TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 49, 26 August 1907, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

At last the Government has listened to tho prajer of those who For the have argued that defective Children's children, not imbecile but Sake. lacking the average strength of intellect, should have an opportunity to equip themselves for the oattle of life. Now that the authorities have decided to attend toyoung persons handicapped from their birth, they have commendably set out to establish a thoroughly suitable school, and credit must be given to tho Minister of Education (the Hon. G. Fowlds) and his colleagues for thensatisfactory recognition of their duty. Tlib house and grounds oi" the Otekaikc Gslatc, near Duntroon, arc to bo bought for about £7000, aad there boys whose

faculties would prevent them from making headway in the ordinary primary schools will be enabled to have thenhands and brains trained rationally. Thus they will not only acquire arts that will make them fit into the working schemo of things and so increase their enjoyment of life, but will get practical knowledge which will save them fro'n dependence on relatives or public charity. Already the deaf and the blind are given a chance to prpgress, "notwithstanding the loss of senses which other people tmd so essential, and the Government is considering tho matter of founding a suitablo school for defective girls. With thi6 latest enterprise New Zealand will have tho reputation of being a country which gives all its children an opportunity to do something useful in life. Rightly the Chief Health Officer (Dr. Mason) differs from Mr. Slums and Doyle (Chief Corporation ■ Slums. Inspector) about the meaning of the word "slum." Mr. Doyle persists in stating that Wellington has no slums, and his faith is founded on a notion that a slum necessarily consists of a squalid, nanow alley flanked by mean, insanitary hovels teeming* with unclean persons. Wellington, fortunately, has' not sunk to the depths reached by cities of the Old World, but has gone far enough down in on© or two localities to give earnest people plenty of scope for thought and action. A lay evangelist, whose work takes him among the very poor in one section of the city, has stated that undcub.tpdly there are slums in Wellington, areas where the conditions are not favourable for physi. cal or moral health. Be has shoWii that a single house may bethe nucleus of a slum, if it is a five-roomed habitation into which twplve or fourteen people are packed, and it is a fact that unhealthy congestion of this kind is not difficult to discover -here. "This question of overcrowding remains the principal sanitary problem in the city," says Dv. Mason, and he gives the usual explana-' tion— -"high rents." There is a temdency to overlook the gravity of the undesirable situation, and, at best, only partial or impracticable remedies have been suggested for an evil which will yearly become more pronounced unless a sensible attempt is made to check it. Of course other cities in New Zealand have slums in the sense that Wellington has them, but here, whe.ro building land is comparatively scarce, tho overcrowding peril is more in evidence. Only by "eternal vigilance," apparently, will the Wellington citiViguance jens be able to retain for Needed, their children the reserves — or what remains of the reserves— set apart by the forethought of tho .Now Zealand -Company in perpetuity for the health and recreation of the people. On one pretext or another, when land was comparatively little valued, large slices were taken from the splendid Town Belt— usually, though not invariably, for educational or other public pmposes— until the citizens became alarmed and resisted further encroachment. It would bo well if an authoritative map could be prepared, showing the Belt as originally laid out, and indicating in colour the areas successively annexed by Provincial and General Governments, the dates and real or ostensible purposes of the successive alienations, and the names of those responsible for the encroachments. Such a map, on a large scale, displayed prominently in the Town Hall, would be a standing object-lesson and a continual incentive to the citizens to prevent any fm<her spoliation. It would show, for example, that from Ellicestreet to Mem-street, a frontage of nearly three-quarters of a mile, tho citizens have no thoroughfare across their own domain — an inconvenience that will be- kepnly felt as suburban population increases. Of course, the plea is that the reserves have been diverted from Breach their original purpose of for the public benefit. Public Trust. The reply is, that eyer^ such diversion was a direct breach of trust. The eyes of private land speculators and jerry builders have long been cast covetously on the .Belt, but public opinion has been too strong foi" them. Now, however, comes an attack, more insidious than an y yet, and from a quite unexpected quarter. Meditating on some remedy for high rents find overcrowding, the Plealth Officer, of, all' people, has been "pondering over the fact that the waste land known as tho Town Belt offers suitable^ sites for many hundreds of workers' homes, in positions which at present are of no value ns recreation grounds, and are of no public utility." "At present" means & great deal. Twen-ty-five years ago some of our now populous suburbs, and even area 3in the heart of the city, might have been so described; and now, to meet a present need, wo arc asked to sacrifice for all time what in' another generation should be the city'B grandest asset and crowning glory. For if this plea were allowed, we should find in a few years nothing remaining of the Belt but a fqw comparatively small recreation grounds and the highways of access. Th» suggestion that "a like area in other positions" might be acquired is futile — such areas would bo of uso to dwellers near at ha.nd, but of comparatively small value to tho citjzenß. We cannot think that Wellington citizens will allow such a dangerous proposition to be mado without a general' and emphatic protest. It should be made clear, once for all, that not a siqgle rood of the Belt shall henceforth, on any pretext whatever, bo diverted from its original purpose — rather, on the contrary that means should be taken to recover, if possible, pa.rt of what nas been lost. History constantly repeats itself. Thus we find the rivalries A Fair-minded of ancient cities still Crowd. survive in the nrinialuro combats of the world of sport — when, for example, the chosen manhood of Wellington and Auckland break a lance- in tho football arena.. A parallel instance is provided in the Old Country by the annual match between Lancashire and Yorkshire. Tho stimulus of old rivarly lends a zest to such athletic struggles for supremacy. The eight or nine thousand enthusiasts who looked on at Saturday's match were, wonderfully fair, *nd tho "one-eyed" partisan (to use a useful piece of vernacular) could split no wood in such a level-headed assemblage. With previous teams of Auck. land giants vividly in the memory, the present wearers of the "blue and white" appeared on the small side, but perhaps one is always disposed to magnify the past. The home team in their sombre garb looked lithe and activo, and, unlike thtiir opponents, rapidly adapted themselves to the tieucherous tuff. Ftancis was easily thu Hector of the visitors, and wherovor the fight waged thickest his lengthy and athletic form was in the vanguard. It was' good to hear tho deafening applause which crowned hjs desperate efforts when he scored. Tho "plummer blocks" of the homo team's mechanism were Wallace and Roberts, whose self-abnegation enabled Anderson "to arrive." Excess in finding touch, with its consequent development of the line-out game, threatens to have tho same effect on Rugby as tho -'block, block, block," of a painfully correct batsman in the sister game of cricket. Quite one- fourth of the precious ninety tninules on Saturday ,\vus consumed by these tactic*.

Having gained laurels on Australian soil and on Australian Form, waters by our great achRifiemen, ievements in football and Form ! sculling, it is sincerely to be hoped that success will attend the efforts of the team of twelve Hflemen who are leaving to do battle for New Zealand at the great meetings which will shortly take place at Randwick (Sydney), and Williamstown (Melbourne). A unique importance attaches to these meetings this year, a 6 they are not interstate merely, but really international irn character on account of the National Rifle Association of England sending out, for the first time in its history, a team to uphold the reputation of the British Isles at these far corners of ths, earth. Therefore the task before the New Zealand representatives is one of no ordinary magnitude. The Bisley shooting, too, shows that the Australians are in magnificent form. The team has the benefit of five men with Bisley experience — namely, A. and W. H. Ballinger, Milroy, Craw, and Wilkie; and this "stiffening" will be of immense value when 'the Empirti match is being fired for. While the team is generally admitted to be a good one, there is a difference of opinion as to whether it be the bast. After all, the value to the country of these trips is the incentive they provide in " keying up " the men to strain overy nerve to irrjprovo their shooting, and it would be the wisest courstf'to accept the actual shooting in the King's Prize as an automatic and non-personal method of rejection ; othsrwire the existing method might r«sult in a team being sent representative enough as to the wide^rea it js drawn from, but not necessarily tho host. There appears to Ibe an inconsistency whsn the claims of Colour-Sergeant Hadfteld, who finished sixth in the Sing's at the last Trentham meeting, are overlooked, and those of Ayson, Moslen, and Purnell, who were 15tH, 18th, and 19th respectively are admitted. Allowing that Hadfield's shooting at 1000 yards was not particularly brilliant, still his 33 compares favourably with the scores of the above three, which were 31, 29, and 23 respectively. Now Zealand is not the only place where clairvoyance is having v Second-Sight an innings for the moil) Politics. nicnt. An Australian delegate informed the Socialists' Congress that a tohuuga had given an '.' extraordinary forecast of the future,"' and the details were apparently so shocking that tho interpreter declined to translate them. According to Router, tho s*er's words were " a mixture of blasphemy and inconsequence." This quotation of a mock-prophet's words in such a sceptical gathering as a socialists' assembly is a forcible reminder that the world is prone at times to go back a little on its tracks. Js the age tired of trying to be sensible, and pining for the return of days when it will he unlucky to spill ealt or begin a jovvney on a Friday ? Will Parliament, which already has a plenitude of court and out-of-court jesters, have an astrologer to read the signs of tho times ? Will the British armies, aping the example of the Roman legions, talco with them oji their marches tohungas who will watch the movements of stray birds overhead and pore over the vagaries of sacred chickens in the hope of getting to-day a glimmer of what the morrow may bring forth ? At the moment there is an inclination to scout the obvious and seek salvation in the occult. People are wasting time in worry over sec-ond-sight before they have learnt the rudiments of first sight. It io very sad, but there is consolp.tion in the . knowledge that the niood will pass. 1 ' ' Just when people were beginning to wonder whether, like Policing the Sairey Gamp's friend,Pacifac. "Mrs. Harris," the American battleship fleet might, after all, be a myth and the Pacilic Ocean no ocean t>t all, it has been officially announced, that, after consultation with the Navy pepartment, Mr. Roosevelt has decidbd to let the battleships go around to San Francisco for practice. There is to be no undue haste about the procession; it will start in Decembcii- and reach its destination, if the President does not change hi 3 mind or the Japanase interfere, some time in 1908. A flcot of destroyers is also to be shifted, but it will not sail with the battleships. I his is satisfactory so far as it goes; especially after the many talcs that had ueen let looso on a none too credulous public. It is doubtful morality, but the fact remains that it sometimes pays to lie and to lie your hardest, but the motto of the -nost eminent apostlea-of untruth has be?n ''consistency." However, so far as the United StatC3 battleships aro concernc 1. the need for taradiddle is at nn end ; tho fleet is going to the Pacific, unless the _ official announcement ie officially denied before December. Chic grain of comfort that may be extracted from the news i..cm ;s that the danger of war between the United States and Japan v, somewhat remote, else tno Anierijin naval authoiities would have shown frcator expedition. Further, it may a-ell 0 that thvi said authorities have at a lathor late date awakened to the fact that there is danger in having, in these clays of rjeaco proposals, thousands of miles of unprotected seaboard, and -that it is safe diplomacy to distrust every one, and to keen a particularly sharp eyo on those who loudly profess friendship. ' ' * . - Altogether at, variance with their name _„ „ a »'e the new palace tt he , Ca r, cam wm '°« tb.e corUncomfortable. poration has turned into the streets. With thoir rigid rectangular outlines, they are not particularly pleuiing to the eye, 111 spite of their great iirn.y of glasi, and at close quarters they can givo more discomfort to the square inch than almost any other vehicle, however weird its design. It seems that they have been constructed specially to warn intending passengers off the couiw. Fir&t of ail an abnormally high etop is thrust out to givo admission to Iho side doors, and it takes a fair amount of athletic abiiijy to clamber over the rampart. Elderly people, especially ladies, and oven young ones who may not be too .sure-footed, hesitate at the ob&taele, and oven if they do decide to risk their limbs and get their feet on the nnrrow board, they may be easily precipitated on to the'pavement in case the car suddenly starts, forward. The resuu is that many people who do not claim lo be Sandows are obliged to let the "palaces" go by. and wait for moving mansions, less pretentious in etylo and title but moro acdbisible. A painful nuisance in the ordinary vohicles. excessive overcrowding becomes an unbsarable abomination in tb.e "palace" car. Citizens sit wedged M'ith knee to knee, "strappers" force their way along the extremely narrow aisle till everybody, is in a state of acute misery, especially the 6itters, and their suffering is much accentuated if the weather happens to be rainy, and wet macintoshes are wrung out against their knees. The side door for speedy accoss is merely irony when a passenger has to squeeze his way through a ton of densely-packed humanity to get back into the stieet. The old style of seating would get almost •as many people luto the cars. The present plan certainly needs altering if serious discomfort and accidents are to be avoided.

On Wednesday next Mr. Justice Cooper will sit in Divorce- to determine the undefended suits of Vincent v. Vincent, Guange v. Geange, White v. While, and Potts v. PotU.