THE WEEK, THE WORLD. AND WELLINGTON.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 28, 4 February 1910, Page 2

THE WEEK, THE WORLD. AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.) [ It is raining—Lord! how it is rain- j ing. Wellington, i» the matter of! /weather, does nothing by halves. It I vis true that we don't get the hot, tor- *' rential, tropic rains of Auckland and , the other remote equatorial parts; \ but when it comes to rain that j drenches one to the skin and marrow, ; you shall scarcely beat us in ManChester. As I said just now, we do j things very thoroughly. When it's fine, it's fine; and when it rains, it's! ■wet: no half-measures. Providence Is good to us, but a trifle elaborately literal. You will remember, in this connection, the story of the good j Scottish meenister who began to •pray for rain at the kirk one Sunday t •when Auchterlochtie lay baking and cracking under an awfu' drouth. "Lord," he cried, if you will permit j me to bring him down to Englfsh, i "Lord, thy people are parched with ■■ the heat of Thy sun, and their flocks and herds and throats and dairymaids and beesiness are oppressed ■with a great languor. Send us. Thy rain I" A little cloud came up. "Lord, Thy manifold goodness to Auchterlochtie has been the stay of all the faithful of the earth through countless generations. We have called to Thee amid the stress of our necessities, and we have never called In vain!" The "little cloud grew till it overspread the zenith—consecrated formula! The big drops began to patter-patter. "Lord, as of old Thou «bst consider the needs of the spoil of Thine Anointed." The drops patterned, excessively in multitudes, and the meenister had to raise his voice un■comfortably as he continued to pour forth his praise. "Lord, Thou dost $ciye us_ full measure, running over." The arm came now in a shattering ideluge. The meenister struggled; but it was no good, and he had still half an hour to go. He became frantic. "Lord, ■ Thou dost answer prayer, but —this is just rideec'lous!" That's now I'm feeling this moraine:, badly ~as this rain was needed. There is, I irowever, a sort of grim comfort in the thought that it's raining worse ■elsewhere. * * * PARIS. The news from Paris disquiets me abominably. The floods are bad there —bad, it seems, almost beyond precedent. There is a dreadful destruction of property, and (I fear) a horrid destruction of books. I get many books from Paris, and don't like to think of it. I am afraid that the , heaped treasures of Gfougy are awash on the Quai Cbnti. Literature will ' ibe destroyed, and we shall have only papier-mache, which is not readable. ' liittle harm could come from the dcs- ; "traction of shops tenanted by the sellers of new books; but in the j second-hand bookshops' lies much of the garnered solace of the world. In : this respect, Paris has always been ■ "■fcreasrue-trove. It is the literary capital of the world. It is full of devout lovers and collectors of books. ' A book destroyed, if it be destroyed permanently, is a much more serious ; thing than a life destroyed. We ' come and go, we humans; and when ' we go the world is little worse or ! poorer. But every book worth while : is a little packet of the great eternal; the busy world can't spare it. The ; destruction of the library at Alexandria was one of the greatest and sad- ' «3est disasters that ever befel the ] world. The destruction of the Brit- < -ish Museum would be, I think, the 1 greatest disaster that could befal the i British Empire. Priceless things will be destroyed by these great floods in Paris, and my heart is sick to think ' oi it. . ; Parisl-nlear city of our dreams! ' What a place it is! For writers and ; thinkers and singers of songs there ■ has been no other such place this last ] five hundred years. It was a wonderworld, that world of Paris, even fifty ' years ago, when Anatole France and 1 Paul Verlaine were young, and Hugo ' Jorded it in very majesty of his prime. ' Oautier stalked through it, a man of ' •fire, and gold. There were a hundred 1 others, all ; marvellous smiters of ' fieartstrings; and London was, by, ' comparison, so poor and bare, so dull ! and grim. I'm not depreciating Lon- J «on, mind you; but Paris is the Mecca ' «f .the, young man, and I'm still ! younger in heart than in years. In ' Paris they know still the joyous lilt 1 of life, and with all their naughtiness ' {carefully exhibited for the delecta- 1 tion of globe-trotters and the peering ; English) they are very sweet and human, very fine and tonic. It is sad J indeed, this misery that has swept - -down upon the brave Parisians. They ! &aye to sit still, and fight rats like any politicians. They will get over 1 it all, because Paris is so healthy that ] her wounds heal soon; but the pre- 1 sent suffering is great, and our sympathy goes out to the "City of Light. ' * * « : THAT COMET. Coming (down in the tram this morning, I was talking the matter ■over with a good newspaper-man of my ;friends. "I wonder," he said, ' quite seriously, "whether the comet las anything to do with it; or whether it is mere coincidence? Here we have had floods in Europe, and bad floods in Australia. We have had bad earthquakes everywhere, and this ' comet has always been associated with floods and earthquakes." I don't know; but Ido know that what I may call the coincidences of Malley s comet are such as cause disquietude. Suppose, just suppose, that tne comet came within dangerous distance of the earth. Where should we be? Well, we shouldn't be, should wer If it came close enough, the «arth would liquify and vapourise in a moment's terrific heat, and the end of. the world would come just as it has been prophesied by the orthodox ■Christians during many generations. "There is, in any case, nothing to fear. If the end came so, it would be an end sudden and painless and mercifully swift. All human life wild be destroyed in a flash, but I nave an obstinate idea that infinite teeming life would go on elsewhere. It.would be a grand exit for humanity, anyway. I've been wondering how the news ■would be taken, if to-morrow the astronomers announced that the comet was coming and the world must certainly be destroyed. I don't think that there would be any panic, because at first the new 3 would be received with complete incredulity. Then, as the truth slowly forced itself on the comprehension of the people, the. time for panic would be past. I have no doubt that most of us would go "on busily with our little affairs for a_ time. Then there would, be the growing feeling of uneasiness, the excitement of a looming vast event, the jshuddering anticipation or' the end. All merely decorative or plutocratic laws would break down with a snap,

and each man would stand for himself and his own. Religion would fee paralysed, because religion, has never seriously prepared men for this event. The excitement would be too profound to permit of any general, dejection. -There would be; for a time at least, riotous indulgence in permitted and unpermitted amusements. In the realm or the old moralities, the foundations of the great deep would be broken up. Lovers would love more feverishly, and haters would hate with a more bitter rancour. And . But we won't have that comet along here, will we? * * * SIR JOSEPH WARD. ' I was speaking to the Prime Minister on Saturday night. I always like to talk to Sir Joseph, because he is such a good fellow of his instincts, so comradely, so suave, so inyeterately amiable. He is ageing. His hair is greyer and thinner atop than it was a year.or two ago, his eyes are keener and set amid deeper lines; his mouth is firmer, and has more character in it. He is tired, naturally; and this week he goes away to-Stewart Island for a good spell of rest. I should like to go with him, because however much one may distrust the politician, one cannot but like the man. He was speaking of the campaign of defamation of New Zealand that has been going on in some quarters during this last year or two; and I don't think he was thinking at all of my occasional small snorts, because if he had been, his good nature, would have kept him from all reference to the subject. In point of fact, I never have defamed New Zealand. I hate men who live in and fatten on a country, and are still for ever crying stinking fish. That there are some men of that mean" type among us is a fact beyond question. It is one thing to attack the Administration, and auite another to attack the credit of the country, and there can be no doubt at all that the credit of the country has been deliberately attacked and considerably injured. Quite without excuse, as I think. I believe that there will eventually be a time of searching for New Zealand; but I have never been fool enough to hint at downfall. Our debt is big; but our resources are almost infinitely greater. Sir Joseph says that things will become more prosperous during the next few months. I cordially agree, but I'll be hanged before I'll praise the Government for that. Times will improve, because a wave of prosperity is about to sweep across the world, and there is no reason why it should miss these islands. In Great Britain the prospects are far brighter than they were. The Asquithites have suffered an overwhelming moral defeat. It is almost cer-' tain that there will speedily be i another election. At that election, the Unionists must sweep the polls. So that, as I say, prospects are good. That there are troublous times ahead for the Ward Government seems likely. There will be a crucial conflict between the Prohibitionists and the Moderates at the next election, and between those stools the Government may fall badly. And in the end will come the temporary triumph of Prohibition and the three years or so of convincing stupor and slow return to reason. After that we may have clean political issues in this crank-ridden and long-suffering country. In the meantime, I hope that Sir Joseph will enjoy his holiday, and get as good fishing as he hopes for. He is a man who offers absolutely no foothold to any personal malevolence. His habit of making multifarious promises that only a demigod could keep is really only asymptom of his genuine goodness of heart. * * -::- WADE—WEIGHED. \ There is in Wellington a queer little institution bearing the sounding name of the New Zealand Club. The club consists, I understand, of certain bright spirits of the Young Men's Christian Association, who meet once a month and lunch together, afterwards listening to the subdued roar of whatever lion they have been able to corral for the occasion. On Friday, the lion—the lion, I mean, as it were, you understand—was Mr Wade, the Premier of New South Wales, who decided some weeks ago that the position was so difficult and critical in his own country that he'd better take a holiday and have a rest. So we have him here, and the New Zealand Club listens open-mouthed. Mr Wade did not say much that was original or new; but he made a sensible enough speech. Of course he did not explain that the whole trouble in New South Wales in the matter of arbitration is due to the wretched bungling and pusillanimity of his own preposterous Government; he wouldn't like to do that. Making no count of that reserve, it is admitted that Mr Wade spoke truthfully enough of the strike, or of strikes in general. "They had to face the unhappy fact tEat large bodies of men pro-perty-holders, and able to reason, allowed themselves to be led by some men who were possessed of a fluent tongue and a forehead of brass. Every one ©t the strikes which had overwhelmed Nev South vVales recently had been developed

and organised and led 'by one man, i supported by a small percentage of • workers. To the young irrespon■j sibles, unmarried and careless 1, most i of the trouble could be ascribed. j They carried their houses on their 1 heads, as it were, had no homes, j and they were all prepared, under ! the wild flame of bravado which be- | set youth, to yell "Strike!" when • it was a popular cry. The older men dare not raise their voice in protest, for fear of being branded as blacklegs and scabs. Rather than be loyal to their own families and consciences and traditions, they submitted to the tyranny and suffering and inconvenience of a strike, and then professed to bo loyal to their own fellow-workers. All of which is shrewdly and disingenuously put. The real point is that the workers, on their own prescription and demand, have been furnished a sane and reasonable method of adjusting industrial differences, but have proved themselves fools enough in that they have yelled insults at arbitration whenever arbitration has gone against the workers' desire and interest. In short, if the workers are not satisfied with the existing method of settling industrial disputes legally, it is theirs to see that the method is amended. They have positively no right to adopt a course that brings untold misery on hundreds or thousands of people and threatens to paralyse the commerce of a continent. Mr Wade's contempt for a movement "led by one man, supported by a small percentage of workers" is quite typical of Mr Wade, but the reference is at least unfortunate. Christianity, in the beginning, was a movement led by one man, supported by a small percentage of workers—as the V.M.C.A. possibly remembers, or may have forgotten. But hear Mr Wade still: "There was only one way to deal with the question. Strike at the root of the trouble—at the man with the false tongue, who led away his fellows." That is a pretty bad lie, essentially, i masquerading in the garb of truth. | The way to do away with strikes is to devise some sure and certain method of industrial arbitration; which is the one thing that Mr Wade and his characteristically futile Government have altogether failed to do. Otherwise, strikes always will be fomented, as long as we have trades unions and trades unions employ professional agitators and. paid secrej taries and organisers. Mr Bowling, i who led this strike, and who goes to gaol for his share in it, is unquestionably an honest man. It is his very sincerity that makes, him so dangerous. He is a man who, could not fail to do admirable work, if his energies were properly directed and controlled. As it is> he has become a fanatic, a zealous hater of all the employing, class, a martyr prepared for any wrong-headed cause. In gaol, he will be, not the author of his own wrong, but the victim of his own maniseal sincerity. I hope, that he may somehow escape gaol; for he is, whatever else he be, quite too good a man for that degradation. MUSICAL COMEDY. Musical comedy a big lapse from the higher Gilbertain level of true comic-opera; but musical comedy at its best was very good. You saw it about at its best in "The Geisha," "The Belle of New York," and-I was going to say "The Merry Widow," for pure comic-opera that adorable play is not; Aiid now musical comedy lapses to musical jumble. On Saturday I saw "The King of Cadonia," an ambitious trivial thing that at every point just misses. Mr Williamson stages and presents it superbly, but—it doesn't grip. One takes nothing away from the book, except a feeling of bordom, and the music leaves one nothing to remember. I suppose that we must have all the new stuff, but when the new stuff is such thin stuff I think it might be skipped. I fully appreciate the difficulties that beset a big Australasian manager. The people are snobbishly incline/!, and must have what are called/imported stars. We have one with/ this company—Miss Dorothy Court. She twinkles, twinkles, does this little star,' arid sometimes she twinkles so feebly that she almost twinkles out. One would think that there are scores of women in Australia who could play the-part of "the impossible princess better; but there are not. Mr Williamson, to do him justice, has given the women of Australasia every chance, and whenever they have developed any notable ability he has pushed them on with all his energy and all the resources at his command; but the supply seems to have run out. We had Miss Amy Murphy of Dunedin. She was with Mr Williamson many months, and must be written down a failure. Her voice was brilliant, but without colour, and she sang without soul. Her acting was unutterably and appallingly bad. She was a typical case. So Mr Williamson has to go to London, quite apart from the necessity of catering for the Australian demand for London players. And the supply in London—the supply of brilliant people—is necessarily very limited, having regard to the demand. Some of the cleverest women in London won't leave it, some for this reason, and some for that; but lor that, not half as many as the Puritans pretend. Many of them needn't leave London, in any case. Mr Williamson can only do his best. He pays wonderfully liberal salaries, generally far more than the people are worth, and sometimes he draws a blank. Mr Bert Gilbert, the comedian, who is with this company, is no blank. So far, he carries the 6how. He is the most original comedian of his class that we have had in Wellington for a long time past. None the less, the fact stands unquestionable that musical-comedy is slowly deteriorating and that comicopera is no more. The trick of Gilbertian dialogue is lost, and no man living has the secret of the music Sullivan wrote. It is a pity. Because the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan are altogether delightful. Their exquisite refinement never sinks below its own high level, their tunefulness never cloys, their humour never stales. It is all very delightful; but in 1910 we don't .know how it's done. Worse luck!

SYNOD. The Anglican General Synod is sitting in IVellirigton, and the city seems quaintly full of parsons—gives it a sort of mediaeval air, you know. Most of these parsons seem to be well advanced in years; and if gaiters count for dignity, a big proportion of them must be bishops, and rural deans, and things like that. Between bishops and deans, I'm a good deal puzzled. They both seem to wear gaiters and a wide air of general benevolence. I suppose the hungrier looking ones are the deans; but if the deans wore pink gaiters, and

the bishops blue, it really would save a lot of heart-searching and confusion of mind. Anyhow, a man would be able to arrange and classify his sensations, and so decide whether he ! preferred bishops to deans, or how. Over in Hobart, we used to have quite a good time when Synod met. There was the Bishop—Bishop MontI gomery, amiable, authoritative, con- ! scious of his crook, with no back to his head. A stickler for form and precedent was the Bishop, and he ruled the Synod with a bar of iron. It was utterly useless to argue with him, when he made up his mind. No ordinary Parliament would have stood such tyranny for an hour, but the clergy had to. Then there was my friend Archdeacon Whitington, the best of good chaps. He was once a journalist, but he fell away. As an Archdeacon, he was very delightful, anyhow. He was a fine speaker, with a ripe and ever-ready sense of humour and a delicious aptitude of humourous phrase and fable. And there were the irreconcilables. You may not know it, but even in Synods there are wild young men and irreconcileables. They move motions that the Bishop j doesn't like, they attack institutions and ideas th"at the bishop cherishes, they disturb and perplex the* Bishop quite a lot. If you want to know now human parsons are at bottom, watch them during the sitting of Synod. Especially watch them if a newspaper artist is in the room, and they happen to know it. They fall into benevolent smirks, and every curve grows, sleeker. They posequite unconsciously, of course—and one. can almost hear one of 'em say "Behold me! I am of the type' of David," and another. "Mark-me well, nofv; for Wiclif had this domed forehead and this pensive smile!" And then comes the hour of tea. Did you ever notice how parsons bask in the presence of ladies—how they bask and how they dimple? No? Well, I have. And why shouldn't they, when all is said? The parson loves refreshments. No man takes a keener joy in his food. I suppose that in the pallid lives of these demure ascetics there are so few pleasures that—— Well, you know how it is yourself. . * * * OF LADIES' MEN. Of ladies' men in general one is naturally intolerant, but to actors and parsons so smitten one must extend a certain sympathy. The support of the ladies is necessary to success in both professions, and feminine suffrages must be wooed with subtlety. But there is no reason whatever why a woolbroker or a mining engineer or a bank manager, or an agricultural expert should be a ladies' man. It is one thing to wallow from necessity, and quite another to wallow from choice. Further, to wallow is bad policy in general cases. *or ladies' men, intelligent women never have any serious admiration. They would sooner be dominated than cajoled, and they prefer virility to all the parlour graces. No woman of wit and character ever .had any use for the fetcher-and-carrier. But it is useless worrying abou that. The ladies' man is a ladies man, because he can't help it; fetching and carrying is a disease. It is .luvenile, like the ,measles; but it is recurrent, and may occur in old age. There is no known,cure for it. Alas!