TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 101, 30 April 1909, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evermore on that great moulding-board of hers, Nature is Education for the fashioning the clay Maimed Poor. into many perfect vessels. But hero | and there, when the clay has deterior- I ated, the implements are defective, and are put aside, as it were. So we find them in all those institutions for the inaxmed and the halt children. It is a ' glad and a heartening thing to know ; that, so far as he is able, man, through many years, has endeavoured to make h , .? £° r i ier aS , soothi »K. restful, and hnght for the broken vessel as he may. &o those eyes that looked out on darkened windows were illumined with the Braille raised letters and kindred subtle artifices. Not so heavy, but yet heavy enough, is the cross of the physically deformed and crippled, who are doomed to pass their lives on a bed, their small lives circumscribed by the white walls of a hospital ward. For such in Wellington, if the suggestion made before ' the Wellington Education Board is real- ] used, there is a brighter day dawning , Ihe suggestion was that a small school' for the helpless little -people should be attached to the hospital, where they might be taught to read and write, and where they may be handy for medical supervision. The board, through its chairman, announced its willingness to co-operate in bringing about such a desirable consummation. The proposal is an eminently humane and charitable one. Tho almost utter loneliness and monotony of the child patient, unable to read or to write, will vanisli before the spell of a little knowledge. Here is a key which will unlock the golden gates of faerie fancy, of "realms of gold," wherein the stumbling feet may tread without hurt, the childish eves may drink the beauties of the new and\ true land, and where the young soul, tir-id and weary of its dull walls, may find in some enchanted castle of romance such glories as v ill make the day a delight and the night a time of fair dreams. It is a good and a proud fact that not yet have New Zealanders learned to be careless about "the cry for help come up out of Macedonia," and we believe that the appeal on behalf of the afHicted helpless will not be in vain. "Jack's as good as his master," if not better, at a meeting The Indignity of the Wellington of Labour. Trades and Labour Council. The crudest scrap-box deciamator is at liberty to suggest a policy for a Labour member of Parliament, and to put forward plans for the disposition of the member's day's. It is "liberty, equality," but not fraternity. Somebody has thrown a large apple of discord into the meeting place, and the "capitalistic press" is practically blamed for the deed. For a few weeks the council agreed to stand in the light shed fairly by the press, but instead of behaving with the dignity that should grace the delegates of serious unions, some of the representatives preferred to be merryandrews. Was it not only fair to the unions concerned that their delegates' methods of doizig business should be honestly made known? Is not the likelihood of publicity a safeguard for the maintenance of dignity? Some of the delegates were fully conscious that the exit of several obstructive, smallminded delegates would serve Labeur's interests better than the exclusion of the "capitalistic press," and, eventually, the motion for the closing of the doors against reporters was carried by only a small majority. The makers of the undesirable music are timid about having the score published and submitted to the public. Mr. D. M'Laren, when taxed with the fact that he had not moved out of Wellington, in accordance with a piomise, to do organising work up country, scored neatly off his critks. Organisation should begin at home, he said in effect. Why should Wellington send out missionaries to the country "heathen" when wild Wellington itself was sadly in need of taming and discipline? '"The suggestion has been made that I should move on," he exclaimed warmly, when discussing the tactics of the local wranglers. "But instead it might be said that there are men in the movement here who should move off. and move out altogether." The iireconcilables and the irresponsibles embarrass Labour and they handicap industry, for they help to foment war when the sane leaders of the party may be striving for the establishment of peace. Realising that wireless telegraphy will not be abundantly Snips to Speak installed round about by Night. New Zealand for some time, the Harbour Board is giving its attention to a modest substitute, the Mora© sys-bem of signalling, to enable ships to flash messages by night. The board has agreed to adopt the dot-and-dash flash next year, and in. the- meantime will have a useful scheme of coloured lights to enable steamers to readily find their berths by night. Mariners have a year's notice in which to qualify themselves to give and take a Morse message, and in addition to the Harbour Board's decision, a gentle pressure by the Government will induce them to hurry on with their lessons. It was mentioned yesterday that a Government .regulation provided that mariners must be competent to use the Morse method. It would, of course, be worse than futile tor harbour boards.' to rush ahead with 'Morse, installations' if the lights were to convey language unintelligible to the chips. It is essential that the study of this useful system should be immediately undertaken by navigators and prospective mariners. The Harbour Board desires to extend the scope of the Morse lamp beyond the ports, and is 'thereforel urging the Government to make the lighthouses competent Morse stations, well a.blo ,to hold converse with a passing ship. This recommendataon, which would not entail heavy expense, should readdly secure the Government's approval. The admirable example of the Harbour Board in making preparations for the Morse system, at a time when the board's officers had just finished working out the details of another method of signalling, should have a good effect on the Government, whose responsibilities are much greater than the boaxd'e. There are too kinds of conformity with law — the real and the noLegalised minal. The first regards Truancy, its spirit and intention, and scrupulously avoids anything even appioximating to 'infraction; the other, while nominally conforming to the letter, entrenches as closely as possible, and takes advantage of any laxity of definition to transgress. However salutary the provision may be, those who obey in the nominal fashion choose to regard it as. a limitation of personal privilege to be evaded on all possible occasions. They represent really the anti-social spirit which can be controlled only by the bit and bridle of ordered authority. It is unfortunate for the law-abiding that this class .should be so numerous, as it= perversity necessitates legislation being far more risk! and inelastic than it would otherwise be. The Chief Inspector of Schools, in his annual report, has just given prominence to an example in point. There is no greater obstacle to efficient education, and few more demoralising influences on the_ pupil than the habit of truancy, which nolds in yerm evils that may

ruin the life in maturer years. Regular attendance is therefore demanded by the Act unless satisfactory reason for absence is. given. But, in order that a discrimination should be made betweeD absence which is wilful and habitual, and that which is casual and unavoidi able, two half-day absences in a single j week are not required to be account- | ed for. This "grace"' has been abused by parents or scholars throughout the land to such an extent that there has grown up a class in the schools known as "legal attenders," who deliberately and systematically absent themselves for the full period permitted by the saving clause. The example, like all bad examples, is coutogious, and is imperilling the efficiency of the schools. To such an extent has the evil grown that an amendment of the Act is urged, and will probably be made. This will give law-abiding parents the trouble of sending a formal explanation on every occasion where a half-day's attendance is necessarily missed. It was not thought that such punctilious minuteness would i be necessary, but it is preferable to the 1 unforeseen alternative — systematic truancy under shelter of the Act. Matters of large principle underlie the „, „ „ reply given to Checking the Queensland's AgentInflux General by Britain's of Undesirables. Colonial Secretary. A cable message today mentions that Sir Horace Tozer suggested that the Imperial Government should co-operate with Queensland in establishing a depot at London docks for , the inspection of emigrants. The object of the request, apparently, was chiefly to prevent the invasion of Queensland by undesirable aliens. The Earl of Crewe, in declining to agree to the proposal, politely remarked, that the I policy of the Emigrants' Information Ofj fice was limited to giving information. I The inference that may be read int6 his lordship's words is that the N colonies con- ■ cerned should make their own arrangements to safeguard themselves against such types of the genus homo as they deem unsuitable for acclimatisation in their territory. It is for the Dominions overseas to take all the necessary precautions before they seek to enlist the services of the Mother Country in overhauling the contingents who are prepared to pay their passages to the outlying parts of the Empire. By the • dissemination of information about eduj cation tests and other provisions in Australasia to restrict the entry of certain aliens, these countries may succeed In convincing those individuals that they would stand to lose their money in taking a trip to the Commonwealth or New Zealand. In the past some of the Agents-General may not have sufficiently realised the importance of exercising some thorough supervision of emigration affairs. Possibly Queensland has suffered by not taking proper care to key up her own officers to a sense of their responsibility, and now seeks Imperial assistance in a matter of domestic policy which she should be able- to manage without the Old Country's active assistance. New Zealand has also suffered, 'in some measure, by a lack of vigilance on the part of the London office, but we are glad to know that the eyes of the Government's representatives in London are to be intelligently trained on the battalions that seek these shores.