NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8594, 29 May 1908, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

IBt Frank Mobton.) 1 am given to understand that money is still tight, but everybody •thorns teheerful enough. lias is, indeed, a very cheerful city; perhaps the most cheerful city I have ever known, on the whole. The people f'euerally are so indomitably determined to mako the best of things that it takes them all their time to keep up the effort of the determination, and many opportunities of making are lost or overlooked. In view of" some things that happen, and some things that threaten, it is not always easy to maintain that indomitably cheerful spirit. There is that insistent matter of the high cost of living. It is a thing so obvious that nobody thinks of disputing it, and overybody lias come to take it tor granted. But if anything happened to raise the cost of living materially above the present standard,, the most determined cheerfulness would falter. There can, in short, be no sustained cheerfulness a single step beyond the limit of endurance; and as far as the cost of living in Wellington is concerned, the limit of endurance is about reached. Meantime, the latest strike is a significant and ominous fact in the general consideration. The tramway workers of Auckland, finding it impossible to get quite all they want from the Arbitration Court, have struck. The Arbitration Court was the weapon chosen by the trades' unions to secure what was called justice for the worker, and especially to prevent the barbarism of strikes. The Arbitration Court having failed to do all the workers demanded of 'it, the workers are now having recourse to the old barbarous weapon. The strangeness of the position at least is clear; but I am not at all 3uro that the workers can be blamed too sweepingly for the folly of it. The Arbitration Court, as the chosen weapon of the workers, has materially raised wages; but the raising of wages has had its natural and inevitable effect in tho raising of prices. That natural effect, however, was one that the workers generally never really took into consideration at the outset. It is quite possible — [ do not know; but it is quite possible —that the Auckland tramways workers really find it impossible to live with decency under present conditions. And it is quite probable — it is, indeed, almost certain —that the Arbitration Court has now gone 33 far as it. can go in the raising of wages. Any fresh increase would necessitate a prohibitive tariff in regard to many industries; and no prohibitive tariff ever yet helped the worker. Arbitration, in any case, is found wanting. Therefore, the Strike Barbarism being tho only ether idol to which the worker in his blindness can bow down, Arbitration is dethroned in favour of the older £od. As far as the average thoughtful citizen is concerned, it takes a

vaite'inordinate cheerfulness and a cuite invulnerable optimism to stand unflinching before these gathering ;orces of disturbance. If Arbitration is to become inoperative as a remedy for industrial ills and grievances," the veriest noodle knows that the Strike Barbarism is abominably bad and useless as a remedy. What lernains? That, as a gentleman somewhat prominent in dramatic fiction once remarked, is the question. The workers, of course, might study the facts of history and the general question of values; but the subjects fie dry, and the average worker bves lighter reading. Or the Government might sturdily uphold the Conciliation and Arbitration Acts, pud rigorously enforce the penalties the la-.v provides against the offence of striking. For years past, democratic optimists in other parts of the world have been belauding New Zealand as a country without strikes, and simultaneously doing to the industrial legislation of New Zealand as being, in effect, the open gate- of Paradise. "What will these tiemocratic optimists say in face, of t'ais changed position and these feathering new disturbances? You con't know, ami I don't know. So t'lero we are !

Turning i.) a less senThe ous but apparently Astonishing more impoitant matAliens, ter, I me!:- a few days ago some members ot iiie visiting British foe 11 all team. My resulting impression is that these ;'on are excellent for ;!ie form of sport we do most flrtM.ui-γ-usly and consistently ar.phiud. A?:i rule, your footballer in season can ,_>r will talk on nothing else but. football. If he has any opinions uii other matters, he conceals thorn. ff ho has any other avenucc of desire, he does not talk about thorn more than he can help. But these British footballers, so far as I could determine, •>.;-e quite different. They appear to bo. well-educated and well-informed. They have a notably good showing of the quality, not to be expressed in English, that tho French call sa-voir-vivre; so that they could walk j-bout a big hotel in their scanty athletic apparel without looking in the least vulgar or out-of-place. ■ They .vcem, in fact, to be men q'lite at peace with a harmonious environment. They can talk of other things than football; and that is surely an amazing thing. One of them seemed to have read every English book I have been interested in during the fast year or two. Another plainly knew"all that a citizen of Wales need know of Welsh Disestablishment and

• associated vexed questions. ' In short, npart from the scanty athletic ap--1.1 are-l, there was nothing in these men I talked to that necessarily marked them as footballers at all—nothing, that is, except their ruddy health and excellent muscular development. I wonder bow it is that we in Now Zealand, who talk -so much about o;ir democratic institutions and enlightenments, so very much about our trecdom and .our breadth of mind, don't succeed in brccdiag football teams of this type. I wonder how it "is that wo, who sneer so rc:;diTy and m> often at "insular English pre-jn-dices" and "English parochialism," /•o run so persistently and s-'> obstinately into ruts. Tlie.se. however, are not questions for footballers. Let us arise with a loud &houc! On Friday night in .The town, there was a fire i'iro tliat for a time tlirentThat ened to spread and deFailed, stroy the lV;t Oifice. The fire r.i:idc! a vivid ,'.pln.«h in a dullish week, and the Wellington newspapers made a tref:iemloiis lot of it and wore tiiankru!. As a Are, it was not especially '■xhilarating or fine, and the. amount <■] damage done' is not sensational. '»'iio Post Ofiice escaped. Nathan's Huilding still stands solid and foiir-γ-m r> re in ev.-rv v. ind that blows. As -?-v' ti»e'bui]i!i:HJs i'einally cloritroycd contained nothing of much value, and v ere to be pulled down within the <>xt fow.weeks, there is even a proi ,bility t-liat the fire saved a certain - pouiit -of- 'expense to somebody.

The point to be made is that 'these destroyed buildings were old and rotten, and contained inflammable material; and that if the flames had spread to the Post Office, great public loss and inconvenience, must have resulted. With such a place as that burnt adjoining a great public office, it is the plain duty of tho Government to see- that every possible precaution is taken to minimise fire risks. In this the public has yet to discover that any special precautions at all were taken. Meantime, it is well to remember that the bulk of the Government Departments are still housed in Government Buildhuge pile wo insensatoly boast of as "the biggest wooden building in the world." If that building caught fire it would burn like a paper bag. If that building were burned down, tho loss to tho public would be enormous. It is at least apt to inquire whether tho Government has any immediate intention of removing or minimising that risk. Shortly after the destruction of Parliament House, there was quite a scare with reference to Government Buildings. It was said that somebody—anarchiete or agitators of some sort; dreadful people, plainly —had formed the dire design to set fire to the Biggest Wooden Building. Troops were, I believe, called out to prevent the consummation of those wicked plans. It wais openly stated that the Premier, that most equable man, was very anxious indeed. The newest newspaper made a tremendous hullabaloo" over the business. And then there was a sudden cessation of those noises, and the latest scare slept with its fathers. When tho fire licks up Government Bulidings, these things will need a lot of explaining-away. As far as firea in public offices are concerned, prevention is vastly better than' euro.

Mr Julius Knight has The, Book opened his Wellington and season in ''The Scarlet The. Play. Pimpernel." I havenot 'been along to see Mr Knight this time yet, because I am feeling a little* depressed and unwell. But I have-been reading the book on which this play is founded, and the book is of such undoubted badness that I incline to the opinion that the play must of necessity be good, as it unquestionably is popular. 1. have r.ead a good many books of fiction dealing with the troublous period of the French devolution, but never any book that strained the bounds of credulity so far as this book of the Baroness Orczy does. We have as Ikto a gallant Englishman who under various disguises, and assisted by a band of various other gallant Englishman, smuggles aristocrats out of Paris and out of France during tho very rage of the Terror. The gallant Englishman is physically s» huge and striking a person that it is extremely difficult to disguise him; but he is -so amazingly clever, and-he .speaks French .so amazingly well, that by all his disguises the simple French aie cozened utterly. Necessarily, the band of gallant j Englishmen associated '.villi the hero —some twenty of them, in all Pare also adepts at disguises, and speakers of perfect French. it is all very quaint and very unconvincing. There is positively no reason at all why the gallant Englishmen .should do the things he does, or why the- band of his associates should risk life and liberty in the same cause —but there you are! In the book, this hero is an extraordinary person in other ways. He is, to start with, never quite the same person on two consecutive pages. He has married (the, dog!) one of tliase incomprehensibly beautiful women in whom the cheaper story of lady-novelist delights; which incomprehensible, beauty, being a French acrtess and a friend of wits and rufflers, is at the same time incomprehensibly virtuous. Roughly splashed, in lire and smoke, there ia also, of course, the wicked French revolutionary. £'", equally of course, is a sinister and revolting person I (many of the great French revolutionaries were among the handsomest and most charming men of their day; but never mind) —a. person who love,-} wickedness for the. sake of wickedness, a most insensate and disastrous villian. This everlasting English claptrap about the- French Revolu-tion—-pisJi ! How essentially revolting and silly it all is! The horror:; of the Revolution -wero such as still mala:- the gorge rise; but why should wo in these free* democracies be so eager to forget the gross and beastly and most infamous abominations from which the Revolution sprang? ' Why should we, free people, bo obstinately ignore the obvkws fact that the terrible episode of the Revolution still stands r.s the iio'vle.'-.t and most Mossed landmark along the path of democracy—at worst the great p-ing of a glad new birth? It is so easy to pity the fashionable rakes and wantons that minced in finery through their gilded stows, and so easy forget tho great heart of the nation that for centuries had been outraged and shattered half to death. "You pity the plumage, but forget the dying bird," wrote a notable American of the Revolution to a protesting English bi.shop. We want a play showing the pity ;:r.d the terror of the Revolution, while not stooping to foul the memory of the people after long ignominy arousc-d to the passionate revolt that shook the world and made strong the hands of liberty for .-.'l years to come. And so, I say, I am prepared to find "The Scarlet Pimpernel,' quite excel lent among plays of the popular sort. All the situations in the book are recklessly dramatic; just the sort of situations that the footlight atmosphere can invest with a certain adventitious glamour of reality.

There was a time when My "Walk I used to take exceedAmid the ingly long walks, and AVeather enjoy them. If you got

out of almost any city, and walk far in the right direction, old Mother Nature will get her gracious arms about you, and you shall find yourself walking right into the lie art of things, with sonio glimmer afar of the walls of the City of Dream. Walking in any actual city is like reading in a 'bus- there's no comfort or sen.-;c in it. To walk with genuine pleasure, and to gain genuine must walk hard and fin , . You iniist get well away from the cra-mped suffocation of the streets. A i'rir-nd, who i.s staying with me just new, often strolls out and walks round the Queen's Drive; taking the thirteen miles cheerfully to get aiid appetite for dinner. Then he tells me anecdotes and is really happy for the evening. A friend in Tasmania—"omcAvliat of a champion in In'?, class, both as ■ friend and walker; but now. alas! wallowing in politics wit!i the submerged tenth- — to this friend, fifty miles tramp under good conditions was a mere nothing, a detail of the week's amusement. Oi;o morning very early, he. set out from a place away south, walked over hill and dale sixty-five miles into Hubart, reached home, bathed and dined, and then went gayly to his club and played billiards till midnight. Exercise like that ■strikes me as a sort of extravagance; but evory man to his humour. I

once walked over the Blue Mountains in Now South Wales, from Bathurst to Sydney;but I spent five days ovel , the trip," and had many meditative intervals by the way. To walk is good for the body and the spirit, but you need to walk wisely, with an eager eye around for the strayed brother and the lame dog. All this by way ai leading up to the fact that in New Zealand I have not walked much. In Dunedin, to start with,I was troubled by the gout; in Invercergill, the wise- man stays resolutely indoors, and so avoids repining and grim despair; in Christehurch, it is too hot and dusty to walk; and in Wellington—well, in "Wellington one has no time. I did know a man once who walked two miles for exercise in Ashburton; but he was a somnambulist, rest his soul!

Yesterday, however, beOver ing a day supremely unThe First fitted for outdoor exerHill. cises, a good fellow I know called at my house and asked me to go for a walk; and I, being at no time a person preeminently sane, consented. He said it was a great day for a walk; and I said it must be. He said that some day, soon, we'd go to Featherston by train and walk back over the ..Rimutakas, and I said we would. While I was getting ready to go out, we got quite enthusiastic about it. He said the Rimutalias were fine. You took a dog and a gun. I eaid I w r as nothing if not a sportsman, and illustrated with an anecdote about a grey gazelle 1 tracked to her lair in a garden at Kabul. This plainly impressed him,' because as we set. forth he said we'd better take two guns. The rain, as we started, was flung into our faces like charges of small shot, and the wind was pulling the tiles off the house and blowing the road-metal about. An umbrella could have been of no use to any man on such a day. The thing required was a barbette, and no man can be always Sandow. We made the best of the position, and strode joyously into the thick of the gale. We went across Mount Victoria, because it was a brisk day for a walk, and that was the most exposed place my friend could think of. If you happen to know Wellington you will surely never have climbed Mount Victoria in such perfect weather. On any given day, if you are in calculating mood, you take the wind in Willis Street, and multiply its force and persistency by ten, and the result is the breeze then stirring on Mount Victoria. When wo turned to face it near the top, it was like.coming butt up against a very stalwart ox running full-speed down-hill. It was the sort of wind that blows a man's eyes into his head while it gives him a clean shave. My friend is a positive fanatic in his blind devotion tu the truth, and while we both held grimly on to a post he assured me that weather like this was what did a man good. You have a splendid view of Wellington from that altitude, and I never before saw the siniliiig city look so wet. The wind was biting the heads oil' the racing wavelets in the harbour, and flinging them across the city in a whirling niicit of spume. The ram that stung into our teeth and nostrils had started tu fall somewhere about Petone; and in it there was the blended smell of green earth and slaughteryards, and suburban drains and ruminating cows and many other idyllic things like that. I clawed my way up to my friend's ear and said that the weather was certainly delightful, but that if we meant to go far that afternoon we'd better get on. We let go, and the wind tore away from the post and flung us by winding, greasy track into Kilbirnie.

This, you know, is The one of the nearest Sorry Suburb and most-advertised and the suburbs of WellingLand Boom. ton. But under a

wash of wintry rain it looks discouraging and detestable. The wind had for the nonce converted the tunnel there into a sort of monstrous fog-horn, and the effect of this gigantic moaning wars most saddening and weird. My friend told me that his mother-in-law lived at Kilbirnie, and 1 said that lie must be glad whenever he remembered it. There is no end to the curious and absurd things humanity is capable of doing. Quite respectable men grocers, and solicitors, and bookmakers, and barbers, and journalists, and horsedealers, and things like that—havo paid as much as £ ( J per foot for suburban sections at Kilbirnie. I could mention no fact more pregnant with significance of the indomitable optimism of Wellington. The suburb of Kilbirnie this afternoon looked less comfortable than the sore side of a wet hen that has strayed in the bitter darkness and can't get out of the ditch. I hate to wjaste sympathy on unmeritorious objects, or I should have detected myself sympathizing with my good friend's motherin law. J list'as I thought of the simile of the sore side of the hen, my friend remarked that it must be jolly to live in the Marquesas of "some of those tropical islands." Now, I hale incongruous remarks like that. When some day I happen to be in a place hotter than Rockhampton, I don't want some sympathising tormentor to come along and talk about the preciousness of ice. Incongruous remarks of that kind are unkind. They hurt. Incongruous things are generally silly and uninspiring. Even inconbruous crimes. (You will remember the incident of the man in Shropshire who as ho was in the act of eloping with the dairyman's daughter stopped the mare to kill a curate). My friend said there was a good deal to bo done in land still; ho had done a little in land himself. He owned one or two sections at Kilbirnie, and had a share in a few acres up by the .Hutt. I told him that I had heard that land-values in and about Wellington were already commencing to decline. He said he hoped they would not decline; because if they did he should lose money. I told him that- the interests of the scheming individual did not count in any consideration of the welfare of the community, and that he might as well lose money that way as any other. Then, 'while the rain smashed and slashed about us and the tunnel roared in the distance, a sort of silence fell upon us two. I hate to say mean things; but it w«« his fault, and it served him right for talking about the Marquesas. We truged along the shore of Evans Bay. As a bay, it is commonplace and insipid ; but it has a sort ol' history. There used to be big Maori pahs here, ill the good days before the whites came to start philharmonic societies and generally to mess up the country. And the Union Steamship Company has recently acquired a sort of special interest in the bay. And quite a large number of the most respectable suburban houses drain into it. And the flats at low water have a fishy, saline, and most penetrating smell. All these things and others my friend told me disjointedly as be slowly forgot my jibe about the land values and became companionable again.