"PASING EVENTS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 138, 7 December 1907, Page 12

"PASING EVENTS.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. FIG lIT FOR THE BOX SEAT. The policy of the Labour party in England is' summed up by The. Times (London) as ''a fit^Kt for the box seat." Mr. Y\ alter Sicliel, writing in The Times, bays that, tho veal issue Ig "the extinction ol! the middle class and the gradual inducement of conditions under v.'hujh the plutocrat and the pauper can alone survive." "This is," thinks Tho Times, "putting it too picturesquely, yet.it is' true that {he middle class has 'now to endure an assault upon its poli.tical predominance such as it delivered Dearly a century ago upon the political supremacy of the upper class. It won a , great victory with the first Reform Bill, and for a long time went od consolidating its power. But it cannot bo said, to have used its power much better than its predecessors, and now it is being called to account. It evolved and acted upon an inhuman and unsocial systßm of political economy, under which it called into being an immense industrial population, which it exploited in the 'name of supply and demand, and allowed to live without education, without'physical comfort, without any right 'but that of selling its labour for what it could get. That population found the leadership which the captains of industry denied it, created organisations for itself, obtained from the dissensions o£ its masters a- continually increasing share of political power and very substantial amelioration of its lot. . . . The best hope of the future lies, not in trying to put life into outworn political dogmas and traditions, but in t endeavouring to show the new owners of political power how much there is in the institutions of their country which it is their interest to conserve for the benefit of themselves and j their children. If this people perish, it will be for lack of knowledge, not for want of" native rectitude and common sense."' 1 ■ ' - ',' ' IRELAND 1 a ENEMY. > In a letter headed '"Is England tho Enemy?" published iii'a Dublin 'journal which is in close sympathy with the work of the Gaelic League and Sinn Fein, these words 'occur : "Ws have many enemies, but England is not one of them. Our enemies arc our ignorance, our want of self-respect and selfcontrol, our drinking habits, our scornful .neglect of our poor, our weakness and' slavishness of character, and our want of cleanliness, neatness, and sanitation in our honies." — Outlook. WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL IN PERIL. While £28,000 has been spent since the Dean's first appeal some two years ago, the Chapter and their expert advisers declare that £58,000 more is required if tho fabric of Winchester Cathedral is to be made safe. . ... The Caen stone with which the west front was repaired some sixty years ago has crumbled away, 'and many parts of the foundation .are found to be covered to tho depth of seVeral feet by water. According to the -estimate of Mr. T. G. Jackson, 11. A., £22,000 must bo spent on underpinning and repairing- the two transepts and the tower ; £6000 on the choir aisles and flying buttresses ; and £3600 on 'the lead roof. Mr. Colson puts the repairs of the west front and of other parts of the building at, £18,000 more. "Let it be remembered," says The Times, "that this is not a question of 'restoration,' which often means mutilation, but of saving from imminent danger of collapse one of the most famous, orie of tho most historical, and one of the most beautiful, of English buildin'ps — a building intimately bound up with the . history of England, .its Crown, its Church, and its people." WHY OtJTSIDE? "Lord Roscbery's eulogy of the immediate Past will cause many of its readers to reflect on his own "political isolation in the Present. Why," asks the Daily Chronicle, "should this man, with his supreme' gifts, bo standing outside of the arena wherein ho ought to bo on© of the leading figures? Matthew Arnold once described himself' as 'a pensive outsider. 1 Assuredly the role of pensive outsider is not a fit pna for Lord Rosebery. Is it that a morbid sensitiveness and an extreme 'fastidiousness have destroyed his capacity for 'action? Whatever tho reason, it is ti thousand pities that he haa detached himself from the work of constructive' statesmanship." SUNDAY DEGENERATING. "Sunday with certain classes has degenerated into a day of gambling, guzzling, and motor-racing," said Mr. T. Cheney Garfifc, J.P., D.L., of Kenwiek Hall, Louth, a paper read before the Church Congress, to which the Layman gives prominence in a recent issue. "It is considered unfashionable to be in London at the week-end, and to havo the blinds of your houso drawn up. Tlia consequence is, people do not now take seats in their parish church, cither for themselves or their servants, and tho j parish is weakened morally and spiritually. Tho clergyman's income is re- j duced ; there is a lack of. Sunday. school teachers ; tho offertories diminish in proportion : and not only this, but the homo life of Ihe community is seriously imperilled. The family is a Divine institution ; but in -the stress and whirl of our modern Western life it is running a great risk of being abandoned > altogether." A RISE IN STOCKS". "Two clergymen down in the West of England have been lifting their voices in praise of tho blocks. Not the financial investments commonly so-called, which have advocates enough, but tho oldfashioned wooden instruments for secureing tho legs of errant man. "The Rev. occil Square, who comes from Cornwall, said it had always been at matter of great regret to him lhat th? stocks in his parish had been used for firewood : while tho Rev. O. J. lleichcl, of Exmouth, declared that if a man were put in the stocks in a place where ho was known — a place wheie boys could shoot peas at him, and others deride him— the effect would be -b'ettcr than imprisonment. These, reverend gentlemen arc not alone in their opinion. Contemplating the pillory and the stocks, many of us have thought 'that our fatheis had wisdom in their days and generation, and wondered whither their sons did well to abolish a form of punishment exactly suited (o a certain kind of olTence. ." . " "Yet the thing is impossible," says tlwv Evening Standard, whoso article wo are quoting. "The stocks and the pillory havo gone for ever, as completely as the public whipping-post. They have gone, riovor (.0 return, because we have ourselves to think of as well as those who offend us. Whenever a man is handed over to tho l-ender mercies of his follows, freo and unrestrained, an opening is mad? for oppression and cruelty. Tho chanco of shooting poas nt a, fel-low-ereatuiv tied up and unable to retaliate would not help forward the education of (ho young. The very sijrht would harm tli2 observers. Derisive punishment cannot exist in the modern world on account of their vitiating quality as a spc.taiic. As we have ouriolvcs to consider then — as .the interest ot eocloty is higher than the interest of the knave— there can he no rise in stocks-. Yet . . yet it seems a pity Storks and pillory mu&t have done good work ifl their tune.' 1