LONDON GOSSIP.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 15, 18 January 1905, Page 3

LONDON GOSSIP.

* (From Our Special correspondent.) LONDON, December 9. JUVENILE COLONISTS. Some people may not see what particular benefit the community is to derive fiom exporting to the colonies, at considerable cost, our pauper children, ' f we ( continue to observe the policy of the "open door" as regards the invasion of pauper aliens, and usually extensive families. It is urged that it will be merely getting rid of Englishflesh and blood to make more room for the degenerate brats of filthy-living evil-minded Continentals. But there is such a scheme on foot, and the Lord Mayor and the London Chamber of Commerce are taking it seriously. The suggestion is that our Boards of Guardians should be empowered to buy a number of small farms of 200 to 300 acres in suitable colonies to which the children could be sent at an early age, and so be given a chance of growing up sturdy, straight-limbed, self-reliant Britishers, free from the taint of pauperism. The idea is to place a practical farmer and his wife in charge of a farm, and provide the necessary male and female servants for the work thereof, and the care of a dozen to twenty children, who would be kept until they were 14 or 15 years of age, when, if thought advisable, they could be sent to England or be placed in situations in the colony. The boys, in such time as could be spared from educational work, would be taught farming, and the girls instructed °in dairy and poultry methods, and domestic duties generally. At present the promoters of the scheme favour Nova Scotia and Canada as most suitable fields for the settlement of the children. At Home the cost of maintaining pauper children is on the average well over £50 per annum-, and it is reckoned that by rearing them in the colonies a very great Baying would be effected after the scheme had been in operation three or four years.

"WHERE'S THOMPSON?"

Wandsworth, a south-western suburb of London, is at present trying to find a satisfactory solution of the problem "What's happened to Thompson?" The Thompson in question is, or, rather, was, a respectable and respected citizen who earned on business as a cycle maker in the High-street, his Christian name being Alfred, and his age 45. Thompson had a wife and three children—Alfred, a boy in his teens, and a couple of girls, Ethel, aged 8, and Ellen, aged 11. The wife remains in Wandsworth, an object of much curiosity, sympathetic and otherwise, but Thompson and the children halve vanished as completely os though they had never existed. The manner of their disappearance suggests a preconcerted plan between Thompson and his children to cut themselves free from Mrs Thompson, and as quite recently Thompson intimated to a friend that he would much like to "hook it to Australia," it may be that they are now en route for your shores. Last Friday (December 2nd) Thompson left his bed at his usual hour, without saying anything to his wife indicative of his intention to depart from the usual matutinal regime. Half an hour later Mrs T. rose, as also did the children, but when they arrived downstairs there was no sign of Thompson. Having snatched a hasty breakfast, Alfred left the house and went to the shop of Messrs Nelson and Co. (the frozen meat firnT), next door, where he was employed. Nelson's despatched him with an order to Roehampton, he rode thither on his bicycle, and duly delivered the goods. That was the last of Alfred, and also his bicycle, so far as Nelson's and Mrs Thompson are concerned. Shortly after Alfred's departure from home the two girls left ostensibly to go to school, but from the 'time they crossed their mother's doorstep up to the time of writing they have not been seen or heard of again; nor has Alfred or his father. According to Mrs Thompson, there was no valid reason, business or domestic, for her husband's disappearance in this uncanny fashion. THE "SILENCE AND VASTNESS" OF THE ANTARCTIC. Captain Scott was asked by Mr Raymond Blathwayt the other day what it was that impressed him most vividly when first confronted by the impenetrable barrier cf snow and ice in Antarctic seas, and the answer, as given in "Great Thoughts," was this: "The extraordinary stillness; as novelists would say, "it was awe - inspiring.' Nothing ever beat into one's brain as did that wonderful stillness, eternal silence, unbroken from the beginning. And then, again, the vastness of everything. You see, we went down a coastline alone of 250 miles in length, and, of course, inland there was an immense, an ir/penetrable stretch of land for hundreds and hundreds of miles. We realised that we skirted a vast continent that has never been explored, and which never will be explored, and this reached away and away until it was merged af last in the ice-cap of the Southern Pole —ice which is many thousands of feet in thickness, and which constantly renews and supplies the immense glaciers which find their way down the coastline. "The sdlence, the loveliness, and the vastness of the Antarctic, that is what impressed us all so much. And especially as we travelled along in our journeys over the trackless desert of snow and ice, the visible horizon being never more than five miles away, so slight was our elevation; our only stumbling blocks, now and then, being the huge boulders of ice which we had to skirt round, as each one was as big as this house. And then, of course, the exquisite colouring fascinated one»—the delicate pink, the dazzling white of the snow, the superb sunlight at certain seasons of the year, the extreme beauty of the scene. All these things were unforgettable. Why, I almost feel like a penny novelette-writer as I describe it, for ordinary language fails to give anyone the faintest idea of the beauty and the fascination of it all. Of course, there were lots of disadvantages; the cold is dreadful; the snow-glare is quite blinding and very painful, and there is always the chance of scurvy. Quite accidentally we discovered the value of seal meat as a preventive of scurvy. I don't mean to claim for seal meat that it is in itself directly a preventive of scurvy, but rather that when you are eating it you are being kept off other things, such f»s bacon, which is very bad for the disease." "And what.'' the Commander was further asked, "did you find was the best preventive against being wearied or even bored by the sameness of everything

and all the hardships you must have been forced to undergo, aU of you!" "Routine," was the simple reply.V "A fixed order of life, regular work, regular pay, regular meals, regular hours, regular everything. It helps to check the days off. We played hockey and football a good deal, walked, ran ski-races, and under cover, chess and cards, and games of that kind. The men read a great deal. Some of them were very fond of Darwin's 'Origin of Species' and. Fitchett's histories." Sailors, we are assured by Captain Scott, "are thoughtful men, and are really interested in thoughtful books." THE NAVY AND THE EMPIRE. I gave last week Mr H. F. Wyatt's summary of the main objections advanced in the colonies against increasing the colonial contributions towards the naval defence of the Empire. On Tuesday last the Navy League's envoy embodied his analysis of the colonial attitude in a paper on "ine Navy and the Empire," which he read before the Royal Colonial Institute. It was an excellent address, and Mr Wyatt made out a strong case for regarding most of the objections as fallacious. Summarised, the British reply to the colonial attitude was as follows: Taxation without representation does not apply, as any contribution the colonies made would be voluntary; the objection as to all resources being required for internal development is fallacious, internal development being remunerative, and therefore an investment, and States are all the more bound to insure their investments by means of naval defence; local squadrons would hardly be able to do what they were wanted to do, especially considering the enormous length of Australia's coastline; and as for the War Office, that argument is of no avail, for, perfectly, or imperfectly, managed, the fleet is the basis of the Empire's safety. In the discussion which followed the address, Admiral Sir John Colomb, M.P., declared that the Navy League had never done a wiser thing than when they determined to send Mr Wyatt to the colonies. No one, he thought, could put the case better than Mr Wyatt, and he entirely agreed that the root-cause of colonial backwardness regarding the navy was want of familiarity with problems of war and of international relationship. Mr T. A. Brassey urged certain difficulties. Only one colony was really in a position to contribute anything serious towards naval defence — Canada. Australia could not, after her severe droughts, from which she was just recovering; South Africa obviously could not. And as for Canada, which could give us two or three millions a year without overburdening herself, he reminded them of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's words: "If you want our help, you must call us to your Councils." It was idle for the Naval Defence Committee, in his opinion, to press on the colonies to make a contribution to the navy, unless they were prepared to give the colonies effective representation in the Councils of the Empire. Amongst those who joined in the debate were Sir Arthur Douglas and Dr. G. R. Parkin.

THE PILL IN THE JAM

Lord Rosebery has been inquiring into the composition of the fiscal jam with which Mr Chamberlain has been feeding the colonies, and he has discovered therein ingredients which he thinks will sooner or later render it extremely unpalatable to you. Speaking at St. Andrew's Hall, Glasgow, the other evening, Lord Rosebery waxed sarcastic over the cablegrams sent from Australia to Mr Chamberlain in support of his policy. They did not, said his lordship, Convince him of anything save that some of the people there were extremely willing to embrace the very bountiful offers which Mr Chamberlain had made them. What they were prepared to do in return remained in obscurity, and Lord Rosebery is therefore curious to know if people in the Antipodes know the whole of the Chamberlain policy: He is inclined to think you do not, and if he had any influence with the people who transmit your cables he would ask them to send this authoritative sentence of Mr Chamberlain's, which occurred in a speech made by the ex-Colonial Secretary soon after his famous appearance at Glasgow last year: "Our colonial fellow-subjects are growing every day in strength and power. We have hitherto borne alone the burden of our great Empire. We have to look to them to share that burden with us as they have shared its privileges." Commenting on this sentence Lord Rosebery said: "Share the burden with us? I wonder if that has been put before Australia and Canada? And yet that is an integral part of the policy— the pill within the jam. I am greatly afraid that it is only the jam that has found its way to Canada and Australia, if, indeed, it he not preposterous in the present condition of trade, to speak of our having any jam to export. But that is obviously enough an essential part of the policy. No one could suppose that a real Imperialist like Mr Chamberlain, or any real Imperialist outside an asylum, would come to the people of the United Kingdom and say, 'You shall bear the enormous expenditure of this Empire alone, you shall bear the burden of this Empire alone, and in addition I make the further suggestion that you shall tax your food on behalf of your well-fed kinsmen across the sea.' Such a policy would have been wanting in balance and completeness, and therefore I am anxious that otir colonial fellow-countrymen, when they weigh the advantages or disadvantages of this policy, should know exactly what it means." His lordship continued: "We of the older school of Imperialism were satisfied to let things be as they were. We did not wish to make financial demands on our colonies. We rejoiced in the free co-operation, the free offers of money and of men, that we have received in times of difficulty, and we thought that these were surer securities of Empire than any artificial contribution which might be exacted, but which might be withheld. Mr Chamberlain thinks that these artificial bonds are a new security for union. I wish I thought so. I wish I did not think that they were calculated in their essence and in their result to be the soonest and the swiftest dissolvents of Empire." -\ As to the projected Colonial Conference, Lord Rosebery described it as a conference not for the union of the Empire, but a conference for the union of the Conservative Party, and gave two central objections which he entertains to the policy of Mr Chamberlain. The first of them is this—that he believes that if the Empire is subjected to the strain of these interests, all pulling at her in different directions,' the Empire will be put to a strain which

' —I — ~~^' — ; ~~7 : 7 its structure cannot long resist. His second objection is that we, under Protection, should become the hopeless irredeemable slaves of interests which We could never shake off.