THE WEEK THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 92, 18 April 1908, Page 2

THE WEEK THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.)

\. Things seem on the whole to be moving a little more briskly at the capital than they did a week ago. Interest in the Mayoral election has heightened, though open recriminations have been somewhat fewer. Judging by what one can see, I still think that Mr Aitken .will beat Mr Hislop; and I'm still glad. But it is not at all easy to, estimate the probabilities with precision. There is, for instance, the big no-license vote. In the case of a Parliamentary election, this would go pretty solidly for Mr Aitken. But in the case of a Mayoral election, the prohibitionists' vote is independent, they do not regard no-license as an issue. In short, there are many of them who, because of Mr Aitken's opinions in the matter of no-license, are perfectly content that he shall sit in Parliament; but who will not vote for him as Mayor. The more you think that over, the quainter it will seem. They judge a mayor on his general merits, but a legislator by his particular opinion in one matter which - is allowed to dwarf and overweigh everything else. For myself, I should be glad if local option were a matter left entirely to the municipalities; if only in'order that Parliament might be able to give all its attention to ■ the'general government of the country. A man, you see, may be a stubborn prohibitionist, and still be an utterly foolish legislator; just as a man may be an excellent legislator^ although utterly opposed to the nolicense methods and ideas. Men who have to make laws should be judged and selected solely on consideration of their ability as lawmakers. I like to sift these matters and examine them. ! I hold that the, journalist is, or should be, the true csitic \ cf life-: this insistent, various life of everybody, every day. He should |,be-what a great critic has called, in a I great phrase, a dissociator of ideas. I When people habitually and harmfully (connect things in their nature and esr sences dissimilar, it is his part to cvi the connection-and let in the light. It--' is his to drag ideas and motives and their results from the dust 'ofthe hurly-burly, and to set them up in th& open where the folks may judge of their qualities and estimate their worth. If he does his work well and honestly, he will help on the race, and incidentally let the sun into many shameful guarded places. This, by the ■way of introducing my opinion, which is merely -my opinion, that when an idea becjpmes an obsession, it is in a fair way to become a diseased "To make our idea of morality centre on forbidden acts," says R.L;S., "is to ' defile the imagination and to introduce into our judgments of our felr low-men a secret element of gusto." There are thousands of excellent peo-/ pie in New Zealand who are so pre-H occupied by thoughts of excess and;'abstention in one kind that the wiirltf v really holds nothing else for "them. J And this, I think, is not good:- not good for the excellent people, and not good for the rest of us. • ■-.-

Mr Massey is in town. He looks remarkably happy and comfortable, much as though he had not a care in the world. This, with an election looming, may mean the zest of confidence or the peace of resignation. You take your choice. But I am told that this coming election will be "rich in surprises." I never knew of an election yet where that wa£ not the prediction. In town j ust now is M. Vladimir V. de Sviatlowsky. Don't try to pronounce it. It's always a good rule to avoid making mistakes. He is, of course, ; a Russian, this one. He is gentle and debonair, bright as an idyllic autumn morning. Like, all educated Russians, he is what you call approachable. He is modest. He is gay. He enjoys your company immensely. And he wants to know. Officially, he is Professor of Political Economy at the Imperial University of St. Petersburg. He has written books and organised labour in his own country. -He is radiant with enthusiasm. 'He visits Australasia in order that he may study our industrial and social conditions.. You could; scarcely

hope to meet a pleasanter man, or a better informed. '

In common with most men who have known many Russians at first hand, I was positively pro-Russian during the last big war. In any struggle between East and West, you may count me for the "West. My, experience of Russian men of the type you woulji rate as gentlemen (though I hate thp word and its vile associations) has been uniformly delightful. I made a long voyage once as a guest on a ship of the Russian Volunteer Fleet, and no guest was ever more hospitably entreated. I spoke little French, and my hosts less English; but we got on ■ famously. ■- Hateful things happen in Russia. Barbarism snarls there, and every abomination stalks at the, red heels of pestilence. But "the conditions are unique. You have an aristocracy ultra-European in its fashions, inveterately mediaeval in its ideas, ruling and compelling a peasantry that1 is for the most part essentialy Asiatic, ;and generally of a very low grade of Asiatic civilisation. Over these peasants, .the autocrats of Petersburg have established a tyranny of oppression and a tyranny of the imagination. No truly European people ever idolised its kind as the average Russian peasant idolises the Tsar. And you must add to this tyranny of the autocrats the tyranny of Nature. Russia is a. hard country to live in. Food is always scarce. The seasons are always hard. The true Russian people, despite their generally desperate circumstances are almost always improvident. Nlt is a country one needs to know before one can discuss it with confidence. And I cheerfully admit, that I know very little about it. I But that little I try to remember. ! Mr, E. Tregear, is .quite a different person from this Russian professor, although they have much in common as regards, their hopes. Mr Tregear is vastly more self-confident^ and considerably less'modest. An admirable man, but admirable in a characteristically different way. Mr Tregear has a very shrewd appreciation of the requirements. :pf the country he happens to be jsi. The latest instance is somewhat extraordinary. Some little time ago he Wired suggesting a basis of settlement to the Blackball miners, and his telegram embodied this significant proviso :

"Ministers, however, will not move after the manner in which a former approach was met, without having the guarantee of the union, through its executive, that any arrangement made by them would be adhered to."

This is strange' English, but the meaning may be caught without difficulty. Tfc i's plain that, with or without authority, Mr Tregear offers himself as the spokesman or. emissary of. the Government. But the Government now declares that the telegram was sent without its cognisance. The inference is plain. Either the Government, having used Mr Tregear, deprecates his intervention (in the Pickwickian sense), or Mr Tregear enjoys the widest liberty ever allowed to a civil servant outside the walls' of Titipu...

They have started pony-racing at Miramar, and a good many people are are perturbed not without reason. Horse-racing, under good conditions, is an inspiring and noble sport; but the atmosphere of pony-racing has always been an atmosphere of squalour and degradation. So that the new sport at Miramar is not cause for congratulation or rejoicing. As to the new law passed last year with regard to gambling, no one now expresses satisfaction. . The whole subject is one that merits the careful attention of legislators. People always have gambled, and always will. So long as they gamble in a decent and orderly fashion it is hard to see how they can justly be stopped from gambling. There is a limit we must not overstep; that irreducible minimum of personal liberty that an English statesman talked -'of recently. The Hon. George Fowlds may condemn gambling in an atmosphere of Pure reason as long as his voice lasts and his wind holds; but it is not easy to see how the problem is to be solved by any persistency of high-falutin' talk. The thing Parliament has to do is to bring and keep the gambling habit under adequate and reasonable control.

Mr Tom Mann arrives in Wellington in a day or two, all being well. He will attend a Socialist conference m the capital during Easter week, and after that will carry the campaign through the Dominion. You will have gathered that I am not a Socialist; but I know and I like Tom Mann. He is, I believe, heartily sincere, and there is.a strong vein of sound humanity in him. His love of the people is no mere affectation or party cry, and he is a pre-eminently social socialist. Also, he is a vigorous and attractive speaker, and he always has to say things that are worth hearing. A year or two ago, I heard him make the best and straightest speech on Co-operation that I have heard in Australasia. You may be as intolerant as you please of some of his opinions; but if you see much of him, you will find him a man and a brother.

The legal profession in Wellington has been doing honour to Mr James Ashcroft, who has done excellent work for years as Coroner and Official As-

signee, and who now retires. It is so seldom that I admire the lawyers that I am glad to get in some modest applause about here. Mr Ashcroft is a man well worthy of honour. Placed in a frequently difficult and generally unpleasant position, he has won the respect of every man, and especially of the unfortunate debtors with whom he has had officially to deal.' He is a man strong in kindness, a man unmarred by any brutal instinct. There was a polo ball a few ights ago—the first ball of the season. I didn't go myself, not being a dancing man; but those who did go had a glad time. Polo is a great game. I saw much of it in India. Once I even rode a polo pony, arid the little beast and I had a vastly uncomfortable time for an hour or so. Polo is truly a great game. I recommend it to shop assistants, juniorX clerks, and all other persons following sedentary occupations.

JUDGES AND JURIES. I have known juries do extraordinary things in Australasia; but here again America- makes,a record. In New York a jury that differed recently decided its verdict by the spin of a coin. The judge discovered this, fined the jurymen ten pounds each, censured them severely, and ordered a new trial. This, if you please, was a very dreadful jury. The thing for us to consider is whether some 4-us-tralasian juries are much better. I have known cases, many cases, in which the obstinacy of a small minority in the jury-room has turned the scale and reversed the verdict. I have known, and you have known, many cases in which the verdict of the jury was_not by any means.the proper verdict. The average jury; in short, is almost as stupid as the average policeman, and almost afe dull as the average judge. If I ever went into Parliament, I should try hard to pass a Bill to protect juries against judges. The'jury, you understand, has to decide -on points of facts. What happens? The evidence is given, and the jury gradually gets a sort of idea of what the case is about. Then there are speeches of counsel, which, when the counsel are able men, help enormously to fog the issue. And finally comes the judge: He refers to his notes, which, are almost invariably confused; and in the blurred light of his notes he reviews the evidence. If he stopped at that, the jury wouldn't be baffled to any great extent. But he doesn't stop at that. As ,he reviews the evidence, he twists it topsyturvey and turns it inside out. He

smothers it with blind assumptions and vain hypotheses. He has a sort of personal picnic now and then, climbing to a pedestal while he utters moral sentiments that have positively no bearing on any question of fact at all. This terrible modern growth of moral sentiment in colonial judges is becomingN one of the problems of the tirne^ A jury is expected to give an exact and unbiassed verdict on matters of fact, quite apart from any or all consideration of sentiment. * A judge is expected soberly and scrupulously to declare and administer the law. It was never intended that a judge should be a perfervid homilist and confuser of juries.* He has simply no justification at all for usurping the functions of a theologian or a priest. The great judges o? the^old world are content to be' judges, and nothing more. The summings-up of Sir Henry Hawkins (to give him still the name by which he is best remembered) were admirable in brevity, in lucidity, in simplicity, and they were dispassionate and impersonal. Fin perfectly certain that the Bill I should introduce if ever I sat in Parliament is urgent--ly required.