TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 140, 15 June 1909, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

A little more discussion is needed to satisfy the ratepayers' curiThe City's osity about the general Finances, condition of the city's finances, and many citizens no doubt hope that at Thursday's meeting of the City Cotlncil the statements will be more specific and illuminating than they were at last week's assembly, when the 'Mayor (Dr. 'Newman) made a disquieting speech. The general effect of his word 6 was that the finances oc the corporation had lost their roseate complexion, and were requiring a tonic, which ho hoped to supply, chiefly out of the bottle of economy. Naturally, the Mayor's stressing of his plea that the council must face "facts, however ugly," tended to make the public uneasy, and it Wd£ inferred, far and wide, that the, community's affairs had not been condueled on sound, prudent, business lines. Wo have made enquiries in an effort to discover whether the (Mayor's remarks, in reference to the general state of the finances, are solidly based ; but the information so far revealed fails to justify the rather pessimistic tone which marked his utterance. In one matter, however, investigations show that Dr. Newman did his Mayoral duty in asking the councillors to give heed to his words, it seems clear now that the loan of £15,000, raised for the abattoirs, was treated irregularly. Some £7000 of the amount was credited to the district fund, and the result was that the .overdraft was kept down by that amount, instead of figuring at £64,000 to-day, the overdraft should appear as £71,000. It is true that about £6000 worth of debentures is available to balance tho abattoirs account; but the cash has yet to be raised. Councillors are confident that it is merely a matter of book-keeping^ that the city has not stiff ered, th;tt everything will balance out, to the last farthing, in duo course, but it is plain that an official error — without the cognisance of the late Mayor — has been committed. Following the usual procedure, a separate account should have been opened for the abattoirs loan, and thus it -would have been possible to avoid tho confusion which seems to have given an impression that the finances are not, in so good a state as they are held to be by members of the old council. There is certainly something left for diebate on Thursday. , More by asking questions than by making speeches a' memTo be Slippered ber of Parliament out of Office? may embarrass the' Ministry of the day, if the queries are well selected, but it is not always easy to see that a member has any very definite reason behind his interrogation. It is the member's instinct to ask questions, and his prerogative. What are questions for, if not j to be asked? The prospect of a brief session has not reduced the cubic content of questions in tho atmosphere of Parliament. In fact, the prospect of an early adjournment has rather oiled the question wheels and developed a bigger head of steam. in the question boiler. The; querist machine is busy ; the output it enormous. The Government's demand for questions is em- ! phatically nil, but the supply is huge. Questions are a drug on the Cabinet market, but the merciless "dumping" continues. Among the interrogators is Mr. Poole. He desires to know whether the Minister of Customs will, give further consideration to the question of reducing "the abnormal duty on slippers." No doubt that is a very proper question ; it has. been raised before, out of Parliament, and the justic? of the plea has been much emphasised. But Mr. Poole might have dwelt on the significance of his question, for the benefit of a worried Government. He might have conjured up a picture of comfort destroyed— the citizen embayed in a big chair by a fire, with slippered feet, preparing to enjoy Hansard, when suddenly a glance at the slippers makes gladness vanish and induces broodiness. He thinks of the price, he thinks of "the duty. Is he not embittered against the Government? When battleships arc cheap, why are slippers so dear? n 'be duty, always the duty. Thus may lesentment against the Government "reep up slowly from the feet, and a great party may shuffle out in slippers. In Mr. Poole's vista, is the Ministry to be slippered out of office unless the Hon. J. A. Millar favourably answers th*> question? Will the Minister give h]s vote for hearth and home ? Thp sufferers by that "abnormal duty" wait patiently. And others are waiting to see whether the Government will "agree to enquire into the kauri qnm m-hislre-name the ships which Amokura boys have joined, and allow school committee elections to start at noon. Wellington province has a West Coast, „, _, but it is a mutton Ihe Romantic and hemp and tallow West Coast. and timber West Coast, vigoious, growing, important, an expanding reality, but the mention of West Coast, to most New Zealanders, brings up a vision of the old romantic West Coast, the old gold coast of the South Island, once a yielder of gold, and later an absorber. The busy North Island forgets about that Wes,t Coast, except when there is some trouble among coal -miners or when a deputation asks for the expenditure of public money on a railway, a road n bridge, or harbour down t'heie, and at these times, when memories of other days are revived, the average person may think of the Coast as a country living on the reminiscences of its former greatness, when 30,000 or 40,C00 people inhabited Hokitilui, and diggeis threw gold about in handfulb as fast as they snatched it from the earth's pockets. The old West Coast flitted quaintly into a debate in the House yesterday. Somebody said that the law was not broken there, and another member promptly replied that there were no laws there to break. The West Coasters never did worry about trifles, and the old habit remains. Different centres may have their jealousies, but it is said that the police are not overworked "in bringing wcmbein of the communities before a Benoh. Some time back, whon Con-

nelly, of the notorious Westport case, received his final sentence, several newspapers asserted that the blame for the slackness of work for the courts was rather the fault of the authorities than due to absence of offences against the law, but Westport has vigorously resented the charge. This is a transition period for the Coast. The people there are building high hopes, of many stories, on the foundation of the Midland Railway, and some are even dreaming of a direct passenger and mail service with Australia. After the great bursi of energy in the early days, the West Coast seemed to tire and become **a weary coast, but there are signs that it • is getting its "second wind." J

Newcastle, New South Wales, is scandalised. Among the A Question ballast discharged by of 'Sentiment, a barque from Peru were found ' skulls, thigh-bones, and other gruesome relics of humanity. .Ballast, it seems, at the port of Eten, was scarce and dear, and the captain, though he noticed bones among the stuff tipped below, did not knowthat they wero human, and that he was paying 8s 9d per ton for the coil of an ancient Inca cemetery. Possibly he did not greatly cure. Only in recent times would such a matter have attracted much notice. In Shakespeare's day, it was a commonplace incident for a bystander at a graveside to pick tip a skull and ascertain from the sexton to whom it had belonged. The like thing might have happened in London without comment, | even in early Victorian days. In eighteenth-century England the gibbeted bodies of criminals, men and women, wore as familiar "object-lessons" to school children as they are in China m our own day. And the great Dr. Johnson disapproved of the weak sentiment which had begun to demand a greater regard for public decency. Truly, the change in sentiment is for the better, and the callous exhibition and desecration of human remains tolerated among civilised peoples in bygone- days would now arouse righteous indignation. The feeling of the sacredness of the relics of one's friends lies deep in human nature, and pagan literature is saturated with the sentiment. It is independent of creed — it constituted tho piety ot Tobit in the 'Hebrew romance, 06 it did of "01-d 'Mortality," immortalised by Walter •Scott. It entered deep into Maori thought and religion. Yet, strange to say, it has not been inconsistent with the deliberate exposure and desecration of the bodies of criminals, enemies, and aliens. The reverent treatment of the remains of the departed does not, however, require that efforts should be made to preserve the bodies from the natural process of decay — endeavours characteristic of all the old paganisms, and which have ever been pathetically futile. Possibly, it was this same pious care on the part of the old Incas that has now led to tho bonta of their ancestors being desecrated in a strange land. Public opinion will no doubt demand that the relics shall be decently dealt with and permitted to mingle in peace with their kindred earth, though under an alien sky.