IMPRESSION OF THE COLONIES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVII, Issue 101, 1 May 1893, Page 4

IMPRESSION OF THE COLONIES.

LORD MEATIIS ARTICLE. In the Nineteenth Century Lord Meath has a very interesting article, entitled "A Britisher's Impression of America and Australasia." He leturned last year from a tour round the world, passing through Australia and New Zealand, returning by <San Francisco and New York, when he visited America for the fifth time. His paper is very interesting and suggestive. He was much struck by the similarity of method, whether under Republican or Monarchial reforms, in which the English-speaking people govern themselves round the world. There is no doubt that the people really rule; there is greater individual freedom in Great Britain and the colonies than the United States, where the police regard themselves more as the masters than the servants of the people. Socialists are under a special ban, and in Chicago are not even allowed to show the red flag from a private window ; no meetings of any kind are allowed in the city parks, and Lord Meath narrowly escaped- arrest for walking in the carriage drive of the Central Park, of New York. NEW ZEALAND. His account of New Zealand is most interesting. In that colony the working man holds the firmest grip on the reins of power ; it approaches nearer than any other country Lord Meath has visited to the ideal of the socialists, where there shall be neither poverty nor riches, and where the land and all the means of producing wealth should belong to the State. But for the action of the Upper House, ■which rejected the Laud Bill, no man would be able to hold more than two thousand acres of land, under penalty of five years' imprisonment, without the option of a fine, for false declaration. All land yet unappropriated has been nationalised, all the railways are in the hands of the Government, and the Premier is anxious to place the State in possession of all mines, facteries, and steam transit lines. As he has just added twelve work-ing-men Senators to the Upper House, he will be able to carry whatever measures he pleases. THE NEGROES OF THE STATES. Lord Meath thinks there are few, if any, self-ruling lands in which the best class of citizen has less voice in the government of his country than in America. The election of judges by the people occasionally tends to lower the character of the judicial bench and the respect entertained for it, and he devotes two pages to describing the savagery with which the negroes are lynched not only in the South, but even Jn the North. When Lord Meath was in America, a day of fasting and prayer was held in all the coloured churches on 4 the subject, and Judge Tourgee said at St. Pauls last year that : — "If there is not a marked change in the attitude of the country towards the coloured race, we shall have within the next ten years a massacre such as has not been paralleled since the. French Revolution. The gravity of the danger which threatens us is not appreciated. I am amazed thaL the negro has been patient under the intense persecution which he has to endure." THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. Lori Meath does not seem to think that the condition of religion prospers under the voluntary system, It may work pretty fairly well in cities, but in country districts the position of the clergy is very trying :— To show the poverty of some of the ' t country clergy In America, a bishop told me that when visiting in his diocese he always wore patent leather boots ; for he "knew that if he did not the clergyman with whom he was staying would have to blacken them with his own hands. And a clergyman in New Zealand informed me that he had to submit at vestry meetings to the most foul and abusive language from men who chose this opportunity of venting their spleen on him, knowing that he was helpless. To refined and cultivated men with a sense of the high responsibilities attached to their sacred offices such a position must be almost unbearable. THE AMERICAN PRESS. The American newspaper does not please Lord Meath. He admires the American magazines, and admits that some of the Sunday papers are very well written, but the ordinary daily paper in America gives him no j pleasure : — There is a want of dignity and refinement in the tone of the ordinary newspaper, especially in the West, where thejwriter seems often deliberately to seek out flippant or vulgar phraseology with which to clothe his ideas. In Europe one looLrs forward with a sense of pleasure and of keen interest to the arrival of the morning newspaper, feeling that as a rule much matter for thought and interest will be presented to his mind ; but in the States it is different. He rises from the perusal of the paper feeling that he has been dragged along a low level of crime and vulgarity. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, and doubtless a native would hi most ' tates know where to turn in order to obtain pleasure and information from his newspaper reading; but a stranger is not possessed of this information, and suffers accordingly. In Australia and New Zealand the journals were much less vulgar than in the " tates. RAILWAY TRAVKLLING. The Americans think a great deal of their railways and their palace cars ; Lord Meath recognises that there is much luxury to be found in some of them, but they have their drawbacks. In many of the Pullman cars the seats are fixed to a central pivot which swings with the swaying motion of the train. The result is that travellers who are not good sailors are apt to be seasick in a Pullman car. You cannot lie down as you can in an English carriage when you have the compartment nearly empty. The accommodution for hand baggage is very small, and you are apt to be suffocated or stifled with excessive heat. The system of checking the luggage there is very good, if you have plenty of time, but it entails "sometimes a delay of four hours before you can get your luggage delivered. In the sleeping cars the men and women sleep in berths above and below each other, ahd they are expected to dress and undress behind the same curtain. r Phe best sleeping cars are on the line between Melbourne and Adelaide, in Australia. Lord Meath also praises the New Zealand car. riages. Engine-drivers are provided with leather cushioned seat s

and elbow rests, and he wonders why they cannot be provided with similar conveniences inthis country. Both the tates and colonies are ahead of England in the matter of telephones, electric \ights, and also in electric and cable cars. American trams are often scandalously over-crowded, and no one complains. Sydney has the best public gardens in the world, but the public parks and open spaces of America are as a rule '.superior to those of tne colonies, and only inferior in some particulars to those of England, In >' an Francisco they have steam merry-go-rounds supplied as an adjunct of the park, and ballrooms in Chicago, and dressing-room attendance and lockers and lavatories for I athletes in Boston. Hotels, The American hotels are better appointed than the English ones. The averave charge per day varies from 16s to 20s in Australia and Canada. In New Zealand they are more like those old-fashioned inns in country towns. The cost of living in New Zealand hotels is 10s a day. Lord Meath specially commends the arrangements in the American hotels by which guests are awakened at any appointed hour ; the bell continues to ring until you get out of bed and stop it.