NOTES AND COMMENTS

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 16192, 19 March 1913, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

If tho Prime Minister is not more careful ho will bo losing his reputation as a plain, blunt truthful man with tho ladies who havo taken him under their wing. At the reception accorded to him by the ladies' branch of the Reform League the other day, he stated that his party had passed through some hundreds of divisions in the House of Representatives last session and had never been defeated. He was very proud of tho record. A careful count has been made of the divisions which took place • during the session and it has been found that they number only eighty-two and that sixty of them took place in committee 1

Dr W. A. Chappie, who went from the New Zealand Parliament to the House of Commons, is a warm supporter of. the claim that the franchise should be extended to British women, and he appeared on the platform at tho Queen's Hall recently when the suffrage societies joined in a demonstration. But- he fell foul of the "militants" by venturing to say that Mr Asquith, who had just withdrawn the Franchise Bill as a result of a technical difficulty raised by the Speaker, was an honest man. A storm of hisses and cries of "Shame!" drowned his voice, and then a young woman sitting near the front of the hall arose and cried shrilly that Dr Chappie had told her that it was right for a member to break his pledges if the safety of a Government depended on his doing so. The member asked when he had made such a statement, and was informed that the excited maiden had been at school with his daughters and had heard him discuss pblitical pledges at a school dance. Dr Chappie shouted his denial, but the women in tho audience refused him a further hearing. The militant suffragettes sometimes have a curious fashion of invitinjr tiie enthusiasm of their friends on their behalf.

On March 19, 1877, the first Turkish Parliament was opened, largely as a result of the demand of the Powers for administrative reforms in the European provinces, which had just been deluged with blood. Lord Salisbury had said a few weeks earlier that in Turkey there was" " no aristocracy, no governing class, no organised democracy, no representative government," but he was willing to let' the Turks have another chance to bring themselves into line with modem conditions by evolving a system of government which would prevent a recurrence of tho atrocities that had shocked Europe. The Parliament consisted of thirty senators and ninety deputies, all the nominees of the Turkish rulers, and it proved an utterly worthless body. The Turks had to wait a generation for the constitution which they have failed so signally to make of benefit to themselves.

The illness of tho Hon F. M. B. Fisher, which everyone deplores, has made it necessary for the Reform organ in Wellington to take up the work of propounding, the Government's policy, and in a recent article it prepares the way for an amendment of the law directed against the reaggregation of estates. "Nobody," it says, "has any doubt at all that here and there cases could be quoted of a settler absorbing his neighbour's holding. This sort of thing is bound to happen, and is not infrequently a very good thing both for the man who sells his land and for the country. The history of land settlement in New Zealand affords evidence of many cases 'in which Crown holdings have been subdivided in areas too small for profitable occupation." Just so. Mr Massey hinted at this impending " reform " in one of his North Canterbury speeches. He said that a man should not be allowed to occupy more land than he could work. Some "farmers" are working twenty thousand acres thoroughly and profitably. Many more would do so if they could obtain plenty of labour.

The problem of the hunger strike, which has been perplexing the British authorities lately, was not unknown two hundred and fifty years ago. But in the seventeenth century it was allowed to solve itself. John Evelyn tells in his diary of a visit he paid to the'lpswich prison in July, 1656, to seo some Quakers who had been lodged there as a result of their refusal to bow to constituted authority. "I had tho curiosity," he writes, "to visit some Quakers here in prison—a new fanatic set, of dangerous principles, who show no respect to any man, magistrate or other. . . . One of these was said to have fasted twenty days; but another, endeavouring to do the like, perished on the 10th, when he would,have eaten but could not." Nobody proposed to apply forcible feeding to the Quaker hunger-strikers, or, apparently, to set them at liberty.

The Government newspapers are still harping upon what they call " the disgraceful behaviour" of the audience at Mr Massey's. meeting in Christchurch. One of them quotes with effusive approval some comments made by tho Auckland " Observer," on the subject. " Christchurch," we are retold, "is adept at attacking policemen, straining religious frauds to its bosom, tlirowing city ornaments into tho Avon, conforming without thought to any fool's brand of Socialism, and generally behaving with excessive discourtesy. It is something of a feat for the Premier to insist on casting his pearls before—Ohristchurch." All this is utterly and grossly unfair. Tip audiencj that was packed into the Theatre Royal last week was one' of the best-tempered gatherings that have ever assembled in the dominion. Mr Massey himself said the meeting was one " after his own heart." that ho had enjoyed every minute of it and that ho would like to go through tho same experience again. In the exuberance of his good humour he invited the "fellows from Waihi" to "take their gruelling like men" and referred to the occupants of some of the front seats in tho stalls as "things." And tho "fellows" and the "things" only laughed and suggested with tho easy familiarity which Mr O. H. Ensor has claimed as a tribute to his leader's greatness that the speaker should " keep cool." The noisiest part of the ar.dienco was made up of the Prime Minister's invited guests fiom Canterbury College, but no one complainod of tho gcod-humoured banter of these young gentlemen. Really by this time wo ought to have heard the last of the silly talk about misbehaviour.

The great African missionary-explor-er David Livingstone was born at Blan-

tyre, on the banks of the Clyde, one hundred years ago to-day. His father was a tea dealer by profession, but money was not plentiful in the family, and David had to begin work at the age of ten in a cotton spinning factory. From his earliest years he was an 6m-' nivorous reader, and was always fond of study. The religious strain in his blood, inherited from his father, coupled with a love of research in natural history, turned his thoughts towards the career of a medical missionary. In 1837, at the age of twenty-four, he offered himself as a candidate' to the London Missionary Society, and after one unfavourable report was accepted. Two years later he gained his medical diploma at Glasgow, and in 1840 was ordained a missionary and sarled for South Africa. During the years 1849 to 1856 he traversed the whole width of the " Dark Continent." Starting from Cape Town, he journeyed to Loanda, on the west coast, and thence travelled across the Continent to ' Quilimane, on the eastern side. During this journey he was the first white man to sight Lake Ngami, the Zambesi River and the Victoria Falls. He. returned to Britain in 1856, and was publicly honoured and awarded the Royal Geographical Society's gold medal. His success as an explorer and his love for the work led him to withdraw from the mission field, and in 1857 he finally devoted himself, to his master passion.

Dr Livingstone's discoveries had now made him famous, and the British Government appointed him Consul for the Zambesi, and authorised him to equip an expedition for the survey of Southeastern Africa. This expedition, which worked from 1858 to 1864, resulted in the first view by a white man of Lake Shirwa and Lake Nyasa. The explorer left Britain again in 1865 on his third and last journey, with the intention of opening up Nyasaland, and with instructions to solve the mystery of the Nile basin. In this enterprise ho was dogged from the first by misfortune. He set out from Zanzibar in 1866 with thirty-seven men, but at tho end of five months only ten of these were left. The medicine-chest was lost, and illness overtook the leader. During four years the explorer braved hardships and' dangers innumerable, and on October 23, 1871, he arrived at Ujiii in a very weak and despondent condition, and was found by Mr H. M. Stanley five days later. Stanley stayed for some months with Livingstone, and tried to persuade him to go back to civilisation, but the pioneer was possessed of the idea that he could discover the Nile sources, and Stanley had to depart alone. On August 25, 1872, Livingstone left Unyr.nycmbo, but a few days on the read proved that the hardships of the past few years had left their mark, and that he was not fitted for further effort. He suffered severely from illness, but kept on through swamp and marshes till April 29, 1873, when he arrived at a native village in a dying condition. He became rapidly worse, and a fow days later passed away. His body was taken to Britain, and found a final resting place in Westminster Abbey among the honoured dead of tho nation.