TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 9993, 24 March 1898, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The cable messages which

The have appeared in our columns Federation during the past few weeka of _. relative to the doings of the Australia. Federation Convention have

not been sufficiently full to enable one to keep abreast with all the alterations made in the Commonwealth Bill by the Convention. Nor, it must be said, has a perusal of the extended reports of the proceedings in the "Australian papers conveyed so accurate an idea of the present shape of the Bill as could be wished. The publication by a Sydney paper of a precis of the provisions of the Bill, couched in plain, as opposed to, legal phraseology, is therefore a distinct public benefit. Although this colony is not directly corcerned in the federation of Australia, the matter is of eufficieDt importance to warrant us in giving our readers an abstract of this summary. The States federating agree to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth. The public f departments to be federated are Postal and Telegraph, Defence, Coastal Lighting and Quarantine. The Commonwealth may, with the consent of any State, take over that State's railways. It alone will conduct the regulation of trade and commerce, and will have sole power to levy Customs and excise duties, which must be uniform throughout the federated States within two years of the establishment of the Commonwealth. After this period there will be intercolonial freetrade, except in the case of West Australia, which will be allowed to continue intercolonial duties for another two years. Until the abolition of these duties the Commonwealth will credit to each State its own revenue, and debit it with its own expenditure, and a proportion in accordance with the number of its population of the general expenditure; the balance in favour of each state (if there is any) will be paid back each month. Provision is also made that three-fourths of the money collected in customs and excise taxation by the Commonwealth shall be returned to the State Treasurers. An iuter-state Commission is to " hold the balance in equality of trade disputes." The whole or a rateable proportion of the State debts may be taken over by the Commonwealth. There are, of course, many other matters of moment to Australia in the Bill, but the above facts are the most important points relating to finance and trade. The Federal Parliament will Legislature be composed of the three and estates — the Crown, an Judicature. Upper 'House (the Senate) and a Lower House (the House of Representatives). The Queen's representative shall be' the GovernorGeneral, with a salary of £10,000 a j-car. The Senate shall be composed of senators for each State, elected by the people voting as one electorate on the one-man-one-vote principle. The senators shall sit for six years, and each State shall be equally represented, no State having less than six, though the number may be increased if Parliament so wills. The retirement of members of the Senate is provided for by their division by ballot into two classes of equal number, of which the* first class will retire at the end of the third year and the second, class at the end of the sixth, after which Senators will retire after they have sat for six years. The Senate may not alter money bills. The members of the House of Representatives are to be elected in the several States m proportion to the State population, and are to be as nearly as possible twice as numerous as the Senators. No State must have less than five members. The House of Representatives will not sit longer than three years. Ministers of State, who are not to exceed seven in number, will be appointed to administer each departments as the Governor-General-in-Couneil may from time to time establish, and they must be members either of the Seoate or the House of Representatives. The Executive Council is to be summoned by the Governor-General, and will hold office during his pleasure. The joint salaries of Ministers are not to exceed £12,000, while each member of both Houses will receive £400 a year. The "deadlock" question which took up. so much of the Convention's time, was settled by an arrangement that both Houses shall dissolve when a deadlock occurs and in the event of the dissolution not solving the question at issue, both Houses will sit together and settle the deadlock. The principal features of the provisions for the judicature are that a High Court of Australia shall be established by which all appeals from State Couits shall be decided) and appeals to the Privy Council will only be' allowed by Royal permission., No appeal

to the Privy Conncil on constitutional questions. Provision is made for the admission of new States into the Federation at any time. At present Queensland is standing out, but her inclusion can only be a matter of time. The Bill as at present constituted will be put before the people of the several colonies interested within the next two months, and their vote will decide whether Federated Australia is to become an accomplished fact. A cask cams before the A Supreme Court in WelWellington liugton a day or two ago Law Suit, which presented some peculiar features. The plaintiff, an engineer named Ryan, sued W. C. Fitzgerald, a chemist, for alleged unskilful surgical treatment of a wound, and during the progress of the case a good deal was heard about chemists acting as physicians and surgeons. Ryan had fallen into the hold of a coal hulk and received contused wounds from the coal to hia nose and face. He could not find a doctor, so went to Fitzgerald's shop to have his wounds dressed. Mr Fitzgerald attended to him, and subsequently the plaintiff noticed that a stain was left in one of the wounds. According to plaintiff's evidence he told Fitzgerald the wound had not been properly washed out, and that Fitzgerald denied this. At all events he was permanently marked, and considered that the disfigurement went against him in getting employment, wherefore he claimed £500 damages, two doctors having, he said, told him he had been very unskilfully treated. The evidence of some of the medical witnesses who were called by the plaintiff showed some feeling against Mr Fitzgerald on the part of the Wellington doctors. Dr. Fell said he did not think it was fair for the defendant to give advice and medicine for 2s 6d. The usual fee oharged by medical men in Wellington was 7s 6d for a visit and medicine. A fee of half a guinea was very seldom obtained except from the wealthy, while poor people were sometimes not charged at all. The medical profession objected to an unqualified man practising at all as a surgeon, and none of them liked Mr Fitzg-jrald. The witness admitted he had said " some pretty severe things " about Fitzgerald. The general tenor of the medical evidence was to the effect that, though a duly qualified person would have obtained better results iv preventing or removing the discolouration by coal dust, it could not be said that a practitioner who failed to remove it would be unskilful or negligent. One doctor admitted that he himself had failed in similar cases in England. Several medical witnesses for the defence deposed that wounds caused by a fall on to coal would probably leave a stain, which could be excised after the wound had healed. The case had lasted two days, when it came to a rather sudden termination. After one of the adjournments one of the counsel for the defence said he had $een the plaintiff tryingto induce a juryman to go into an hotel. The plaintiff, in answer to this, said he had thought the juryman was off the jury and had only asked him to have a drink. Hβ had not tried to influence him.. His counsel, however, retired from the case which shortly after closed, the jury giving a verdict for Mr Fitzgerald, the defendant, without leaving their seats. Dr. Creighton, the Bishop of A London, is,' no doubt, a very Cynical good bishop in many respects, Bishop, but he apparently has a way of expressing his opinions with a candour and vividness which can hardly make for peace in his diocese. Especially must this be the case with his remarks to a recent interviewer, when the peculiarities of his .clergy were alluded to. He began with the assertion that "there could not possibly be anything more ghastly from a human point of view than being a bishop." A bishop, it appears, can never please anybody, but that is. not a characteristic peculiar to bishops ; any number of people are in the same predicament. Dr. Creighton went on to say that England, to his way of thinking, was the most extraordinary country in the world, and its clergy the most extraordinary people in it. They did an immense amount of work, but they were really the most self-centred, undisoiplined, and difficult people he ever came across. He was asked if he liked them. ," Oh, yes," he replied, "I am very fond of them; that is one of the functions of a Bishop, to love his clergy." His is not, however, blind love. " Each roan," he said, " thinks that the entire organisation of the diooese is central round his particular parish, and each thinks that hia own particular trouble or grievance must be settled by the Bishop, so as to put him to as little inconvenience as possible, that his particular line of service ceremonial is the only one the Catholic Church has ever used, that he ' knows something about Canon Law, , whereas hardly anyone knowe what Canon • Law is, and that the Bishop exists solely for the purpose of preaching in' hia church, while. 1 do have to request not to be asked to bless hassocks." Dr. Creighton finds it "fearfully difficult" to keep the peace, mainly because both Protestant and Catholic clergy " will not refrain from forcing party cries down each other's throats-and party badges on to each other's unwilling shoulders." He recently prohibited a certain practice in a church, and complained that the curate thereupon safe in his church and defended the practice might and main, " totally unnecessarily and only arousing the further anger of the Protestant Defence Brigade." He argued that men could not be tied down to one particular form of ceremonial. Like everything else in England, the Church moved slowly. "It took 700 years to produce our Parliament, and what could be more deplorable than that which we now behold 2" As we have said, Dr. Creighton is no doubt an excellent bishop, but he can hardly be popular. His humour is too delightfully cynical.