RANDOM REMARKS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 583, 9 July 1913, Page 2

RANDOM REMARKS.

By Onlooker. Football is a never-ending topic of interest to New Zealanders, and the King Country can hold its own in this as in other respects. The approaching trip to Rctorua has inspired our muddied oafs with all sorts of ideas in the shape of training, and they are doing their utmost to justify the confidence reposed in them. The last game in which the Te Kuiti section of the rep. team had a chance to show their prowess occurred last Saturday at Ongarue, and the effect of the strenuous training was made manifest daring the game. Ongarue had been consistently beaten by moat of the other teams in the competition, and the Te Kuiti plavers, serenely conscious of their superiority, and the efficacy of their system of training took the field with the tread of conquerors. After a strenuous struggle they retired with a lucky draw to their credit. They are now busily engaged in explaining how it was done, and an alteration of training methods is contemplated. The selectors are engaged in profound reflection. Undoubtedly this is the age of commercialism notwithstanding that the Balkan episode draws a picture of another colour on the canvas. In any ••.ase the world armies are merely used to protect and promote the commercial ism which provides the wherewithal to pay the soldier and equip him with the most modern weapons. Now that the allies have subdued the common enemy they are busily engaged in a dispute over the spoils of the campaign. This may be termed militant commercialism. There are other forms of the disease which demand the maximum in the shape of enterprise, and an unabating zeal.

(Business people allow no opportunity to slip of placing their wares before the public. If a death occurs the relatives immediately receive a budget of catalogues from designers of monuments,'while the advertising of a birth serves to produce a miscellaneous assortment of literature dealing with every conceivable subject with which the infant may be connected in the most remote manner possible. It is a splerdid tribute to the humanitarianism of the age to see so many influential firms concerned with the care of the baby; of how it should be fed, washed, dressed, and exercised and the mothers bear the infliction with equanimity. They doubtless consider baby thoroughly deserves the attention, and it is something to be able to tell it when it arrives at years of discretion, that the business community of the Dominion manifested a touching solicitude concerning its welfare. If the father happens to be a business man he is apt to regard the matter in a different light. His morning mail assumes formidable proportions, and important business letters are sandwiched between eloquent appeals to his pateTnal feelings in every shape and form, There are many youthful fathers in Te Kuiti, anJ the mass of baby literature that has been conveyed through the local post office during the past year would stock a good sized shop. Small wonder if parents become callous to advice.

It is stated that the little differences concerning the site for a doctor's residence at Pio Pio is in danger of being settled, and the lion and the lamb are to repose together. Exactly what has led to such a result nobody seems to know, and it is to be hoped that prompt steps will be taken to raise some other subject for contention in the district. There is nothing like good healthy opposition for bringing out the latent qualities which lie dormant in the breast of every aspirant for public office, and the public benetfiß accordingly. Some people are all for peace and amity and ca-operation and studiously cultivate the soft anwser to wrathful speech. These methods work very well in soma communities, cut King Country air breeds stronger sentiment and requires a bona of contention.