JOTTINGS AT RANDOM.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7147, 27 April 1885, Page 3

JOTTINGS AT RANDOM.

[By Akgus.l I observe by recent issues of the Herald that Takapau is divided on the subject of correct English, and that the newspapers have been appealed to in order to decide the question of which portion of the globe can boast of a community that speak pure English. This reminds me that once when I was in a town in Yorkshire a similar dispute arose there. Two worthies debated whether " ather," " ither," or # " eether " was correct sound interpretations of the word " either." The disputants resolved to settle the debate by submitting the question to the first man who came along. Presently a true "tyke" was available, and the question was fully stated to him. His reply settled the affair. "Naw," said the philologist, " nawther's reet, its ' awther.' " Takapau can take the lesson to heart. Another "Royal" book is to be pub- , lished. The two sons of the Prince of ' Wales, as will readily be remembered, recently made a tour round ( the world, and are going to publish their ideas of what they saw in two volumes of 500 pages each, profusely illustrated with plates, charts, and maps. It is claimed for the Princes that they kept full diaries on their travels, writing the entries on ship-board, in tents, and "on horseback." Probably this latter method of literary work comes easy to Princes, they being specially endowed as compared with " the baser sort" of mankind. The cream of the announcement, however, is the tail end of it. This states that a certain reverend gentleman (highly-connected, of course), who voyaged with the Princes as general supervisor, has "revised and edited the sheets," and has made large additions to the work from his own diary. Why the dickens the work could not be published aa by the reverend editor and " adder," will only be fully understood when the world in general gets tired of pretending to credit to royalty what it is well known royalty never performs. The Anglo-Russian difficulty is serious enough, goodness know 3, and needs no exaggeration. It is therefore a puzzle to me why some estimable people seem determined to " talk up" a panic here if pessimist allusions of the most melancholy type can do so. Without counting those who profess to fear that Russia will annihilate England and capture all her colonies, quite a number of otherwise good citizens are full of melancholy foreI bodings of the dreadful things that will happen to trade and progress in New Zealand as the result of war. I fail to see where all the alarm comes in. War means a general rise of all our produce, | and although none the less to be deplored on that account, has no right to be urged as a bugbear to frighten legitimate speculation. New Zealand raises wool, and war means a tremendous demand for that commodity to be worked up into soldiers' coats. Preserved meats, wheat, oats, horses fit for military work, tallow, and in fact, everything that we can produce will make a jump upwards, and the rise in prices means a lot of money to this colony. Against that has to be set the contingency of a visit from hostile cruisers. Now it is anything but certain that this class of vessels can be sent here by Russia. She has practically not a single coaling station available in the Pacific, and cruisers without coal are almost as useless as balloons without gas. Then, again, supposing Russia to get over the coal difficulty, it seems reasonable to believe that she will need every vessel she can float and equip for service nearer home. In any case she iB not likely to send armored vessels here, particularly as England has a navy to harass, and if ordinary unarmored ships come cruising in these waters one or two steamers of the Coptic class, carrying guns, will be well able to give a good account of the Muscovite pirates. Supposing that the worst comes to the worst (as Mrs Gamp would say), it would take a lot of uninterrupted bombarding of the few towns that can be attacked to destroy £1,000,000 worth of property, and if that undesirable result should ensue — well, we have had loans before, and another £1,000,000 will not break onr backs. It seems reasonable, however, to feel secure in face of Russia's coaling difficulties, lack of naval power, and the services to be rendered as a kind of military police by fast steamers round the coast, and with this in view I take the liberty of doubting the likelihood of a single colonial town being shelled. Let ub eat, drink, buy and sell, and go on with the filling in and planting of Clive-square as though Russia were wiped off the map, and the result will come out all right. England is not decrepit yet, and English gold and pluck will give Russia such a tangling up that she will neither forget nor recover from for a long time to come. The letter from " Churchman " published in the Herald, dealing with the subject of disorderly conductat a "fashionable marriage," ought to have been followed up with "Etiquette for Church attendants," and then " Churchman " would have well rounded up a good subject. I began a paragraph myself, but got stuck up with the heading of it, which, although good in itself, was hardly long enough or comprehensive enough to bs considered as part of an essay on deportment. The heading was " The chief duty of a pew-holder." It looked pretty, but I failed when I set out to think what should be stated as the " chief duty " of pew-holders. By a strange perversity of intellect, I could only decide other "chief duties," such as those of politicians, editors, paraons, men (as men only), and women. This latter reminded me of a Btory, and as I cannot manage the " Etiquette for pew-holders" I will tell the yarn — a true one. It is about the " chief duty " of a wife. Janet was a buxom Scotch wife, about 35 years of age, married to a cranky whaffler of nearly 70. The latter died, and the " Meenister " went to condole 'with Janet, and among other pleasing things aaid, he told her that he was sure she had never neglected the duties of a wife while the deceased was alive. Janet strongly coincided, and with a glint in her moist eye observed, " Ay, I always gay' him a clean sark yince a week, an' never gay' him soor milk (butter milk) til his parritch." America ia getting into a bad condition, and her difficulties ought to be studied seriously by the donkeys who think that taxes upon commerce can add to the prosperity of a nation. Trade is in a

fearful condition, and the journals published in the large towns almost sicken the reader with references to bank failures, liquidating companies, and tottering mercantile houses. Iran and steel mills are being closed, and factories for the manufacture of textile fabrics are shutting up all over the States. Wages are being cut down, and strikes, with muttered threats of worse to follow, are getting common. Chicago wails over 30,000 mechanics and laborers out of em. ployment, and mendicancy becoming an established institution, while other large centres of population make similar complaints. What is to blame for this? There is only one answer, and that is "Protection," the hideous creation of political Frankensteins whose mission seema to be to call into being sp-etrtral vampire doubles of political truths, and then to wail over lack of power to deal with the insatiable foe when he shows his teeth. And there are people in New Zealand, claiming to be guides _of the people, who are not afraid of urging protective nostrums upon this colony. Go to America, babes and sucklings in politicoeconomic truth, and you will come back wiser than when you left these shores, and as thoroughly cured of Protection fallacies as Argus would have you to be. The above reference to our transpacific cousins will not be complete with mention of the steps taken to abate the evils stated. Apolitical party in the States have got hold of the idea that land-own-ing is at the bottom of America's troubles. Not land-owning, however, as we understand it, but with a very great and very stupid difference. About 21,000,000 acres of land in the United States are owned by foreigners, and it is considered that this foreign ownership is causing the present industrial troubles. A bill actually inifcrttdoced into Congress has for its objettt to prevent aliens owning land. A report on this bill, by. a committee appointed for the purpose, iB in sympathy with the proposed measure. The report states :—" This alien nonresident ownership will in time lead to a system of landlordism incompatible with the best interests and free institutions of the United States. The foundation for such a system is being laid broadly. In the Western States and territories a considerable number of immigrants are annually arriving, who are to become tenants and herdsmen on the vast possessions of these foreign lords under contracts made before they sailed for America It is thus manifest that if the present alien ownership is an evil, of which we have no doubt, the probabilities of the near future still more imperatively demand legislation for its prevention. The aggressive foreign capital is not confined to the lands which it has purchased, but, overleaping its boundaries, haß caused hundreds of miles of the public domain to be fenced up for the grazing of vast herds of cattle, and has set at defiance the rights of honest but humble settlers." One could have understood the report better if it had dealt with land-owning simply, but to object only to foreigners acquiring freeholds is a policy absolutely barbaric. But Protectionists are barbaric, politically considered. A number of the aristocracy met on Saturday evening last, I am told, to form a "kid glove brigade." It was not a hole-and-corner meeting, because composed entirely of the elite, but had it been Dick, Tom, Harry, Esquire, at the bottom of the gathering it would have been hole-and-corner, for it was privately convened, and no notice was given to the Press— this latter omission being by express and deliberate intention. The cynical, who wonder why the new crowd of martial spirits did not long since enter one joi the volunteer companies already in existence, say that the meeting was called "to devise the best means for evading militia service. The same critics of the new movement also say that militia service is objected to by the " Kid Glove Brigade," not because irksome in itself, but because the aristocrats interested 'want " to consort with gentlemen, dontcherknow, not common laborers, bijove," and to be " officered r by somebody who is somebody, you bet." It is to be hoped that if this be the case (and Argus shrewdly suspects that the cynical critics are not far wrong) the Government will dispense with the Services of the " gentlemen's " household brigade, and draft every one of the select soldiers into the first-class militia.