NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16567, 3 June 1914, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Tho Reform organiser writes this morning in reply to a correspondent of tho "Lyttelton Times" that tickets for tho Prime Minister's meeting on Friday night will be issued only for the platform. Of course this arrangement will permit of the whole of the small building being filled by way of tho platform long before the doors are opened to the public, and as thousands of electors are anxious to hear Mr Massey it is again being urged that he should speak from the rotunda in Victoria Square as the leader of the Opposition did last month. • A picturesque figure amongst the Maoris and half-ca.stes who are offering themselves as candidates for the Northern Maori seat is Mr Hauraki Maning, tho son of the celebrated Judge Maning the author of that classic of the noT4h, " Old New Zealand." Hauraki Manin o- whose mother was a Hokianga native chieftainess, has been living for manv years in Australia, but ho returned this year with tho intention of contesting the seat now filled by Dr To Rangihiroa, He is a man greatly admired by the Hokianga people, chiefly because of his athletic prowess. Like liis father ho was a man of splendid muscular' powers, and the stories of his early exploits on the running track and in the wrestling ring are still told in the North. But receutly he was guilty of a little indiscretion of speech, an indiscretion in a political sense of course, which may cost him his chances 0 f a seat iu Parliament. In an incautious moment Hauraki allowed his tribal pride to loosen the curb he should have kept on his tongue tt t election time. "'The maua of the Ngapuhi," he said, "has been taken away becauso they are represented by a man of the Taranaki tribes, a remnant of a people our ancestors hare killed and eaten." This interesting little allusion to the cannibal days might have been applauded by say, the XJrewera, but the Ngapuhi considered it a great breach of native etiquette t< taunt tho young gentleman who represented them in Parliament with being a fragment ielt over from the feast a « it were. Dr To Rangihiroa had been invited to enter Parliament as a token

of gratitude for his people's care of the late Mr Hone Heke, and it was altogether a fans pas to revert to tho memories of the "long pig" era. Ngapuhi certainly did wreak havoc in Tarauaki with their tomahawks and their strong white teeth, but those pisodes aro politely avoided as topics d£ conversation in mixed tribal companies for fear of giving offence. M Hauraki Mailing's electioneering campaign obviously is complicated with 'Jelicato problems which do not trouble the pakeha parliamentary candidate. Somo of the Reformers are getting a trifle muddled in their attempt to show that the Hon James Allen performed somo peculiarly virtuous act when he placed the proceeds of land sales in a land purchase account instead of in the revenue account. "If the Minister put the proceeds into the revenue account," says one ministerial journal, "he would have to borrow more for land purchase. Which means that that part of the old Liberal surpluses which came from land sales was virtually loan money. ... If it were ' merely a matter of book-keep-ing' it would not matter if the Government charged, let us say, the railway working expenses against loan money. The Government could show a surplus of three or four millions if it did that. It would simply mean that more money would have to be borrowed." This argument disregards completely the salient fact that the surplus, in accordance with the practice of successive Governments, is transferred to the public works fund and so goes to reduce the amount of money that has to be borrowed. The dominion's borrowing is not affected at all by the arrangement of the public accounts. If Mr Allen succeeds in reducing the amount of borrowing on one account by transferring money from the revenue account, then he must extend his loan operations in some other direction, since there is only one national purse, no matter how many compartments it may contain. A dozen Ministers could arrange the figures in a dozen different ways without changing the actual facts one iotaThere never has been any mystery about the allocation of the public money and the attempt to make political capital out of Mr Allen'e little venture in book-keeping is simply ridiculous;

The South African House of Assembly appears to contain some very crusted old Tories. Last month a Bill was brought forward to abolish plural voting in Natal, where one individual possessed of sufficient property may exercise as many as a dozen votes, and the protests raised against the measure were loud and long. The Bill had been introduced by a private member, who was accused of having a "socialistic kink" and many similar vices. One legislator explained gravely that he could not support a measure which would assist misguided people to " vote other people's property into their own pockets." Another pillar of privilege said that South Africa ought to "put on one side all such ridiculous doctrines as 'one man, one vote.'" He was sure that a "good high electoral qualification would solve many of the Union's political problems," presumably by disfranchising most of the workers. The Bill made no progress, but the Government indicated that an Electoral Bill of its own, to be introduced some time in, the future, would put a limit on plural voting. South Africa has a long way to go politically before it reaches democracy in the Australasian sense of the term.

The attempt to hasten white settlement of the Northern Territory admittedly has failed. The new. officials have accounted for practically the whole of tho increase of population since the Commonwealth Government took charge of the Territory and now there is a decided tendency towards the reduction of expenditure upon the experiment. Mr Henry Stead, writing to a London newspaper, says that tropical Australia will never bo occupied by white people while temperate areas await development. " We have created the machinery for a full-blown State," he writes, " and set it, to govern a handful of people. The cost has been heavy and the result has been nil. Across the water in India are millions of men and women who are adapted in every way to develop this. tropical land, and yet to think of them at all is the highest treason in Australia just now. Later on there is little doubt that they will he asked to come over and help us." Good Australians do not relish statements of this character, but the facts of the situation seem to be siding with Mr Stead. It is reported in London that on the completion of his present tour General Sir lan Hamilton will be appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff and that the position of Inspector-General j of the Overseas Forces will be abolishj ed. The recent resignations of Sir John French and Sir J. S. Ewart involve a general levelling up in the high Army | positions. No doubt Sir lan would fill | with distinction the very important office rumour is reserving for him. This position would have been offered to Lord Kitchener a few years ago, report said, but for tho strenuous opposition of the aristocratic element in the Army. The gallant but purely ornamental young dandies and the elderly incompetents alike had a horror of Kitchener and his terribly businesslike ways, his disregard for society and his altogether ruthless methods with those who merely played*at soldiering. Kitchener would have had little mercy upon the arrogant military set who engineered what was practically a mutiny in the forces in Ireland recently. The mutineers very speedily would have found themselves before a courtmartial. Sir lan is not a Kitchener. He is a genial and conciliatory diplomat as well as a soldier, and taken all round he is probably the most able of all the men at the disposal of the War Office. His tour of the dominions has given him a close insight into a very important aspect of the defence question, and the information he has gathered should bo of tho greatest value to the authorities at Home. The white man who pioneers the dark places of the earth; is prone to class the native peoples under the one comprehensive title of " ignorant "Jggf r «- If ho is asked to describe the niggers' " religion ho will probably reply that they have none. This is the idea which many people have formed of tho Papuans, whom travellers of the unobservant kind have sot down as utter barbarians, on much the samo level as the Australian blacks. Hw*«*-. the ,

explorer with a taste for ethnologic.il research is now giving some attention to the great unknown island, and sympathetic investigation reveals an unexpected wealth of religious belief and pdetio nature-lore' in the tribes of the wilds. A traveller who has made a special study of Native beliefs, Mr Prosper, Norman Charpentier, has written an * account of the faiths of Papua which goes to show that the forest Native is something more than a mere "debil- ' debil" worshipper. Describing the tribes about the east end of NewGuinea and the adjacent islands Mr ' Charpentier states that a belief in the immortality of the soul is firmly fixed in the native mind, and that they have a revered-God of all gods. " The Supreme Being, acc/irding to their faith," the explorer goes on to eay, " takes the form of a woman, known among them as Ku-Ku-Rema. . She is credited with great beauty, with a fair skin and wealth of yellow hair. She is to them the great Goddess and Mother-Creator of all, and her children are Dododava (a son), and Sinaboenamata and Netona (daughters). It is worthy of note that they name various stars after these deities, the most noticeable being Netona, which we know as Venus." Netona, by a most remarkable coincidence, is the Goddess of Maternity and Love. After all the naked Papuan and the cultured European seem to have some nature-myths and celestial imagery in common. The Great God, say the Papuans, sent his son Dododava among them (Netona and Miadome tribes) to redeem them from 6loth and vice. "It is to his teachings they owe their present laws and customs and knowledge of husbandry. 'With this in view he is supposed to have introduced sweet potatoes, yams, taro, sugar-cane and bananas. He is supposed to control the elements as well, and gives large crops to the industrious; but if indolent and wicked, he delays the rain and thereby destroys the harvest. This belief compels them to work hard and 'no humbug,' for fear of making Dododava angry." As for their ideas of Heaven, their paradise is Boborassa, which is described as a beautiful and luxuriant island, situated beyond the horizon in the direction of the rising sun. This is exactly the Polynesian description of the fair promised land of Burotu or Bulotu. The Paradise, writes Mr Charpentier, "is naturally the home of Ku-Ku-Rema, and the haven of the spirits of those who have lived good and industrious lives. Sinaboenamata is the guardian of the entrance to Boborassa, and. is assisted by an immense snake known as Wagapa, to protect the portals. When a death takes place, Sinaboenamata commands the snake to uncoil and stretch his body across from Boborassa to the world, so forming a bridge." • These are some of the interesting and even attractive beliefs of the "poor benighted heathen " of Papua, who after all clearly is not as black as he has been painted by the tropical 6un and the stray traveller.