *vas very easy for him to create con6ternation -by a blood- thic&ty i speech, and so enable* him to buy in stock on a depressed market, which he could dispose of vh«n the scare had been dispelled. I will j not go so far as to say that this is the absolutely correct solution of the matter, but it ia I quite as good bs any I have teen put forth up , to fche present. My correspondent, concludes his letter with some' strong personal reflections on Mr j OlaamberlaiiD, showing that' he believes thai gentleman to be capable of any monstrosity, but there ia bo need to ..reproduce these things in this column. I have published this extraordinary epiatle pimply to *how fee what jfingfch a' certain class ' of parsoas will go ia x imputing motives for the p.ctlon« of public men. Whatever reanlfc may come from Mr Chamberlain's speech, it ia impossible to conceive that he was actuated by a dsaire to turn aventa to his own privAVe advantage, and " 'Cote," J.n his surmises, has been overclavsr, although it is poisibla that bis absurd view of the situation is shared by a good many unthinking paople. *

Oae i» inclined to ask, in view of the circumstances which bate brought Findlater, the piper of Dargai, into notoriety, ia heroism the resalfc of accident? A schoolmate of his, writing in the Sketch, describes the youfch of the man who probably stands out more prominently than anybody else in connection with the Tirah campaign, and it would not be possible to imagine a more unpromising object for war purposes than this raw Scotoh laddie in his early yaara. Even in the oufc-of -the-way Aberdeenshire town where he was born he was looked upon as somewhat inferior goods, acd, so far »s could be seen, he had no ambitions beyond the little parish in which he was born and bred. Scotch people regard soldiering as ths lowest possible trade, and when a man " 'lists " he divests himself of the last slued of respectability. Yet, when the news came that Findlater was the man who, after being shot through both anklep, piped the Gordon I Highlanders to victory on the height* of Dargai, his fame was assured. As Malvolio remarks, " Some achieve greatusss and others have greatness thrust upon them," &n& it would seem that Findlater bsloags to the latter class. Not that any reasonable person would begrudge him the celebrity he has obtained, wbich has baem fairly earned, but at the same time it is more th«n probable th&t his coa-inuiEg playing the pipes was purely and simply the ontcorne of a reasonless instinct. Tbe act wae not impor tatit in itself, but it was jus*; one cf fchoss things that touch the sensibility of tha people and give a touch of rynniuce to the brutality of warfare. The irony of the affair lies in the fact that the little town where the hero was born, and where he was looked down upon as a useless member of society, is vow basking in the light of a reflected glory, created by the action of one of its most nhconsidered inhabitants. Civis.