TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 38, 13 August 1910, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Among the famous men whom New Zealand should be Edward glad and proud to Gibbon commemorate Edward Wakefield. Gih b o n Wakefield holds one of the highest places. We are therefore pleased to see that the movement in favour of providing a fitting memorial of Captain Cook is being followed hard upon by a P r T °P°f. a l to pay a similar honour to Wakeheld. Though it waa Cook who first hoisted the British flag in New Zealand and took formal possession of various parts of it in the name of King George 111., it i s probable that some, it not all. of the- fruits of Cook's discovery would have been lost to the Emj pire in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign if there had been no Wakefield. Downing-strcet at that time naturally took but a languid interest in a land so remote and so unpromising, and Wakofield's persistent and laborious attompts to obtain official recognition for a gr-eat scheme of colonisation w«re as persistently snubbed. When the good ship Tory, with the first batch of theNew Zealand Company's settlers on board, was ready to sail, early in 1839, the Colonial Office was at last believed to have acquired a sufficient interest in tho project to desire to delay her departure. But, with characteristic secrecy, promptitude, and decision W aleefield anticipated the interference of Downing-street, and despatched the vessel. His bold action forced the hand of the Government. The boundaries of New South Wales were at once extended to include the possessions of the Crown in New Zealand, and Captain Hobson, who was to have been made Consul, had his office enlarged into that of Lieutenant-Governor. The "circumstances entirely beyond" the control of the Government" which, Lord Normanby informed him, had induced them to alter their courso "with extreme reluctance," were undoubtedly of Wakefield's creation. But for Wakefield, therefore, the French would have beaten H*obson in the race for Akaroa, and who shall say that in that case tho position of New Zealand might at the best have been any better than that of the New Hebrides — the subject of a pai'alysing, vexatious, and dangerous dual control ? Of Wakefield's services with regard to immigraiion and land settlement, and in pioneering the grant of responsible government, we need not speak now. Suffice it to say that there are few men indeed to whom New Zealand owes more, and that we hope to see a liberal response on the part of Wellington and the country generally to the excellent proposal of the Governors of Canterbury College. It is good to hear that admirers of the . incomparable Rev. Mother Aubert's Mother Aubert are Family. bestirring themselves to properly honour her in her jubilee of religious life. Her religion has been one of care for suffering humanity, old and young. The voice of the stricken has always gone straight to her commodious heart, vdiich takes no account of creeds and colours. v She keeps no ledger of "tags." One touch oi suffering makes all the world akin in her eyes ; she recognises only the badee of pain in those whom her kind hand's hasten to help. Circumstances have brought Mr. and Mrs. Wilf ord and Mr. Hugh Ward prominently before the public eye, for the little ones' sake, and probably nobody is more pleased than Mother Aubert to see the golden harvest following so fast on the noble sowing of last week. When all this glad music of moneyraising is a pleasant memory Mother Aubert will be still working here for her enormous family. She will still be rising before 6 o'clock in the morning, and toiling all day long, cheerfully, intelligently, with a zeal proof against any set-back. She is seventy-three years of age — or is it seventy-five ? — and she still steps in and out of the formidable "Palace" cars, and walks through the city in tireless quest of sustenance for the foundlings, the disabled children, the bed-ridden aged. She was asked the other day fiow her health fared. Her laughing reply was that she had no time to tlunk about it. If she had 8 pain, she rose all the earlier in the morning aitd ran about to shake it off. Is she not worth a good jubilee ? Picture's in water-colours have been prettily painted by " Water, water Ministers during tho Everywhere." past few weeks. Last night the Hon.^ R. M'Kcnzie added a little more couleur de rose to the flimsy sketch which the Government presented in the Budget in the passage referring to the development of water-power (at the rate of

£500,000 a year), but he supplied nothing better than the beautiful generalities that have been served up so liberally during the last few weeks. The Ministerial talk has assumed that New Zealand has lacked only one thing — waterpower — to make these islands magnificent manufacturers for all the world and his wife. There is a cry of electricity for the million, "while you wait." The people's ears have been tickled with a promise of current to help in making the common pudding, and generally solving the problem of domestic help. Electricity is already a much-appreciated household aid in Wellington, and no doubt the scope of the swift current as a domestic servant will be gradually extended, hero and elsewhere, but it is absurd to dazzle the public with reflections from the glittering water before any sensiblo planning has been made known. The wild white horses that frisk over the rocky courses are not so easily broken into harness as the Ministerial imaginings may lead the credulous to fancy. The optimistic Ministry sees the race won, and the prize annexed, before the steed has the bit in its fractious mouth. Why all thiß pother of theory before the Government is ready to do anything practical? The Government is prettily blowing iridescent water bubbles. When the triangular international ericket scheme was mootboiith Africa's ed, caitics far and Coming. near expanded their commendation, or disapproval. The former predominated. It was recognised that the South Africans had become opponents worthy of the best elevens. Things wer.& set in train for the drafting of a. practicable scheme, an\d now, after some toouble, the originator of the idea, Mr. Abe Bailey, tho well-known, Cape sportsman, lias the satisfaction of knowing that hie countrymen cricketers will sot the ball rolling An Australia this summer. The hitch in the arrangements was concerned with the guarantee demanded by the South Africans. Th&y wanted J35000 assured, but th© Board of Oick«t Control, Sydney, offered the same terms as obtain, in the- Australian-English contests : half tho gross receipts of the tour. Wlian things seamed at a thorough deadlock, an ■enterprising Sydney journal stopped into the breach and offered to become responsible for the guarante©. But the Board of Control refused, and rightly so, to permit of the intrusion into an international cricket scheme of a private concern, and the deadlock persisted. But th« hurdle "has been negotiated. In a 6pirit that must commend itself to all true sportsmen, local guarantors — Mt. Bailey and the Transvaal Cricket Union the principals — have cleared the way for th© tour of ih& Cape cricketers, and, as th© oa-blo message announced yesterday, the Board of Control's terms have, been accepted. The English ■Sportsman is sure that the solution of the difficulty will be hailed with general satisfaction in England. There, will b© equal satisfaction in th© colonies, whose representatives, having possession of the much-prized "ashes," will welcome a tilt from the Rooineks, despite the petty criticism of an accepted English critic who expressed the opinion during the deadlock that the Australians were afraid of their doughty adversaries. The colonials' record is in itself a complete refutation- of such a school-boyish contention. The- triangular cricket scheme, if the game continues clean and wholesome, is goin^ to do a great deal for cricket -in England and her colonies,' and there may be a day when little New Zealand will, have progressed so far as to throw down a challenge. It is not so many yea>rs since South Africa was negligible, ev«n as we are, in a cricket semse. But travelling teams and "coaches" have done their work well, and to-day thie crack Cape exponents are known as right in the front rank. In Fa.ulkiner, Gordon White, Nourse, andVogter they have a quavtette of allround champions of high calibre. Australia will want her very best team to retain those "ashes." And England, in her turn, will receive that shock her cricket seems to require.