TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 30, 5 February 1908, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

At last the Government has awakened to a sense of duty reA Beneficent garding the National Change. Museum. Repeatedly The Post 'has pointed to the drab and sad-looking building that was made to do duty in Museumstreet. There the borer had its way, and the rain came in to destroy the things which tha gnawer spared. Yesterday Cabinet decided to ask the Public Works Department to report on ths suitableness of the 'Mount Cook barrncks for conversion into a "Dominion Museum," and it is not anticipated thatthere will be any difficulty in altering the structure to make it able to properly house the treasures that blush and blench mostly unseen in the old Colonial Museum. That mountain has had a quaint history. Years ago the visitor to the port, when he was halfway up the harbour, had his eye caught by a plain brick building, glaring upon the most conspicuous site in Wellington, and he was inclined to harslly judge the city when informed that the pile was to be a gaol. Better sense camo to the founders, and the prison project was abandoned. Next an attempt was made to secure the building for university purposes, but 1 the friends of education failed. Lastly there was a strong demand for a portion of tho reserve for a technical education college, and again the educationists were defeated. There is no reason why they should not renew the fight, for <ho change- of the barracks into a good museum should strengthen their case. The grounds will need attention ; at present they are roostly bleak and naked, and cry out for decent clothing with shrub and trcs. There Is abundance of prison labour available to make Mount Cook a place where tho people would be glad to go for an hour's recreation. Two recent conferences of employers and workmen givo point to Industrial The Post's argument Conferences, that the conciliation of industrial disputes should, as far as possible, be ioft to the disputants themselves ; and that legislative intrusion may well be confined to the provision of the simplest machinery and to tho registration pf results for public reference. On 3rd February the proprietors of the Southland Freezing Works at Invercargill met their employees to discuss wages and conditions of labour. In the slaughtering and meat-exporting trade work is subject to many small variations which affect the profit both of employers and of workmen ; and the parties concerned, with an intimate knowledge of the facts, can easily reach a decision that the existing Board o£ Conciliation would take days to formulate. It is reported that the issue of the conference, which is held as often as required, is satisfactory. In the second case shearers and sheepowners met at Palmerston yesterday to try and settle a di&pute which had been withdrawn from the Board of Conciliation. Here again the result promises to content both parties. Plain- j ly a great deal of time and expense is saved b 4 v encouraging disputants to deiuda thiuv own ouarrel. Any Board or.

Court has first to call evidence and become acquainted with the facts ; and even then ignorance of the precise weight of the facts is likely to make the verdict worthless. The men in the business can take the evidence for granted and get straight to the heart of the matter. This is true conciliation, and sensible; it recognises both sides, not as antagonists seeking each to make his own case good in the eyes of a judge, but as partners with a common industrial interest, which they have to maintain. We hope to see the practice carried further. Wonderful as they have been—surpassing even the magic A Wireless of the Arabian Nights — Message. the marvels of wireless electric communication have so far had to our community, save those practically or otherwise specially interested in electrical science, only a remote interest. The faint sheets lightning on the far horizon at night ! attracts but languid attention. Yet far ! away those same flashes may be spread- 1 ing destruction and terror. It may not) bo precisely correct to say tkat interest in any event diminishes in the ratio of the square of its distance; but it is I undeniable that the small matters in ! our own immediate circle engross our minds often to tho almost entire exclusion of the greater ones afar oil. Therefore, though we have all heard of Marconi and his rivals in the field of wireless telegraphy, and have road of ever-lengthening distances over which their communications have extended ; though we know that the invention has passed from tho realm of scientific experiment into the region of practical life — it comes to its almost as a. novelty, it is certainly revealed to us in a new light, when we read, ns we do to-day, of tho transmission of the first, wiroloss message from Wellington to Sydney: Significantly, it, was from warship to warship, and not an unbroken message, for the Powerful .act 3d las an intermediary "repeater." What | is realised now is not only that thero is a new power at the service of man, j but that it is here, and must ere long be a familiar and indispensable factor in daily life. Its value in cave of emergency, such as declaration of war against the Empire, would be incalculable-. Our own Government has long recognised its importance and has kent itself fully informed on the subject. It has not made the mistake of hastily installing the fir.«b partially successful methods, costly and necessarily crude ; but wo maj feel assured that New Zealand will not bt behind in its adoption when the proper time arrives. Ib was all very well to belong to the feudal nobility in days Horrible when that nobility exercised Outrage! the right of high and low justice, and villeins mado convenient footstools for wiping lordly boots upon. Tho age of chivalry is dead, however; and even a British noble is finding it a task increasingly difficult to maintain the privileges of his rank without working for them — or without marrying an American heiress in order to give the guinea's stamp a solid gold backing. An offensive democracy is assailing at all points the divine right of anybody to be hereditarily better than anybody else; and dukes are troubled with degrading nightmares in which they have imagined themselves, earning their living with the cold sweat of their brows. The Countess of Cottenham is the latest victim of the deplorable levelling tendencies of ths age. She has found it necessary to appeal to an, English court of justice t$ protect 'her from the insolence of a plebeian person named Robinson, who actually dared to, impersonate her Countess-ship, and to claim tho Countess's aristocratic relatives as her own familiar property. The Countess told how Miss Robinson, at Melbourne, masqueraded in her ancestral title, and declared that she had I been annoyed for years by Australians I who^ called upon her and claimed acI quaintancc. Anybody who knows Aus- ' iraiians will know that this is just the sort of thing Australians would do. How perfectly disgusting to bo accosted by a strange man, and invited to remember 'Uhat day at St. Kilda — or — Countess — you must remember that?" With what indignation the Countess would say, "Sir, I do not remember ,that!" and how agonising the hours she would spend in imagining what frightful deeds could possibly have been committed in her name at St. Kilda! And what follows? What punishment is awarded to the audacious criminal? j None! ! ! "Miss Robinson was discharged on promising not to repeat tho annoyance." Discharged! She should have been decapitated. Is British i justice a failure? or is the aristocracy played out? Again the wife deserter is prominently before the public. YesterScallywag day, at a. meeting of the Husbands. Wellington Benevolent Trustees, Mr. A. W. ■ Hogg, M.P., grew irather warm about the attitude of the police in declining to take steps to bring an absconder back from Australia, unless a sum of £29 towards the cost was guaranteed. "This peems a gross state of affairs," declared Mr. Hogg, but the police are not to blame. It is not the practice of \tho Government of this or any other country, as a rule, to spend money in the capture of wife deserters when they hafo gone beyond the boundaries. The police will search New Zealand, if warranted, but once a scoundrel has crossed tho sea he passes out of their hands- unless the expenses of extradition are guaranteed to the Government ; that is the law of the land as it stands. The trustees decided to devote £20 to the task, and! their action Taises a pertinent query. If the trustees consider it advisable to spend ratepayers' money on bringing defaulters to justice, should not a. similar policy commend itr.elf to tho Government? It must be remembered that when a man runs away from- his wife and family he is pTobably khving them to become wholly or partly a charge on the State. Is it cheaper to draw hint home and make him work than to 1H him go scotfree and relieve him of the burden of maintaining 1 those for whom ho is responsible? True, some of these despicablo persons decline- to work honestly, but the State is great and strong. There should be means of compelling the rascals to toil ; that was done in the olden time ; it can be done now. Mr. Kettle, S.M., seems to have lost patience with the prohiThe bited person. "I don't Prohibited see why persons who Person. have been prohibited should not wear somo badge," he remarked in petulant playfulness at Auckland yesterday. A sergeant of police mentioned that in England hotelkeepers were supplied with photographs of inviduals who had been placed under the ban. The badge' is, of course, impossible, and the photograph is no better than tho badge. For sentimental reasons these methods of keeping the liquor victims in view would probably not be favoured by, New Zcalanders. Yet is is admitted that the present attempts to stop liquor from going to an habitual drunkard are not satisfactory. He is prohibited, his name is forwarded to the publicans. If ho goes to a part of the city where he is not known, how is tho publican to identify him? How can the practice of mean accomplices, tho purveyors who "run the cutter," be checked? By shadowing the prohibited person, the detectives may occasionally: catch a !

"tout," but clearly all prohibited persons cannot bo systematically shadowed. The only solution of the problem is to cure the disease, and again the reformer is against a hard wall. Waitati is not yet forgotten ; that home for inebriates was not a success, but its failure was not conclusive evidence that a similar endeavour to win the drunkard back to sobriety would meet with no better luck. Other experiments in homes ara .being tried, and perhaps the world is on its way to the definite cure of alcoholism. But the bright day is still far away.