NEWS, VIEWS, AND OPINIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 271, 13 November 1909, Page 13

NEWS, VIEWS, AND OPINIONS.

There are persons of an old-fashioned •new, joined to :i respectable igmorane?, w io are perpetually proclaiming the de- I e dence of Fr.in<v. Whatever the value! of tie Mi , :.- :h*y adduce, it is certain! tjßt, IB some directions, a movement for] improvement is well pronounced. The sew Government, for instance, i< a- anxious to please .1= any tradesman wishj32 to make his way. The sraaptoms of this change of heart are feen in various Micistfrial circulars •snieh have been fluttering into official covecotes. Functionaries are reminded tiat they have to be polite, that tliey ire servant' of the public, and not some $til>eri"r r.uv divinely appointed t-o rule over iif- Even th<! postal clerks are refiHpH to a senw of their obligations. l They are told that they must give information to the public, and work loyally t-o expedite business and save the tit-lays at the counters which are the bane- 01 every person of active temperament' If 1 a bombshell had fallen in their midst, the postal employees could not he n:ore j startled. The airle-s cages in which they | sit are rot conducive to good temper. I and they have certainly not shown .1 disI position in oblige. "Mail nous allons J cbang?r tout cela."* ~S\. Millerbrand's circular will work the miracle. People who exhort us to keep young are no: popular. They are too muca like a doctor who sho-.ild give his patient the sound advice not to fall ill. Even ■n-iu-n they are gcori enough to explain , how the assaults of aue may be avoided. I they seldom carry conviction. The lat--1 est prescription, however, is worth a moI aicnt's thought. If you would preserve I your youthful bloom you are to dc ; futile and ridiculous every day. To whk-ii some of us will reply sadly thai we have tried it in vain. The Paris Monte de Piete, where the jewels of the ex-Sultan of Morocco are now reposinc. is ilanked on one side by a. churc-h and on the other by the venerable fcoildinz which stores the national archives, ami there is nothing in the appearance ci the largest pawnshop in the ■world to shame its respectable neighbours. In fact, were it not for the flag it displays and the sentinel at the gate, the vagrant tourist might easily assume the somewhat gloomy edifice to be a college or a hospit U. The Monte de Piete may well claim to be a philanthropic institution, for. as a general rule, the management loses money on all loans cader twenty francs, the seven per cent interest which is charged not being sufficient to cover the registration and 1 storage expenses. And no interest whatI ever is claimed on loans up to five francs I vhen the articles are withdrawn within I sixty days. Sir Gilbert Parker wa-s the star speaker at a recent meeting of the AntiSocialist Union—a serious gathering, intended to inaugurate the session of the school of speakers, which is the chief ieanire of the union. But the effect vas nearly spoiled by the photographer, Tcho apparently knew more of his business than he did of politics, or even of platform oratory. -Sir Gilbert was in ! the middle of a. fine passage, in which, like Ready-Money Mortiboy, he spoke of the discontent that had been the mainspring of every progressive movement. "There 'has been mo-re of the divine di-seontent than of the devilish discontent," he said, and at that exact : moment the photographer fired his. magi nesiu-m light, brilliantly illuminating the \ hall and filling the air with fumes. It i was a Mephistophelian touch worthy of I the best traditions of the Adelphi, and I it fairly outshone Sir Gilbert. ; In St. Louis they have started a '{ league of politeness for men, every i member pledging himself to wear a blue i button with the monogram "L.P." Place , aux dames seems the motto of the new ; organisation, which will endeavour to I fight rude behaviour in trains and public places. It is badly wanted in American ! big cities, according to the comments one reads greeting the advent of the ; league. In New York it i≤ increasingly I rare for a man to surrender his sea"t | to a lady in a tramcar or suburban train unless she is old. carries an infant, or is particularly good-looking, j Ladies on the .Vow York-Brooklyn cars during the business rush no longer expect a man to surrender his seat, and I seldom say -Thank you" when he does. I It is to combat this increasing incivilitr j ■ that the has been established, j It is now working, ami the buttons are {supplied free to members by the American million-aire Marriott.

I' There is an aspwfc of insurance, life I We, and marine, that does not come I fflto the ken of the ordinary man and I TTOman—an aspect very dark and te.r----1 able. Mr. G. R. Sims has made it the 1 S. tral ' theme « f Ms latest book called I *? e l " >a ' th Gaanl>l . e -" In the preface to i vim collection of insurance stories Mr 1 Sans gives plainly a table of facts' that J we as startling as they are horrible I lie preface is headed • The Dark Side of i & Blessing." "Murder for insurance ffloney has been practised as a fine art " jays Mt. Sims. '-"That astounding and aarmeung feature of our civilisation we cruel neglect of helpless children.' s not a si n o f the very poor. It. is wand in all classes of society, and someJ fes its most revolting form in Jβ honses of the cultured and the •ewhy. . . . Out of 115,002 children C'Olved m a year's record of cases of 31-518 were insured for m>4,Sßi. No argument will convince * persor of ordinary intelligence that P«S and cruel neglect is the royal road jojacrease the chances of protracted Pwmm paying, and lessen their chances W drawing the insurance nianey. A sys- ™ °' granting death certificates, once KUKlalous in its lack of precautions, **& sven now amazing in its carelessjgs, makes it comparatively easy for •» Death Gambler, if he of she "takes precautions, to obtain a cer-vrh-ch obviates all unpleasant inThe long black record of life asnasee frauds, which, -to be carried ™* necessitated dejiberate murder, is gtecafly a record of carelessly granted «ath eerthic-ates. The mon. / won by menTi? is not hoarded—it is away xnth both hands. For a Sβ kT 11110 ha - 5 bee " ,Jiseo ' rer . etJ which TK, or '" with comparative c: se."' * book is one of horrors, and there «emany to whom it will in no wav ap- ?*. ?«* G. R. Sim* is one of the "bestf fWrn deHncators of the miserable side A life. nn d hi* object in vrriting gf Jttrtirahr series U started towards o: his preface: "I n nothing I t,, ijs~? '^ c desire for one moment - Jiaav«e the blessing of insurance. LTVnie stories of the Death Gamble "»E show the dark side of it."

It is interesting to find, on the authority of a London Liberal daily, that Russian forms of administration are not wholly evil. The St. Petersburg correspondent of that journal describes with a malicious satisfaction how the capital has been relieved from "'the tyranny 31 the gramophone." It required no cumbersome Act of Parliament, no exertion by the afflicted householder, and none of the complicated proceedings that entrench in freer countries the privilege of being a nuisance to one's neighbours. When the Prefect of the city had been made- aware of the prevalent annoyance, he first ordered the "mechanical music" to be played behind closed doors and windows, and, when that measure proved inadequate, suppressed it altogether in the central and business districts. "After all," says the correspondent, "martial law has its advantages. The cloud of autocracy has most distinctly its silver lining. The craze for newer methods of tickling what we will venture to call the "palate" of the ear. goes on apace. Perhaps this may be referable to the fact that the drum thereof is already weakened in this age of din. Such considerations are forced upon us by the news that M. Paderewski has invented a new musical instrument to give effect to his introduction of thunder into the score of his new symphony. This is a distinct advance: for when Tschaikow sky included a battery of artillery in the Orchestra designed for the performance of his "1S12" Overture, he was, after all, only making use of existing material. Of "course, if M. Paderewski must have thunder, we suppose there is no more to be said; but, for ourselves, we have a fancy for such storms as Rossini gives us in "William Tell," where the simulation of irate Jove is confided to nothing more harmful than a kettledrum; and we dread the day when it may become necessary to musical comfort to aid a. performance of the Hailstone Chorus by some skilful use oi dried peas in a pan.

Gabriele d'Annunzio has just given some of his impressions of flying after he had been up in the air with Mr. Curtiss, the American competitor, and Lieutenant Calderara. '"It is the divinest and most inexpressibly pleasing sensation conceivable.'' he said: "one of those rare periods of enjoyment that glow as beacon lights of happiness throughout life. It is a most delicate pleasure. The only horrid sensation is just after one has alighted. It is like a rude and vulgar interruption of some delicious experience. Gladly would I abandon all things and everybody and say "Adieu' to earth for the jpys of etheral space. I reverence every aviator. I had a feeling of ecstatic joy only comparable to the most intense ideal sensations of .-vrt and love. The consciousness of the weight of one's own body seemed gradually lost. The enchantment was so great that orally to express it I muttered Ben Jonson's verse— O, so soft! 0, so sweet is she!" A clergyman in Minneapolis, eager for the notoriety that i≤ as the breath of life to so many of the cloth, has begun a novel crusade against what he calls the immodest dresses to be seen upon the street. His method is to phonograph these costumes with a hand camera and then displays them ir. his church by means of a stereopticon. Male friends of the victims are in a state of indignation, and several attempts have been made to break his apparatus, but so far ineffectually. It ought to be easy enough for some stalwart husband or lover armed with a good stick, and after demolishing the camera the stick might be laid with a vigorous good-will across the back of the reverend offender. Through somebody's blunder, the State of New York is likely to lose several million dollars of its income from taxation. There was passed in 190.1 a law imposing a transfer tax of two cents on every £20 worth of stock sold on the Kxchange. This law, when tested in the Court of Appeals, was declared to be constitutional. In mOO it was amended, but the amend- : nient 'was declared unconstitutional, and the previous legislation of IHOS therefore held the field. Last year the tax laws of the State were codified by the State Board of .statutory Revision, and on •their report the Legislature enacted a scheme of "consolidated laws." It has now been discovered that by an oversight the Board incorporated into its code not the law of 1005, but that of lOOfi, whose uncor.stitutionality makes it invalid, even though le-enacted. And in fhis ease the eariier law does not, as before, return into force, for the State Legislature, before passing the "consolidated laws" of mOS, expressly repealed all existing statutes on the subject. The consequence is that there is no longer authority for demanding any stock transfer tax at all.

"What will bp the destiny of the T'nited States? The answer to this can ho supplied immediately by a compirison with the Roman Empire (says a -writer in "Harper's Weekly"). The establishment of Constantinople as the rapita.l of thp East and the Eastern Umpire's separation from Rome are paralleled in the story of the American Revolution. We may look, then, for a progressive decline in the strength of England in inverse ratio to our oivn increasing power; Australia, already American in her political organisation, will gravitate with Canada into the I'nion; finally the Engli?h-spcaking peoplp will be reunited under American .auspices. That is as far as we can look forward legitimately. America will be absorbed in the solution of her social problems. Democracy, which has never really existed, will be coming into its own, and with its advent will disappear the comedy of representative government, which tried out through several centuries in the classical world, and found wanting, is destined to receive its coupe de grace upon Amriccan soil. The battle of Socialism will be upon v≤, to be solved, probably after some considerable bloodshed, by a sudden illumination of common sense. It will be realised that this insatiable spectre is of the sheet and turnip variety, and about as important as those dogmatic contentions that plunged all Europe into centuries of religious strife. For while the Marxian Utopia, that ever-imminent thunder cloud that somehow never bursts, will have disappeared, discreditd by the failure of its author's own prophecies, the loose, haphazard productive methods of to-day and our costly and faulty manner of distribution will have to be organised to prevent their complete breaking down. The solution of this tremendous problem, which -will be precipitated by the sudden failure of foreign markets •when manufacturing and prohibitory tariff* are universal in all countries, will occupy our attention for a-t least a, century to com

G. H. Scliolefield's "Sew Zealand in Evolution: Industrial, ■Economic, and Political," should be an interesting book. The London publisher's preliminary notice says: "Tliis volume is an entirely new departure from the historical bibliography of the most interesting of the British dominions. The author, who is a prizeman of the University of Xew Zealand, confines himself to a discussion of the industries and social institutions of a country which has often been described as "the political laboratory of the world. He is concerned with the origin and development of those industries upon which the people of New Zealand now subsist, and which have made them, as a community, possibly the wealthiest in the world. The thrillin;; history of the Dominion is only trenched upon in so far as it affects the main subject under consideration. The author takes a thoroughly impartial view in h«i chapters on the operation of Protection and of the industrial laws of New Zealand upon local industries. The history of labour organisation, experimental legislation, and the recent revolt of the working classes is a highly interesting one." . Several new stories by Kipling are appearing in "The Delineator," an American mn<raz;n<> not often seen on this side. His mingled book. "Actions and Reactions," due in a mail or two, starts with thp . tory of how an outwearied American comes for a rest to England, and gains with health a vital senso of kinship. For I am the lain] of their fathers. In mc the virtue stays: I will liring hack my children After certniu days. Under their feet in the grasses, My clinsiuß magic runs. They fih:ill return :is strangeis. They shall remain as sons. Till I make plain the meaning Of all my thousand years— %w Till I fill their hearts with knowledge, TVhile I fill their eyes with tears.

Yst it is one which, on the face of it, should be particularly suited to the English genius. For the Englishman appears to be almost incapable of producing the real short story—the conte. He has not the technical skill necessary for getting the best out of his subject, and, his especial genius being what is called 'getting an atmosphere,' he is utterly incapable of getting an atmosphere in a few words. He must have his initial page or two for the, description of Dartmoor, Cork Castle, the Mile End Road, a drawing-room in Mayfair, or the environs of Tiincomalee. And having in this leisurely way made himself feel at home, he is" then fit tir deal in an equally leisurely manner with the human affairs of his episode." THE GERMAN POIXT OF VIEW. A little time ago appeared "Mareia in Germany," a smart criticism of German social life, not without its drop of acid. Tlip samp author and publisher now utter "Hedivig in England," and turn the tables. of the young English lady amazed at the manners and customs of the Fatherland, we have a young German lady shocked at the manners and customs of our Fatherland. As before, there is a

squeeze of lemon to emphasise the flavour of the dish. The book is exceedingly interesting; and the characters are sufficiently representative to pive its ericitism real value. The high-born Hedttig comes from a little German tmvn to a London family living in luxury and the best .society—to a family meant to be as nearly typical as one family can be. The daughter points the difference between Jinglish and German notions of matrimony:— "I have very definite qualifications for the husband I shall select. He must be old enough to understand and respect my independence, and not so old that ho has lost his own. He must have plenty of occupations to take him off my hands, but no occupation which forces mc to live in uncongenial society and surroundings. He must defer to

small rr-portoirc of songs. I can sing 'Violets' and some erf the songs out of 'Veronique' quitp well, if the room isn't too big or the audience too critical. I also lfnrnt how to put on my clothes and to make the most of my appearance, and how to pick up bi + s of information and tags of criticism, which get mc along quite well, and save a tremendous amount of bother." Hedwig's expression betrayed her disapproval of this educational programme, but she merely said: "Of course, for a woman it is not necessary to be clever or learned, but still I am glad we have a system of compulsory education." "The mater says: 'A good figure and a quick wit will procure a woman most things, whereas with the profoundest learning and broad hips, she will bo left in the lurch.' " "I am glad we are not influenced by externals," Hedwig replied. "With us, a good figure is not a girl's highest ambition." Rather a mischievous smile flickered over Beatrice's face, but she said.nothing, and Hedwig continued: "Then, besides all this, most of our girls go to cooking schools, where they go through a whole series of cookery classes, housekeeping, fine laundry-work, and sowing. Do you not have courses of this sort, too?" Beatrice shook her head. "I must confess even more ignorance of cookery than of Shakespeare," she owned, with a laugh. "And yet one or two of my girl friends who married poor men seem to have managed wonderfully, and to have learnt all these things by instinct." "Y\e do not care to Tely upon instinct," Hedvrig said. "We prefer more substantial foundations. I do not think our German men would like to cat dinners cooked by instincts." Luckily Hedwig meet's a German officer who rehabilitates her faith in German ideals. He is shown discussing the worth of English defence against invasion: "I will not trouble you, gnadiges Fraiilein, with figures, but I am con-

lack of patriotic feeling or even interest displayed. Now with us there is hardly a family, from the highest to the lowest, which is not in some way intimately connected with the army. They have all a brother, son, husband, or sweetheart who is •serving or has served his time, and they thus all feel themselves part of a great and glorious army. The soidter is respected and looked up to every where; he is admitted to all places of entertainment at half price; and when he returns to his native village he is feted by everyone; and if he ha 9 gained his good-conduct badge hie sweetheart is the proudest, happiest girl in the village. Here I find if you. mention the army they groan about Tates and taxes and say the co.untrj- would be brutalised!" The "milieu" is a middle-class household into which tho German girl is inducted. Here tbe satirist dips her pen in gall. The father is an unctuous pietist who kisses the housemaid on the sly; the daughter is ill-bred and illedueated: and the atmosphere redks with snobbery and vulgarity. In the end Hedwig escapes to her beloved Germany, having fortunately found a German bridegroom during her exiic. The twin books unquestionably contain a large measure of the truth, and Hedwig corrects the errcr of Marcia. Our ancestors were used with profit 'to regard themselves in similar mirrors held up by citizens of the world; and Goldsmith had no more art to mark national foibles than hae the writer under notice. THE PUBLISHER'S PROBLEM. Given so many new novels every year, by what means can they be turned into most money? That i≤ th e English publishers' problem, attempted in many ways and never solved. Some are for high prices and small circulation; and others with low prices and large circulation have tome to epoil their market, since the public is apt to read just so much and no more, and to read as cheaply as possible. Publisher Heinemann has alleged as a partial reason for the

himself in an hotel register as homme de lettres, and be received by the host with effusion. In England, on the other •hand, your political agent, of whichever party, cajls upon a man of letters as on other qualified householders or lodgers. But hearing that his prospective supporter is an author, he will say with a deprecating, polite smile: 'Oh, please put yourself down, gentleman.' This more favourably impresses the revising barrister." The public, in fact, declares the "English Review." is an almost negligible quantity as far as works of the imagination are concerned. Figures fluctuate a little, but it is fairly safe to say that of the works of fiction and belles-lettres published every year only 20 per cent are purchased by booksellers, tbe rest going to the circulating libraries. These figrres should give a publisher furiously to think, for they represent all of the book-buying class who must, either for pleasure or for profit, possess works of the imagination. "The libraries, obviously, must have the books, or they would lose their customers; and so rare is it for any Englishman to purchase a book that we must imagine that the remaining 20 per cent must be- impelled to this expenditure by some irresistible force. And the publisher, in face of this helpless body, instead of putting up his prices, puts them down. It seems like a policy of madness. It is a policy that tvill certainly profit nobody but the libraries."