CURRENT TOPICS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 9133, Issue 9133, 4 February 1910, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS.

OBy Feank Morton.) PAR I IS. ' The news from Paris disquiets ino abuminably. The floods arc bud there bad, it seems, almost beyond precedent. There is a dreadful destruction of property. and (I fear) n horrid destruction of books. I get many books from Paris, and don't, lilco to think of it. I am afraid that, the heaped treasures or Gougv a.re awash on the Quai Conti. Literature will be destroyed, and we shall have only papier-mache, which is not readable. Little harm could come from the dcstruc-tioh of shops tenanted by the sellers of new books; but in the second-hand bookshops lies much of the .garnered solace of the world. In t is respect. Paris has always been treasuretrove. It is the literary capital of the world. It is full of devout lovers and collectors of books. A book dcstiojed, if it be destroyed permanently, is a much more serious thing than a life destroyed. We come and go, we humans; and when wc go the world is little worse or noorer. But o.vcrv book worth while i~ a little packet of the great eternal: the buciv world can't spare it. Ihe destruction of the library at Alexandra, was one of the greatest and saddest, •disasters that ever befel the world. Ihe destruction of the British Museum would be I iliink. the greatest disaster that could be/all the British Empire. Priceless things will be destroyed by these great iloods in Paris, and m\ hcait i_> Jiek to think of it, Paris! dear city of our dreams! \\ hat a place it is! For writers and thinkers and siim-ers of songs there has been no other such place this last live hundred years. It was a wonder-world, that world bf Pans, even fifty years ago, when Anatole France and Paul Veriamc were voung. and Hugo lorded it in very ITia " iesty of his prime. Gautier stalked through iiifui of fiic unci srolcl. There 3 were a hundred others, all marvellous smitcrs of heartstrings; and London was. by comparison, so poor and bare, and so dull and grim. I iti not depreciating London, mind you; but Paris is the Mecca of the young man. and I'm still younger in heart than in years. In Paris they still the joyous lilt of life, _ and \vitl> all their naughtiness (carefully exhibited for the delectation of globetrotters and the peering English) they are very sweet and human, very iine and ionic. It is sad, indeed, this misery that lias swept down upon Ihe brave Parisians. They have to sit still, and iight rats like any politicians. They will get over it all, because. Paris is so healthy that her wounds heal soon; but the present suffering is great, and our svmnathv goes out to the City of Light. THAT COMET. Coming down in the tram this morning. 1 was talking the matter over with a "good newspaper-man of my friends. "I wonder.'" he said, quite seriously, "whether the Comet has anything to do with it; or whether i! is mere coincidence.'' Here we have had bad-floods in Europe, and bad floods in Australia. Wc have had bad earthquakes everywhere, and this comet ha 6 always been associated with floods and earthquakes."

I don't know; but I do know that what I may call the coincidences of Halley's Comet are such as cause disquietude. Suppose, just suppose, that the comet came within dangerous distance of the earth. Where should we be? Well, we shouldn't be. should we? If it came close enough, the earth would liquify and vapourize in a moment's lerrific 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 would be destroyed in a flash, but I have an obstinate idea that, infinite teeming life would go on elsewhere. It would be a grand exit for humanity, anvwav.

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 news 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 shuddering anticipation of 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 be 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 of old moralities, the fountains of the great deep would be broken up. would love more feverishly, and haters would hate with a more bitter rancour. And

But we won't have that comet along hero, 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 gooc| fellow of hi,- instincts, so comradely. so suave, so inveterately amiable. He is aging. Hi- hair is greyer and thinner atop tttun 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 tc Stewart Island for a good spell of J"?" I ', £ hope that Sii' Joseph wiJ] enjoy his holiday, and got as good fishing as he hopes for. Ho is a rmui -who offers absolutely no foothold to any personal malevolence. His habit, of making multifarious promises that only a. demigod could keep is really only a. symptom of liis genuine goodness of hear!'.

WADE-WEIGI-lED. There i_s in Wellington a little institution bearing the name of the New Zealand Club, the members of which meet once a month and lunch together, afterwards listening to speeches by prominent mem On Friday the speaker 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. 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 Now South Wales in the matter «f 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 that, large bodies of men, pro-perty-holders, and able to reason, allowed themselves to bo led by some men who were possessed of a fluent j tongue and a forehead of brass. Every I one of tlie_ strikes whicli had overwhelmed New South Wales recently had been developed and organised and led by one man. supported by a small percentage of workers. To the young irresponsiblcs, unmarried and careless, most of the trouble could be ascribed. They carried their houses on their heads, as it were, had no homes, and they were all prepared, under the wild flame of bravado which beset 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 bo 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 with 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 Y.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, masquerading in the garb of truth. The way to do away with strikes is to devise fSome 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 secretaries and organisers. Mr Bowling, 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. Ho is a man who could not. fail to do admirable work, if his energies were properly directed and controlled. As it is, ho 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 maniacal 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 .marked a big lapse from the higher Gilbertain level of true comic operas; but musical comedy at: its best was very good. You saw it about at its best, in "The Geisfea." "The Belle of New \'ork." and I was going to say "The Merry Widow," for pure comic opera that adorable play is not. And 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 if doesn't grip. One takes nothing away from the book, except a feeling of boredom, and the music leaves one nothing to remember. I suppose that wo must have all the new stuff, but, when the new s'ulf is such thin stuff I think it might be skipped. I fully appreciate the difliculties that beset a big Australasian manager. The people are snobbishly inclined, and must have what are called l imported stars. Wc have one with this company—Miss Dorothy Court. She twinkles, twinkles, does this little star, and sometimes she twinkles so feebly that she almost twinkles out. One would think that there are scores of women in in Australia who could play the part. ; of the impossible Princess bctjter.; ; 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 lie 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 bril- | liaut, but without colour, and she sang j 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 nej cessity 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 for 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 ho draws a blank. Mr Bert Gilbert, the comedian, who is with this company, is no blank. So far he carries the show. He is the most original comedian of his class that wc have had in Wellington for a long time past. None the less, the fact stands unquestionable that musical comedy is slowly deteriorating and that comic opera 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 clogs, their humour never stales. It is all very delightful; but in 1910 we don't know how it's done. Worse luck '.