NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16646, 3 September 1914, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The official alteration of the name of tho Russian capital is one of those concessions to popular prejudice that must bo expected in times of war. Of the same kind is the German objection to goods that havo English names. But great cities do not readily abandon their ancient nomenclature, and if the Russian Government is able to make its order effective, the fact will be an indication of the absence of St Petersburg traditions rather than of the intensity of tho present national sentiment. Of course, the city has no real traditions. It is of modern foundation, and its history is not of tho kind that inspires affection, consisting as it does for the most part of the records of palace intrigues, political riots . and so forth. Moreover, its name stands for nothing essentially national in Russia, unless it bo for the domination of an unrestrained bureaucracy that persistently checks all aspirations towards civil . freedom and acts as a permanent and heavy drag on the progress of tho people. And yet St Petersburg is described as the intellectual centro of Prussia, the head of the country, as Moscow is its heart.

St Petersburg, as every schoolboy knows, was founded by Peter the Great primarily to hold his dominion over Northern Russia against the Swedes, and with a seeing eye ho decided that on the Neva, at the head of tho Gulf of Finland, lay an ideal site for a capital. There had been ancient Muscovite, Livonian and Swedish forts near by, and Peter's first work was to lay the foundations of a cathedral to St Peter and St Paul, and then to build a new fort of his own, which he named, after himself, Piterburgh. Tho original name of the capital was really Dutch, and not German, and to this day the Russians call their city Peterburg, not, as foreign nations do, St Petersburg. The addition of the "Snint" may have been due to the'establishment of the Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul, or, as the lesson books" say, it may have been duo to a mistake on the part of foreign geographers and cartographers, who forgot Peter the Great and remembered tho apostle. Peter, of course, had an intense appreciation of tho Western civilisation, and if the custom of his country had not been too strong many more of his innovations would have persisted- It is said that the building of the city cost the lives of thousands of people, who were simply transported from their homes and compelled to carry out the reclamation of the vast marsh where the capital was established. Even half a century later it was stated that the majority of the 150,000 inhabitants lived there not because thov wanted to, but because they were compelled to do so.

The three hundred Arawae who, as Mr N.gata has informed Parliament, havo volunteered for active service against Britain's foes ought to make excellent soldiers if tradition and heredity count for anything. They would include the tribal sections scattered over tho thermal country from Maketu and Matata., on the Bay of Plenty, down to Lako Taupo, with their headquarters at Rotorua. The Arawa peoplo have a fighting history going back several hundred years in Now Zealand, and they showed the metal they were made of in tho wars with the Hauhaus, which did not terminate until 1871. From the earliest days of white settlement they supported the Queen's authority, and they fought. consistently from 1804 to the end of the war on the side of tho New Zealand Government. Tho late Major William Mair, his brother Captain Gilbert Mair and. other colonial officers often used forces composed exclusively of Arawas in tho campaigns against"To Ivooti, and at one time Captain Mair had as.many as eight hundred Rotorua and Maketu men under hi 6 command, with the Native chiefs as his sub-officers. One of these chiefs was the late Pokiha Taranui, better known in after days as Major Fox. who was frequently commended for his gallantry in action, and who received a sword of honour from the Queen. It was a small but plucky party of men from Rotorua who under Captain Mair defeated-Te Kooti's forco on the,hills near the lako, a force outnumbering them by six to one, and drove the rebels out of tho district with heavy loss. It is the sons and grandsons of these Arawa soldiers who are volunteering for service to-day.

The Wairoa Natives, three hundred of whom aro stated to havo offered their services to the Government, do not possess tho fighting record of the Arawas, but they assisted the State with men in tho days of the Hauhau wars from 1865 onwards, and marched and fought against their inland enemies the Ui-e----wera. They aro of the Ngati-Ka-hungunu tribe, to which Sir James Carroll belongs on his Maori side; it was with them that young' " Timi Kara" served as a thirteen-year-old in the Waikare-moana expedition of 1870, carrying his carbine through the four months winter campaign, in a wild and rough country. No doubt also many of tho Hawke's Bay'Natives to the southward of Wairoa are anxious to serve in the contingent. They are good material ; all they want is plenty of drill and field work, for tho young Maori is apt to run too much to flesh these peaceful, prosperous times. The best fighters of the lot, however, would be Mr Ngata's own people, the Ngati-Porou, of , the country between Gisborne-and the East Cape. * They are hard-working farmers, but they are soldiers by instinct, and it was their fathers under Major Ropata and Captain Porter who finally broke Te Kooti in 1871. For some years after the war there were volunteer rifle companies of Ngnti-Porou, and there is a latent military spirit throughout the district that can bo turned to good use at this juncture in tho Dominion's and the Empire's affairs.

A kindly nnd no doubt well-meaning correspondent writes to a Dunedin paper suggesting that the chronic inebriates who are at present detained on Roto Roa Island, in the Hauraki Gulf—the Salvation Army's "Isle of Regeneration"—should be permitted to join the New Zealand Expeditionary Force for Europe, and also that the Government should " give all young short-sentence prisoners the same opportunity to turn the corner." His idea is that tho soldiering would make sober, honest men of the wastrels and those who have made a first step into crime. Tho notion, however, is scarcely likely to appeal strongly to tho Government or to General Godley, and tho citizen soldiers themselves would not bo likely to welcome tho " social wreckago" to their ranks. The pick'of the Dominion's youth and brains and muscle and also, it may be said, character, is required for tho force, and it would scarcely be fair to turn New Zealand's volunteer army into a refuge for those whose moral or physical stamina is defective. Tho force is teetotal by compulsion, and wisely so, but there will bo many opportunities for drinking onco the seat of operations is op-

portunities which the young soldiers must be strong to resist. It would not be right to expose the half-cured or incurable dipsomaniac to such temptations.