CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 13933, 15 December 1905, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

EWVBY NOTES

Tho success of the tour of the New Zealand footballers has had

its inevitable result, and the games are engaging aiow the attention of tho greatest stylists of the public press. By this time probably Mr Gilbert Chesterton, Mr Masterman, Mr Street and Mr A. B. "Walker are detailed by their respective journals to "do ".tho matches. Ono inspired genius, whoso effusions reached Christchurch yesterday, compares the New Zealanders to seven different beasts or birds in afl many lines. " They butt like goats and charge like bulls," ho says. " They leap up at tho ball like trout at a fly. They fling themselves down on it. like a cat on a mouse. They swerve like swallows and zig-zag like snipe. A zebra is running like a Devon stag before the hounds." The same picturesque pen has been 'gracious enough to explain to the unenlightened what a " scrummage " is in Rugby football:— "It is a living rat-trap writhing round a dead rat. Nov/ it is a beehive, now a battered bowler, now a brand-now bustle, now a squashed Gibus. It is a giant crab trying to walk forty thousand ways at the same time. It is a mariner's compass with all its points fighting for the needle. It is a wheel whoso spokes are wrestling for the hub. It is a human whale eternally spewing out a dirty little egg-shaped leather Jonah." After stuff of that kind, intended seriously, it is a relief to turn to the kindly efforts of the humorists. One cartoonist depicts the Now Zealand full-back wrapped in rugs and taking hot coffee, while the game rages under the opposing side's goal-posts. The 'goal-keeper's chief grievance, we are told, is that ho has to walk from one end of the field to the other at half-time. "Punch" has imitated the "Daily Mail" in the publication of "New Zealand jottings." It relates that the representative team really consists of men "sent,over for rest and change," and that they are under orders to "go steady." The chilblain on 's little too is progressing favourably. The " silverleaves " are sensitive to the climate, and the Englishmen may yet win in a fog. " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," wo are told, were anticipating a repetition of history when the New Zealanders should reach Edinburgh.

The man of the moment is Sir Henry Campbell - Bannerman. He may be said to re-

THIS NEW FREIIIEIt.

present the theory of the survival of the fittest among the Liberal leaders. He entered Parliament in the early days of household suffrage. Mr Gladstone was Premier and Mr Bright was a Minister. Professor Fawcett and Sir Charles Dilke were among i Sir Henry's colleagues. He had no title then, but he sat so solidly and steadily, smiled so habitually, and had so many good •stories and light jokes that everybody eaid he was bound to rise. He took what came his way in the matter of work, and a quarter of a century ago he seemed to have constituted himself the general utility man of the Liberal Government. One critic. said of him that he always knew the time of day, an invaluable characteristic; it will be admitted, in Parliaments and Governments. Somehow he seemed always to bo at hand during the turbulent times of the early eighties, so that, in 1882, when Sir George Trevelyan was hurried off from the Admiralty to look after distracted Ireland, it was natural that Mr Campbell-Bannerman should be asked to keep 'an eye on the navy. Two years later Sir George returned from Ireland, grizzled and bent, and the genial Scotchman again succeeded him. It was a serious time for Ireland, with most of its political leaders under lock and key, but Mr Tim Healy found heart'to say that his country was being! governed by Scotch jokes. The singular part of the matter was that the jokes were good ones. Apparently Ministerial offices are distributed without regard for the training or qualities of the recipients, and Sir Henry's next shelter was the War Office. It was a' cordite charge, fired by Mr Brodrick, that moved him in 1895, and with him the whole Liberal Government. Earlier in the afternoon of the fatal day Sir Henry had relieved the Duke of Cambridge ,©f the command of tho army, and the Duke is said to have been reading the speech in which the Minister of War deprived him ■of authority when news came of the fall of the Government. The Duke is further said to have mado a remark about Nemesia, but Sir Henry thought the coincidence merely a good joke. 'The new Premier has been known as " C. 8." ever since he added the Bannerman of a matornal uncle to tho plain Campbell of his Scotch father.

A NEW AGE OF SCIENCE.

The new British Science Guild, which is expected and intended to oust the old rule of

thumb methods and provide a reasonable why and wherefore for everything that is done in both the national and the private life, lias juei been successfully., eet-ablisbod in England. Germany, America and Japan had made it necessary that some-thing should bo done -o reform the haphazard condition of things existing in Great Britain, a point upon which men as widely differing in polities as Mr Chamberlain, Lord Hosebery and Mr'Haldane have b&en entirely agreed. Sir Norman Lockyer, who was in-chargo of tho meeting at which the new Guild was formally inaugurated, explained that it was quite impossible to expect that tlie Royal Society, the British Association, the Society of Arts, or any other existing society, however sympathetic it might be, could undertake tho work required. The application of methods of science to all branches of human endeavour, to the problems which confront the statesman, the official, the merchant, the manufacturer, the soldier and the schoolmaster as well as to those of the oheniist and the biologist, obviously required new machinery, and tho Guild, which, is the outcome of the new a :jD.i ration, ta. Jjggfi.

Britain in the forefront of the.'nations, is representative of the host men, the country can show in all departments. Not only are such men as the Bishop of ,Ripon, Mr Chamberlain, .Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, Sir Norman Loekyer, . Sir William- Ramsay, Sir John 'Wolfe-Barry-and' Sir. William Broadbent m its ranks, but it also includes a host; of professors,. especially those connected' 'with the scientific side of tlie newer universities. The speeches which- accompanied 'the inauguration were extremely businesslike. Sir Norman Lockyer said that the course of true education had been too long dammed, spell it as they liked, whilst Sir William Mather, as v an engineer, said that industry required scientifically-educated men and subordinate managers to carry out .The schemes initiated by scientific genius. Mr Haldane, who was elected the first president, said that apart altogether from politics, he had been giving his attention to the matter as it affected the Government, which on its executive side was about as disorganised and chaotic as anybody oould conceive. In every department deficiencies were only spasmodically (rectified, and without scientific knowledge at its elbow there was no real power for any Government in these days of intense competition. l