BY THE WAY

Evening Star, Issue 16717, 25 April 1918, Page 2

BY THE WAY

[By Cajuel Cboss.] I trust that the report laid by the ■irua-nt inspector before the Otago Education Board at their meeting last Thursday on the scandalous exploitation of schoolboy labor has aroused such indignation in this city that the evil will be effectively dealt with without a day’s unnecessary delay.. There is only one way to charactense the lot of these shamefully overworked lads as described in detail by the inspector*, it is slavery, and a very bad tvpe of slavery. In what is called “ God 3 Cjwn Country’” where adult workers are so fanatically sensitive to their own rights, and zealous labor inspectors are appointed to keep a sharp eye on employers, schoolbovs are toiling up to 16 and 18 hours a Say, including school hours, which they are too tired to profit by. The teachers in our primary schools have known something of this’state of things for a long time, but it would seem that while such extreme solicitude and vigilance are exercised in the interests of older workers, schoolboys can bo worked to death unprotected by the laws of their country. It is monstrous. These driven and harassed and *»earv laddies must be rescued from theif ialions exploiters, whether parents, as utiprymen, or dairy companies, or anyifefj else, Tlie Education Board are communicating with the Government on the subject, and tlm result will be awaited with keen interest. * * * * * f* ■* The utter collapse of Russia has changed the whole aspect of things for Germany, and, by implication, also tor the Allies. The statement of the ‘ Morning Post ' is quite creditable that “The utter -hopelessness which characteri3ed the prisoners taken in the fighting of last flunuacr is no longer apparent. Some of them are quite insolent. * Other indications are the recrudescence of the demand for huge indemnities, and the outbursts of glorification of the Kaiser as a mighty conqueror. It would be impossible to find in all human history such an instance of a dominant faction rushing headlong into everv possible species of absolute madness as til at of the Bolsheviks. To find anything at all approaching a parallel we ( must go to the story of the swino of i Gadara that, becoming possessed by a | legion of. demons, rushed in mad career j down a neighboring steep into the sea. j Relying upon a sympathetic movement | among like-minded visionaries in other ; countries which would paralyse all war 1 activities, the Bolsheviks humiliated, ! disabled, and disbanded the Russian ar- j mies, and trusted all tho rest to speeches, | only to find themselves helpless in the re- j lentless grip of the Germans. _ And yet, at one of the preliminary meetings of the great Labor Conference in Nottingham in January last, British Labor representa-■ fives were content to listen to the appeal of Maxim Litvinoff, Bolshevist Ambas- J sador to England, to ‘‘leave off resolu- i tiona, and follow the example of Russia, j If peace does not result, then revolution ; in Germany, and, let us hope, perhaps somewhere "else, will bring the war to an end 1” ******* Onr real danger is in the fact that Germany, without an empire, is bursting with the passion for empire, while wo have been accustomed to empire so long that we ; have ceased to think nr feel very much about it. The imperial element is going out of our blood. British possessions, apart from the overseas Dominions, are managed by a handful of experts. The great bulk “of the British people are unconscious of them, and hardly know where and what they are. Indeed, so far are we from realising our imperial responsibilities that the very thought of empire is. it is to be feared, becoming an offence to the aggressive organisations who are always telling us that the future is with them. It we care a brass farthing for the Empire wo take an astonishing amount of pains j to hide it. The fact that we are fighting j ■for the Empire in this war is more by implication than of set purpose, and as a j conscious objective. The thing that is doing duty as “ Democracy ” is a greater menace to us than Germany, and if we don’t look out, will drive ns to the perdition of an idiotic martyrdom which will ' leave us little but time to reflect amid the ruins of our greatness. ******* Countless instances have oconned which show tha strange inability of the typi-ai German to understand deeds of chivalry and magnanimity, and such as indicate in any way the fine feeling, taste, and discrimination of superior natures. When lie tries to account for the kindness and and scrupulous fairness of the British treatment of German prisoners he is nonplussed, He finds nothing in himself or in his experience to explain it, and so he attributes it either to our stupidity or. our fear. The ; Daily Mail ’ quotes the example of Captain Muller, of the En> den, as a fresh instance of the folly of lavishing kindness upon creatures who cantot appreciate it. That officer, after hia capture by the Sydney, was allowed to retain his sword, and was granted every possible favor. When it was found necessary to bring him from Malta to England, that he might h© under closer supervision, ne was given one of the best cabins in a battleship; served with the bed- meals ; and attended by a servant exactly as though he had been a British officer or | the samo_ rank In England he was treated with indulgence. Now that be has been restored to liberty in Holland his return for all our kindness ia to snarl at the British nation as *• unkraghtJy ” and to assert falsely that he was subjected to “ unheard-of ” conditions. Somewhat rashly, maybe, but quite after our manner, we characterised Captain Muller’s conduct- on his memorable raiding cruise as ‘‘ sportsmanlike.” The compK mont was thrown away. Among other expressions of the German resentment we have that of the novelist, Fran Boy-Ed : ‘‘The attribute ‘sportsmanlike’ is not acceptable. We regard it as an insult. Our sea heroes do not, act as sportsmen. They act from tho deep, unfathomable demands cf their German nature.” Well, we cannot insist. We can only accept the illuminating correction. At this point we conveniently recall the remark of a Ger- 1 man officer-prisoner: "Yon English will always bo fools, and we shall never be gentlemen.” ******* The ex-Tsar has generally 'been regarded as a poor little ■well-meaning kind of body whose only crime was that he was too weak to grasp and control the turbulent and corrupt forces that rioted around the imperial crown a cruel destiny had placed on hia head, and too weak to resist the politically corrupt and corrupting influence of his German, wife. A somewhat different aspect of the subject is presented by M. Charles Rivet, Petrograd correspondent of the Paris ‘Temps,’ in his recently published book ‘ The Last of the Romanoffs.’ Going to Russia in 1901 as a professor, M. Rivet’s open criticism of the ways of officialdom eventually got him into serious trouble, and early m the war he found himself under arrest and threatened with expulsion. Of the ex-Tsar the author says: ‘‘The wretched Nicholas was always an autocrat, who interfered only to make mischief. His domestic life was that of an unfaithful husband, but the Tsaritza, especially after the birth of the delicate Tsarevitch, being a clever woman, obtained an ascendancy over him which was used for evil purposes. Members of his family who warned him of the danger he was running into of ruining the nation were disgraced and exiled from Petrograd, and at the end the Tsar was left ignorant, and fooled by a corrupt coterie of boon companions,” M. Rivet has many kind! and appreciative things to say of the Russians, especially of their kind-heartedness, which, however, he qualifies by saying that “it is Sentiment without character, and without fixity of purpose.” ******* Another interesting monograph is that on Abdul Hamid, who, it will be remembered, was deposed in 1908. Though on account of the atrocities committed in his reign, the Sultan wnais often referred to as Abdul the Damned, tho posthumous honor has fallen to him of being included among the “Makers of the Nineteenth Century.” While these biographies reveal both Saltan

and Tsar as pitifully weak men, afraid of their own shadow, mortally jealous of strong and capable men, in constant dread of assassination, ruthlessly stifling the faintest aspirations to freedom, and seeking safety in the stupefying ignorance of their people, a reviewer deliberately selects Abdul Hamid as tho more ostimab.o character, because he really worked hard and took an interest in his work, while Nicholas was “an idle degenerate, at the mercy always of men and women who used him for their own purposes.” ‘The Life of Abdul Hamid - is bv Sir Edwin Pears, who for 40 years lived in Constantfnople, where he practised in tho Consular Courts. An interesting chapter on Press censorship gives instances which give some of our British censors a hard run. A story ran it the American Bible House that the censor objected to tho translation of “ Como o\ or into Macedonia and help us,” but with great difficulty, after explanation'that the passage was written 1,800 rears ago, ho allowed it to pass. On, another occasion reference to Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians led to the arrest of a. printer's boy, who - was questioned as to the residence of Paul, and two well-known men had to be produced as witnesses that Paul had long been -dead, and that the Galatians referred to were A race who lived in Asia Minor centuries before the Turks were in the country. A Bulgarian manuscript submitted had “lliey Kingdom come" struck out of the Lords Prayer as an attack on tho sovereignty of the Sultan, which was good enough for all loval subjects. Lines from Bulgarian translations of livmns. such as ‘Hail, Prince of Pence,’ ‘ Onward, Christian Soldiers,’ and ‘ Jesus, the name hit’ll over all,* were relentlessly struck out. “ Shall we gather at the river?” : gave mortal offence, for the censor -knew what that river is just as well as vou do. Tt is the Maritza.