PUBLIC OPINION.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 394, 23 April 1908, Page 7

PUBLIC OPINION.

t<) [The Editor cordially invites communications on all subjects of public interest. Full and free scope will be given to all shades of opiuion for the discussion of any matter which may be legitimately discussed in a daily newspaper, the Editor, however, not holding himself responsible for the opinions his correspondents may express. All that is asked is that letters be terse and to the point. J TINKERING REFORMERS. To the Editor Manawattj Daily Times. Sir, —I have been waiting to see a reply in your columns from that wonderful reformer, the Rev. J. J. North., Baptist Pastor, Wellington, to Mr R. S. Abraham and your Foxton correspondent's last effusions, both noticeable for the practic.il rather than the theoretical standpoint. I have perforce come to the conclusion that the Wellington clerical reformer has cried enough. Perhaps the scales have fallen from his eyes. I would ask you to find space in your widely read columns for the I following from fhe London Referee which I think sums up the position of the betting question so that only the wilfully blind could fail to see :—

Under the guidance of the Bishop of Hereford, Convocation is to consider what should be done about betting. Ido not think there is any n3cessity to do anything, for what man who could be protected by legislation is hurt by betting as it exists nowadays?. That some men lose money and so more or less inconvenience aud injure themselves is no doubt a fact; but no sensible person for a moment imagines that these men's inania for wSgeriug would be checked, or even retarded, if one of the many ways of betting always open to them were rendered a little more difficult of accomplishment. Stop the publication of the odds, and the state of the market—when there was one—would be circulated privately. Endeavour to prevent the dispatch of telegrams relating to racing, and they would be sent in cipher. Abolish bookmakers in offices and on courses, and they would spring up in private honses and clubs—you cannot have a detective listening to the conversation of every pair of members in a club smoking-room or overhearing all messages on the telephone. You would have to provide a policeman to look after every man who was not bedridden, ■'and after a large porportion of the female population as well—and I read the other day that in some towns a large percentage of the police bet. Absolutely the only way to put an end to betting on racehorses is to put an end to racing; and then those who hid been accustomed to take the odds about Turf events would swell the total of those who bet on football, and would speedily introduce speculation into cricket—now, happily, almost free from it—would find a golfer to back, and would get up sculling matches, games of lawn-tennis, and other sports and pastimes on purpose that they might have something to bet about. Looked at sensibly, racing is a convenient and desirable vent for betting, because to a great extent it satisfies the speculative, and keeps cricket, la wi»-tennis, &c. free from the taking and laying of edds. Now and then a fraudulent clerk who is detected in thefts whines out that he has been ruined by betting on horses, but, even supposing it to be true, does anyone really imagine that his disposition to steal would not have been indulged in on behalf of some other weakness?

I am, etc., ANTI-TINKERER. Feilding, 16th April.

THE CHURCHES AND THE ( CHURCH COUNCIL. WHAT IS MEAN TIME? To the Editor Manawatu Daily Timkb. Sir,—-In order to show how the Church as a whole act as a regulator stimulating or restraining human predisposition, £ propose to take as a symbol the pendulum of clocks and balance wheels of watches. Those who y have read about such thiugs know that these are compounded of various metals to allow for their expansion and contraction due Jto variation of temperature in the parts of the world in which they may be placed; they regulate the movements of the various parts of clock 'or watch due to the power of great weights falling slowly or a tiny main spring hidden away and seldom visible. The standard clock of a town has a weighty pendulum which moves slowly and vibrates in a very small arc not going to extremes. The standard church of a town is the pendulum composed of the greatest number of people of varying temperaments, who do not swing far on either side from the time set by the British Church. The standard clock for the British Empire is that in the Greenwich Observatory compared nightly, weather permitting, with the Creator's timekeepers the stars in heaven, the positions of which are there calculated and thence accepted by the whole civilised world.

There are mauy places in the world where clocks can be as well regulated as at Greenwich by nightly observation, but the original data came from Greenwich. Ireland has its obsbrvatories where its Archbishops reside. The standard church for the British Empire is the British Church, whose Council Chambers are not'far from Greenwich ; there they will shortly meet and compare notes with watchers from all parts of the English speaking race. But, beside the standard town or cathedral clock, there are lesser clocks whose time is regulated by individuals with more or less knowledge of finding the heavenly time, but the majority prefer to compare with the standard clock. For this town we might say these clocks or churches are dominated by Eevs. Harper, Jolly, Lewis, McDonald, and who keep something near British time, one perhaps, faster or slower according as thoir por-,om;l equation enters into their observations of the heavenly bodies, and the accuracy of the data they accept, the Nautical Almanac for the Church being the Bible. The Rev. Costello has to keep Roman time, which apparently has a wider range admitting more variation at times and exacting greater attraction at others. Astronomers would advise us to take the mean of their varying advice

giving dne weight to the skill and experience of the watchers and throwing out the work of. those •showing extreme variation on either side. And besides these nuiuy carry their own watches which may or may not puido them rignr. The difficulty is for the ordinary individual to know what the mean is. Well he or she won't bo far out if they stick to ideas handed down through ancestors. There must be some good in ideas which have stood the test of generations though they may have to be modified for present day work. Avoid extremists and those who use strong language even in denouncing vice.— '

-I am, ate., J. .D. R. HEWITT. PalmeratonUSf., April 15, '05.

[This is the second of two letters which should be read together. The' first appearing in our issue of the 16th pointed out that our correspondents who condemned clerical interference with volunteering aud the attacks on the totalisator by the Kev. J. J. North and the Council of Churches, were wrong in confounding these with "Tlio Church". Capt. Hewitt in the above letter suggests a method of arriviug at the genuine opinion of the Church Christian. —Ed. M.T.] A BEACON FROM HUNTERVILLE. To the Editor Manawattj Daily Times. Sir, —My friend from the back blocks who is so anxious to enlighten me as to what socialism really is must be ignorant of the geography of the Dominion. I can assure him that we live in a civilised region and that the Borough of Palmerston conI tains some ten or twelve thousand people also a library having a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica which may be consulted free. I may further tell him that I am the happy possessor of a set myself likewise a dictionary or two —or to write more correctly four—so that my friend who is so desirous to display his acquaintance with notable lexicographers will be glad ta learn that we are not entirely destitute of books of reference here. I shall now quote from the Century Dictionary referred to by Z.R. last par. "Socialism would introduce a more perfect and equal distribution of the products of labour and would make land and capital the joint possession of the members of the community." lam oblige Ito Z.R., who has, without knowing it, proved my contention. I protested, and all reasonable and right-minded men protest, against this wholesale confiscation and misappropriation of other men's property. It looks too much like steal-

ing and is not only a violation of the divine" command "Thou shall not steal," but likewise of the other divine oommands allied thereto which read as follows, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his ox, nor his ass nor any thing that is thy neighbour's." This, I think, Z.R. will admit to include capital and land—briefly property of all descriptions. Who gave these commands? Answer: The God of Israel, i.e, the creator of Heaven and Earth. Who established a theocracy on the basis of Individualism, not Socialism? I ask Z.R. was Jehovah right or wrong in so doing? If my friend gays it was unwise on the part of God to establish a form of Government directly opposed to Socialists or Communistic views, he cannot be a Christian, inasmuch as he or trhey are impugners of both the wisdom and justice of the Christian's God which proves him to be an agnostic or an atheist. If' on the other hand Z.R. is a believer in j Revelation he must, if honest, confess that he, as well as the hundred and twenty clerics, are not only wrong, but quite unworthy of a place among Christian teachers. In short, they have mistaken their vocation. I do not call them fools and knaves as suggested by Z.R., but men entirely misguided and misled, the result of having no real grip of Christianity and its teachings. It is one of the saddest spectacles to see prominent members of the Professing Church associating themselves With infidels, i.e, free thinkers, enemies lof God and his Christ. The reference to the Lord Josua favouring Socialism is a libel on both His character and teaching, inasmuch as the (Socialistic programme is to rob by legislative processes the honest and thrifty for the benefit of the thriftless and immoral of mankind. In fact our Lord's teaching was entirely of an individual and non-political character. I may conclude by observing that the remarks of the celebrated novelist quoted by Z. R. are so utterly absurd as to require no notice by me and I should strongly advise my somewhat verdant friend whose dwelling place is so far from the busy haunts of men to be careful of swallowing the nostrums of the socialistic quack who is quite aware of the non-efficacy of his medicines to cure the body politic and who earns a livelihood by .playing on the gullibility of the innocent Z.R. and kindred natures. Because it's his business and my poor friend and his kind are the victims.—l am, etc., " PALMERSTONIAN."