CALAMO CURRENTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6936, 9 February 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

CALAMO CURRENTE.

WjjH remarkable persistency the question crops un here, at home, everywhere, and lWsys as'to the claim on insurance companies {£ give support to fire brigades. It has recently been raised again in the City Coun- *£ and hard things have been said against ths companies for their indifference to pnblio interests, their niggardliness, and other opprobrious qualities in refusing. The companies reply with a clinoher, to the effect Sat their business is insuring for the reimbursement of lose by fires, not the prevention of fires; in fact, if fires ceased, so must tne insurance companies, and there is an rriere pensie which they don't advance, but °hich they know themselves and everybody Jse knows to be operative with them— unely, the inore fires the bettor for ingnrance, for after the public have been frightened by a good blaze everybody wishes to insure. It does seem unreasonable that th ey should be called on to suppress fi res that ia to protect" the interests of people who are too mean to insure, by increasing the general safety to hold out direct inducements to people not to j-gare. They say that if the prevention of fires is made by the City Council or the pnblio thoroughly efficient, competition among the offices will bring the premiums down to the lowest figure, and the public reap the directly; that it is therefore the duty M well as the self-interest of the city to -mjntain an efficient brigade, and the companies have no concern in it. This is gener- | jjy accepted as good reasoning; but there is si aspect of this qnestion that has not been commonly put forward, and it somewhat alters the complexion of the claim of the City Council on the insurance companies. For it M beyond any question that there is no other thing that conduces to the frequency of fires so much as the existence and the operations o f fire insurance companias. To hold this view it is not necessary to believe that all fires are wilful, though doubtless many of them are but it ia beyond question that nearly all'of those whioh are not wilful are due to carelessness, and carelessness ia due to insurance. If a man knows that a fire would be ths absolute loss of his house, his goods, bis furniture, he does BOt leave matches about to be nibbled by rats and he makes a very careful survey of fireplaces and lamps before he retires for the night. As a fire, though commonly origi. nating in an insured house, does not generally end there, the operations of the companies impose increased'risks on the whole community, compelling nearly everybody to insure against the carelessness of his insured neighbours, »Dd causing greatly increased risk to the property of those who will not insure. For this evil inflicted on the public, it may be very fairly argued that the fire insurance companies shonld be compelled to pay, or at least to maintain brigades and appliances for the protection, not merely of their own properties, but the properties of non-insurers, to whom the insurance of their neighbours is a standing peril.

His Worship the Mayor has just performed an official act which is in danger of being overlooked in its practical bearing on the nubile 'welfare. A lady on the E-yber Pass has jusi made her lord happy by presenting him/ with triplets. As the Kyber Pass is now within the jurisdiction of the Chief Magistrate of the city, Mr. Waddell has very properly considered the case deserving of recognition,and pour encourager lea autres, as:the French say, has presented the esti'mable lady with thea nm in question. Of course, it is a time-honoured usage, the Sovereign of this realm having, from the earliest time, held out similar encouragement for the increase of her stibjects. But it is to be borne in mind that the increase of the people of- England is but moderately to be desired in the interest of the common •weal, and a few pounds such as our gracious Qneen bestows on such an auspicious event recurring, may. be. reckoned aa the fair 'average value of the service rendered to the State. But it is a wholly different thing in our circumstances, where our one great want is population, and where a human item is not to be valued at less than three figures. ■Itiß not for a moment to be supposed that we are to expect Mr. Waddel to go further than this from his :privy purse. Hβ has done well in merely recognising the propriety of the performance. But- whether ,it is the city that is interested in the increase of ratepayers, or the State in that of contributors to the Customs revenue, the advent of these little triplets has not been adequately recompensed'. Let us see how the matter stands. It is estimated that an immigrant isworth to New Zealand £125. This esti- i ' rjisble lady,' therefore, has conferred a gift valued by our political economists and social statisticians at £375. Now it is dishonourable in the State to take a mean advantage,. and say that it was no party to the bargain, ' or even to say that it may have been a mere accident and with ne intention to confer any benefit on the State. But the broad fact remains/ that this service has been rendered to the admitted value, of £375, and it is the boonden duty of the State to discharge the obligation. . I would strongly commend this matter to some of our local members, Mr. Hnrst,: Mr.'Hobbs, or some other gentleman in-Parliament able to estimate tho sterling merit of tie service rendered to the public ; and considering the advantages that might arise in the future from reasonable encouragement judiciously given by the State, that . steps should be taken to have provision made so that on all future occasions a grant of land, to the value of at least £375 should be conferred on the interesting and happy mother of triplets. _

-The proposal that the City Council should courteously invite the co-operation of the Domain Board in Ijaving the Domain taken from the latter and given to the former is to be commended, and the Council acted wisely in adopting it. But the ominous warning that if they did not, trouble wonld come of it, savours of the humorous. Said a Councillor, "If they did not consider the Domain Board in the matter the city might be expected to be opposed," and "no good wonld come of the proposal. now made." This is very dreadful, and should make the Council look to its defences. It is astonishing how connection with a nominated and irresponsible body generates the idea of the possession of power. A gentleman may be an excellent member in a representative chamber like the City Council, but place him in a nominated Board and he becomes foolish. It is in the nature of such institutions that it should be so. Members never being called to account, and having nothing to check the exuberance of fancy as to their powers, gradually come to think that they ipoesess autocratic rights, wholly forgetting ftat among free representative institutions individual power is mere weakness in collirion, and only derives strength, from being backed up by public opinion. In a collision between a nominated body like the Domain Hoard and an institution like the City Corinoil, where every member is the embodiment, and representative of a large public opinion at his back, the nominated body wonld be simply nowhere, and the superraHons air with which it would attempt to awe down its opponents would merely aggravate and intensify the public feeling, Which comes rolling on like a big wave that overwhelms opposition. It is aa noteworthy *■ it is amnsing how nomiration to an administrative office generates in this way ■« overweening sense of self-importance, ouch institutions are useful in their way for "■""porary purposes, but it is a safe thing for them to pursue their way in quietness, joying all the pleasures of a Mutual Admiration Society, but not needlessly provoking collision with more popular instijotumsj which in such collisions are commonly wenistible. \

.Trade unionism is now such a recognised principle among the artisan and labouring passes that it cannot fairly be denied to Jaoae of higher social and professional prewnaionn. Hum&ff nature, and its bias in «vour of prescriptive rights, being the same everywhere, nothing whatever can be urged why the doctors as well as others should not *« in concert to protect their privileges worn invasion. Even.though the invadtrs xihnui? omm ' that is no rea3 <>n why those 2L* ould not exercise it for their own SSm?*" 1 " TWs ia Bu gß eate d by the an■jgewement. that-in Victoria tho Medical " M» t> i ve re£used the application of Dr. -no krt or a license t0 practise the heal- - B ere; nay, more, they have intimated to

her that if she does not drop the affix of M.J). to her name she will be liable to prosecution. This is quite right. Woman has ho right to interfere with, the exclusive privileges of the superior sex in ite right to heal. Reason might suggest that in certain requirements in the history of the weaker half of humanity, one of their own sex might be the most becoming to confide their ailments to. But reason must stand aside when claeß interests are to the front, and these medical, men have at all times had a personal and professional objeotion to the intrusion _ of women into the domain of healiEg. It is an appropriate thing that the Melbourne body of healers should be_ these to lead in such crusade, for iit ia Melbourne that has the proud distinction of being the city in whose most distinguished Hospital a forceps waa left within the abdomen of a patient while the operation of closing the cavity by stitching was being completed. The death of the patient unfortunately afforjled the opportunity o.? learning the proximate ' cause "of her death, and discovering the forceps in ;'rs place of concealment; but the sole right to experimecfc on the female human subiect is very appropriately maintained by the body of doctors who hs.ve such a distinguished incident in their record. As this American lady, however we may differ as to the propriety or utility of some of her lectures, has the diploma of qualification, we are warranted in assuming that her offence is sex ; and in a thoroughly democratic place like Melbourne, where aloiue your true autocratic tyranny can have place, the doctors have taken time by the forelock in the attempt to prevent the inevitable. It may not be our children, but certainly our grandchildren will be horror-strioken at the barbarous indelicacy of their grandmothers who tolerated the intrusion of medical men into their chambere in the supreme crisis of woman's life, and consented, even at the risk of life or health, to make them confidants in relation to the sorrows that are the heritage of the daughters of Eve. There are those living now who will live to see the day when to one medical man there will be five medical women, or about in the proportion of the sicknesses of men to those of women and children. But Victoria, which is pronounced if it is anything, has exhibited to the colonies in this a specimen of that narrow selfishness of class monopoly which is as alien to the true spirit of colonial life as it is discreditable to a learned and an honourable profession.

To the student of sociology it would be an interesting thing to have a record of the ownership of properties in Auckland that are let to disreputable uses. The object might be to see how coincident with the highest aims in life may be the means and ways of livelihood that are commonly regarded as among the basest. Humour has it that tho catalogue of the ownership to which I refer would include the names of some who are ornaments of society ; and, it is said, even pillars of the Church. Indeed, it is alleged that certain corporate bodies are the joint owners of whole ranges of buildings occupied by persons who are eliunned by respectable citizens. It is impossible to believe the statement, though, freely bandied by the hundred tongued, that even a Church is the owner of one such property, and. that mingling with the holy weekly offertory is the weekly rental from the wages of sin. But without straining the question to such an extreme, one cannot but wonder, for instance, who they are that walk about the city in the garb of honest and respectable citizens, and yet knowingly derive their income from such a source as that which, under the very eaves of the Police Court, and under the eye of the police, is day and night the scene of infamous revels, the wild shrieks from which so frequently fall on the startled ear of the public. Doubtless such things must be, and such tenants must live somewhere when outside th« walls of Mount Eden. But wonder still asks who are the owners'of the dens 1

It is the fashion to decry our Parliament, and depreciate the character of our representatives. But one thing their veriest enemies must admit, that our legislators have never yet reached the pit of degradation in which the members of Parliament in the sister colonies are wont to wallow. Victoria used to exhibit .the wildest revels, but the amalgamation of parties has produced a chejEJcal combination -from the antagonistic elements, that is as dull as ditch water. ■ Tasmania oft and again made the welkin ring with the fierceness of its party and personal onslaughts, but the demon of discord appears to. be moviDg northward, and now it is staid conservative New South Wales and aristocratic Queensland that, are exhibiting the belligerent qualities of their legislators. In Sydney two of them have gone eo far as to seek to settle their differences vi el armis, and, horrible to relate, they sought no other trysting place than the sacred precincts of the Speaker's own chambers. One of them it is true has long been known for his rasping tongue, and nobody that knew the past career of Mr. Buchanan would wonder at his invective breeding assault. But Wisdom might have been expected to resist the provocation ; yet it was Wisdom tbat knocked him down, and the two grey-haired political .warriors ignominiously rolled in the dust. 'The Brisbane encounter did not reach the limit of personal restraint, but it is indicative of & condition of infamy in politics more repulsive still. For the language used was of such a nature as to compel its expungement from Hansard by a vote of the House. And yet the language was not more than equal to the occasion, for it was directed at the infamy of tha highest seat that can be conferred by Parliament being occupied by a thrice-convicted felon. When we are inclined to talk tauntingly about our representatives in Parliament, let us think of this. Whatever else they may have done, or left undone, they have never yet made the New Zealand Parliament be pointed at with the finger of scorn. Pollex.