TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 28, 3 February 1908, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The London January series • of wool sales are now over. Over The 185,000 bales, a great inWool crease on previous offerings, Market, wero catalogued. It is reassuring to find that the 'retreat in price 3 has, to a considerable extent, been stayed. Indeed, for the finer descriptions a reaction has set in, and the more geneivil competition has engendered firmness which at the March soles may develop into higher prices. Ihe .November and December sales were disastrous to medium and, coarse 'cross-, breds. The pronounced decline then of from 10 to' j5 per cent, has now been tempered, hence 1 the additional five per cent break on the December prices may very fairly indicate that' the worst' is over. Our view all aloiig' has been that the March sales would witness a restoration of confidence, and tna,t '"a portion of the ground lost in the closing months of last year might ba made up. Each week brings us nearer to the normal., The wool clip is expecteel to' be under' last season's figures, and, with cotton steadily moving up to a 7d per 1b levelj' the demand for tho coarser crossbreds should be stimulated. And that is th& description of wool which has suffered most from the fall. A cheerful sign about the London sales just coricludecl was that bidding was stronger at tho close than at tho opening. < The market has been strengthened by the sturdiness of those sellers who withdrew a large proportion of the better wools, and this expression of faith in .the future course of prices would not be lost upon buyers. As to Bradford being quiet and depressed, the explanation is that the great wool town has more money locked up in Germany than anywhere else, and the position in that country this winter is causing some anxiety.

We are turning now into a theological college, and we are going A Serious to give degrees in divinity Mistake, in anothor form," was the to- t. , • llal half-playful comment of bir Robert Stout, Chancellor of the Aew Zealand University, after the senate had agreed to accept the bequest of fcho late- Mr. Daniel O'Sullivan. This gentleman, acting in a, spirit which could well be copjedi by many others, left money to found medical scholarships, but there was a reservation -which scarcely merits the same commendation. The stipulation was that the bequest should benefit only Roman Catholic students, and the senate was asked) to administer the trust under that condition. True to his convictions, the Chancellor moved that the senate si ould express gratification at the generous benefaction, but he declared that "it would bo contrary to precedent and not in accordance' with .the epiria o(r intension of .our "-university constitution, as explained in ' fts acts and chapters, for the university to administer such, a trust." Therefore, he suggested that the trust should be ' transferred to the Publio Trustee. A majority of tho senate was, however, against this Aviso counsel, and the gift was accepted. We do not apprehend grave danger to this country's secular system of education, but we do say that the senate's action is not in accordance with the principles which are the foundation of that system. If peace is to be preserved', sectarianism of all kinds must be carefully excluded from the educational fold. It is not desired to set up a rivalry among different sects in thvi fo'.mdation of scholarships for fche benefit of special classes, but it is desirable to create a rivalry among people to leave funds for the advantage of the rising generation, without regard to class or creed. It is the greater citizenship which we would like to see encouraged and we cannot see that the senate's acceptance of Mr. O'Sullivan's bequest will help in the process. It is hard to say whether the law or Thaw has come out the The Law more ingloriously from and Thaw, the sordid murder trial at New York. A mighty farce ended in England when the Portland vault was opened ; a more stupen- ] dous farca closed in New York when the jury returned a verdict of "Not Guilty" for Harry Thaw, "on tho ] ground that ho vvos insane" when he shot Stanford White. Practically tho verdict is the old suicide one with slight variations — "the accused committed mur,- ■

der while temporarily insane," 'rather while in a "brain storm."' The only decent thing that the whole proeedute has done has bsen to give a new comic phrase, "brain storm," to tho language, a phrase which a local barrister has.already ured at ccurt during a murder trial. 'New Zealanders knew that Thaw would be acquitted in tha long run. A millionaire dies hard -in America, if it is a cjuestion of the rope or the electrocution chair. Money talks, and nowhere more loudly than in America. Thaw hail thousands to spare for counsel versed in all the subtleties and bypaths of American law, and it was plain from the outset that though his escape would bo costly, ths acquittal was sure. Nothing in recent years has gone further than tho Thaw trial to show the complication of modern society, especially in America. There hove been revelations too revolting for even the ears of tho "munjuks" — the court habitues. The sins of Jhe idle rich have come out of the dark places into the light, to the disgust oi the clean. .Thaw does not matter, but the lessont of the horriblo trial are important. They show that ill- I weeds grow apace on the compost of cX- , cessive wealth, and they support Presi- j dent Roosevelt in his campaign against ' a system which allows irresponsibles anc degenerates to run amok with monc wrung from cle>iu aud honest men ant women. ' ' , i Mr. Rail-Jones, like er*ry ©the-- , ihoustyful observe^ wa. Fruitful deeply impressed during soil for his recent visit by the j Socialism, awful extremes of . . wealth and poverty in Bntaia 'health and luxury, threw into vivid reliei poverty and want. Britain's proletariat is restless. "Go into 1 any London pafk and you will hear | enthusiastic socialists, with burning eye and rapid speech, denouncing a system which they declare condemns a vast multitude- to lives of squalor, degradation, and abject hopelessness. Ah, but the proletariat is moving. At all events they can road, and certain agencies have circulated during the last few years millions _of pamphlets which have set thsm furiously athinking. Meanwhile the great Liberal majority is being attenuated. By-election after by-election sees seat after seat wrested 'from them. The official apologists blame everything but the right thing. It is the resentment of tho ppopfe with their social qondi tions. The people yearn fox radical — democratic measures that will better their lot in their own life time. They wont land reform — they want oldage- pensions— they want, better housing. They want to be free from the stigma of charity. They want to regain their self-respect. The terrible physical d?cadence which has smitten the race appals any one revisiting Britain after an absence of twenty years. You are haunted by tho famished crowds in the squalid towns : you see the eye 3 blazing with starvation — your car is tortured v>ith the piteous cry for ponce. You are cut- to the^ heart by the sight of the rjeketty children — badly clad and badly fed— the horrible unfairness of it all is seared on your brain. Then comes along the Socialist with his panaceas — he promises them something _ definite — he deals with human beings, and he does not concern himself a whit about the people of the New Hebrides or the heir presumptive to tho throne of a far distant state in Central Africa. He thinks he sees work close at hand. Every day he gains fresh- adherents. Meanwhile the two great parties continue their political fiddling and are blind and deaf to the revolution, taking placeintba political beliefs of tho people in. |he mass, According to the London Daily Mail— »a . '' sadly unreliable • authority The — fane „ greatest hop«rs of ' J Latest the age, tho Esperantista, '•pioneer's, have'planhed'the Establishment of an independent state in tho neutral territory of the Moresnet, between Liege, and the Prussian Rhine •Province. This patch of ground is very large ifrom the point of view ai Wellington, where earth is sold by the inch, but does not embrace much. oi tithe terrestrial globe's surface; it is only seventy acres', about the ninth p>rt of a'^square nule, By no mighty armaments, by no legions of men equipped with the latest patterns of guns and rifles, do the Esperantos hope to conquer mankind. They will merely fire bombs of. "aj" and Voj" at the masses. Who knows what dreams fill the miads of the • men who have cast their eyes upon Moresitet. From their little "independent they may hope to win the world to their way of , speaking. They se© the earth as it' was in the day's before the Tower of Babel. They behold the Qhinaman meeting an Englishman, and talking amicably about tho weather' and tin crops in Esperanto. Those apostles may we in Moresnet today, but to-morrow they may b& in Arctica and Antartica, in the East and the West Indies. They see their state spreading outwards in all directions like a blob of ink upon a blotting-pad. \t is said that when the men of various nations understand one another wars will cease, and money will be put into better things than Dreadnoughts, which are on their way to the scrap-heap as soon as the keels are laid. The Esperantists believe that they will hasten this day .when peace and good-will are to reign among all men.