CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11559, 21 April 1898, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

windfalls to socialists.

The news published fcha other day to the effect that, through the death of a relalive, Mr H. H. Champion, a

well-known. Socialist advocate, had become entitled to <£7ooo a year, must have set many persons speculating as to what the lucky legatee will do with the money. There is a general idea current that any person who professes Socialistic tenets is bound not to accumulate wealth, and, if riches are thrust upon him by fate, that he ought at once to resolve upon employing them in collective measures of some sort. This assumption, it is almost needless to say, rests upon a very loose logical basis. A man may believe in collectivism and yet may amass and retain wealth for selfish purposes. To do otherwise would be to ignore his plain duty, in a world of rampant greed, competition and individualism, with, all its vicissitudes and changes. Mr Champion may therefore, with perfect consistency, do as he pleases with his own; but, presumably, he would not grumble though .£IOOO or so of his legacy were confiscated by the State as “ death duty,’* or though he had to pay a heavy progressive income tax, or though the State should make other inroads upon his possessions. A somewhat analagous case occurred a few weeks ago, when the JE20,000 prize in the Paris Exhibition lottery fell to M. Giot, house painter and decorator, of Ivry, in the Parisian suburbs. M. Giot ia an ardent Socialist, and an adherent .of the group called “Guesdist,” and in his leisure moments nothing pleases him more than to hold forth to congenial listeners on the necessity for the nationalisation of the means of production, and for preventing the accumulation of fortunes in private hands. What will he do with the .£20,000, was the question people asked, rather with an air of amusement than -with the idea that the owner of the windfall would voluntarily “ nationalise '* the prize. His wife, on being interviewed, said, that their good fortune would, not involve their retirement from business. “We have five children,” she said, “ and life hitherto has been something of a struggle. Now we shall be able to put a little butter in our spinach.” These two instances of the caprice of Fortune ought to give a fillip to altruistic socialism by proving it to be good for the individual.

The fair sex figured somewhat largely in a recent debate in the House of Commons, on a motion to go into Committee of Supply. Commencing with

WOMEN AND THE HOUSE OP COMMONS.

some reference to the duties of women inspectors, the discussion drifted on to the question of the accommodation for ladies in and about the House. Sir John Leng supplied the “ missing link ” between the two subjects by suggesting that a woman inspector was necessary to improve the arrangements of the ladies’ gallery of the Chamber. He knew there was an ascetic and misogynist feeling in a limited quarter of the House against increasing such facilities, but it was well known that the privilege of admitting ladies to hear the debates, and to witness what passed in the House, was exceedingly limited, but they were able to compensate them indirectly by giving them a cup of tea and a plate of strawberries on the terrace. He hoped that the arrangements appertaining to the ladies’ gallery would be improved. It might he supposed that the members of the House were a set of Turks. He thought the ladies might well appeal to them : “It is all very well to dissemble your love, but why do you lift. us upstairs ?’* These

sallies gave rise to much laughter, ■which ; increased to a roar when Mr William Redmond, adding his voice to the appeal Ifor better accommodation for women, said he could not refrain from quoting some lines from Lever I’m no* very fond of hard work. It was not the way with the Bradys; But I would make an elegant Turk, " As lam fond o' hacca and ladies, Mr Bowies was afraid, not unnaturally, that the admission of more ladies would cause members to make speeches to them, with the result that the business of the House, would suffer. Other speakers thought that the “ grill,” or bars, through .which the ladies had to peer at the proceedings of the House, ought to be removed. Mr Akers Douglas, in reply, said that the question of the admission of ladies to the terrace was a very thorny one, and there Were many members who held that the privilege was too freely given, and that it was sometimes abused. He had known a great many complaints made of undue crowding on the terrace, which on inquiry he had found to be true. He had endeavoured this year to make provision for ah extra entrance, so that it would be in the discretion of the authorities of the House to make arrangements for the admission ,of ladies to the terrace without encroaching on the central lobby or the passages, With regard to the ladies’ igallery, he would do all he could to make 'the limited accommodation there more suitable, but he did not think it was desired by the majority of the ladies who fretquented the gallery, or by the majority of members, that the grill should be removed. With this scant pomi’brt the advocates of women’s right to study parliamentary ways had perforce to be content.

THE HORRORS OP WAS.

The people of the United States may be going to war with light hearts, but they cannot plead that they are

Sacurring that grave responsibility •without la. full knowledge of the fearful cruelties 'and sufferings inseparable from armed (strife. The war of Secession is still fresh !in their memory, and if it were not they 'Lave just had an eloquent reminder of its horrors by the publication, under the title ;<jf “ The Wound Dresser,” of a volume of letters written by the poet Walt Whitman tq his mother during the period that he was attending • the wounded soldiers ia the hospitals at Washington. Whitman describes the horrors of his surroundings in his own simple language. “Of all harrowing experiences,” ho writes in one letter, “ none is greater than that of the days following a heavy battle. Scores, hundreds, of the noblest young men on earth, uncomplaining, lie helpless, mangled, faint, alone, and So bleed to death, or die from exhaustion, either actually untouched at all, or with merely the laying of them 'down and' leaving them, when there ought to be the means provided to save them.” “ Many of the wounded went,” Whitman gays, “ crazy. They have suffered too much, and it ia perhaps a privilege that they are out of their senses.” In another passage he gives this piece of realism “Outdoors, at the foot of a tree, within ten yards of the front of the house, I notice a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms,hands, &c., about a load for a one-horse cart. Several dead bodies lie near, each covered with its brown woollen blanket. In the dooryard, towards the river, are fresh graves, mostly of officers, their names on pieces of barrel staves or broken board, stuck in the dirt” It is matter of history how Whitman devoted himself to the careof the wonnded as a labour of love, and how his active sympathy was manifested amidst the most depressing surroundings. Cheerful and sympathetic treatment was his creed, rather than skilful surgery and physicking. “ I can testify,” he says, “that friendship has literally cured a fever, and the medicine of daily affection a had wound.” And again; “I believe that even the moving around among the men, or through the ward, of a hearty, healthy, clean, strong, generoussonled person, man or woman, full of humanity and love, sending out invisible, constant currents thereof, does immense good to the sick and wounded.” A war with Spain, short though it may prove, is certain to result in a repetition of the terrible scenes so simply yet powerfully described in Whitman's letters, and sympathy for the sufferers will not be wanting, though the brave old author of “Leaves of Grass” now rests under the sod.