CALAMO CURRENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7258, 21 February 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

CALAMO CURRENTS.

It is no use attempting to disguise the fact that, whatever his other talents may be, Sir Julius Vogel is not an orator. Even if he had no other qualifications, he is too laboriously and hopelessly proey for anybody to listen to him with any degree of satisfaction and pleasure. For all that, he succended on Tuesday not only in gathering a large audience, but in obtaining a patient and favourable bearing. The event was a conclusive answer to the statement that is now-a-days bo often repeated, that no man can hope to eucceed in politics who is not a good speaker. Regarded in this light, Sir Julius Vogel's success the other night is a phenomenon worth attending to. How and by what means was it achieved ? The anewer must be that it was by judgment and good management. The audience was decidedly against him at first; indeed, it was for some time doubtful whether the meeting was not about to end in uproar and confusion. The speaker, however, with a rapidity of discernment that doeshiminfinitecredit, sawthat he had made a mistake, and he at once set to work to rectify it. He had forgotten to flatter his audience. What he had forgotten at first, however, he very soon more than made up for. He " buttered" Sir G. Grey liberally, and the house, of course, shouted with delight. Hβ " battered " his audience more liberally still, and the emile of satisfied vanity which settled on their faces told also that the question of his favourable hearing was there and then decided. It was at this point that those who went to the meeting in hope of seeing some fun ought to have left the house.

Sir Julius's flattery was of the sort to which we are now thoroughly accustomed. He told them that theirs was a beautiful and prosperous city, and, while hardly daring—though it must have been hard to resist the temptation—to say that he thought it would grow yet more beautiful in the future, he prophesied bravely enough that it would become ever so much more prosperous. The rest of the speech was of a piece with this beginning. It was to say that the industries and interests of the North were the most important things in the colony, and what the speaker had nearest his heart. Beyond this, it contained nothing that everybody did not know perfectly well except, perhaps, that negotiations were being earned, on with a view to continuing the San Francisco service. All this is, of course, very well in its way, but it suggests some reflections that are not all pieasant. They can, perhaps, be beet described, as Sir Julius himself would say, by means of a metaphor. Well then, everybody has seen a colley dog managing a flock of sheep. It is the triumph of trained intelligence over silliness and stupidity. In this case Sir Julius Vogel was the colley dog, and his audience the sheep. That it was the same mob which has so often been driven, to its own unbounded satisfaction, along the quite different and opposite path of sentimental radicalism adds to, rather than weakens, the propriety of the metaphor. After this, who will dare any longer to entertain any doubts about the in- . telligence of the masses ?

The acceptance of the offer of Australian troops for service in the Soudan is an event that will be remembered in colonial history. It is an event also of which it is not easy to realise at once the full significance. For one thing, however, it will probably serve to increaie the jealousy and fear with which England is regarded by the Continental Powers of Europe; for it cannot very well be a matter of indifference to them to find that England, in the event of war, can now count upon the material support of large colonies with vast and rapidly increasing resources. It will aleo be a link between the colonies and the home country not easy to be broken. If Australia fights, and gives the blood of her youth for the Empire, she thereby makes good her claim to a share in the interests and glory of the Empire. It presents, indeed, a new aspect of the ques- | tion of federation; oj, to epeak more exactly, it is a pledge and guarantee that federation is already brought to pus. As an oath adds nothing to an obligation, so neither does a written treaty create or strengthen an alliance. There may be a Federation Bill, then, or there may not, but the country whose troops fight Bide by side with those of England is, in virtue of that fact, already an integral portion of the Britieh Empire.

That Indian troops should be employed outside of Asia will probably seem a little strange to those admirers of Mr. Gladstone who remember with what bitterness he, together with other Liberals, attacked Lord Beaconsfield a few years ago for his action in moving Indian troops to Malta. But, after all, there is no real cause for surprise. Mr. Gladstone is, doubtless, the grand old man, but he is also a politician, and he does what other politicians do. That is to say, he abuses and reviles his opponents, not necesearily because what they are doing is wrong in itself, but because they are in an office which he want* to have himself, or are trying to tarn him out of the office which he holds. In polities also, as in religion, men build the tombs of the prophets whom themselves or their fathers once stoned.

There is some reason for thinking that things would get on much better and mors smoothly, both in national and in parochial politics, if men would only admit the fact that in entering public life, as it is called, they do so chiefly, if not solely, from selfish motives, and for personal ends. That it is a fact that no man ever entered, or continued io, politics merely for the good of his country or his town, nobody has ever been known to doubt. The notion of disinterested action in these things is, no doubt, a pleasing fiction in its way, but it will not bear scrutiny. Why, then, should not that which is secretly known and admitted by everybody be ope'nly acknowledged as a principle of public conduct ? Is it that men are more afraid of the name of a thing than of the thing itself ?

The report of the last meeting of the Hospital Committee fully justifies the opinion, which many people are now beginning to hold, chat the most amusing, or, at any rate, the most ridiculous things that appear in the newspapers are the accounts of what takes place at the meeting of some of our public bodies. At last Monday's meeting the committee of the Hospital seem to have surpassed all their previous performances. It will be remembered that, a week before, it had been resolved to ask the Bouse Surgeon to send in his resignation. The reason for asking him to do this was, not that there was any reason to doubt his ability or zeal, but that he had treated a patient at the Hospital with marked cruelty. ' At this meeting, however, they seem to have discovered quite a different set of reasons. Thus, one member thought the fact of Dr. Bond appealing directly to the persons by whom he was appointed, who alone have the power of dismissing him, was quite enough proof that he was "inefficient." Another member found another road to the same end, in the fact that Dr. Bund had put a patient under chloroform without any other medical man being present; and yet another member based his action, not on Smith's case at all (which, however, was the only thing under consideration at the time, and the only reason given for asking him to resign), but on the general conduct of the Hospital." *The "poor, helpless patient," Smith, of course came in for. his share of the discussion, and, of course, led to a conflict of opinion among the committee. One thought him a "clever, smart fellow," while another, with grim humour, remarked that "he could hardly move for fat." The exact relation between cleverness and obesity is an interesting question, but somewhat too abstruse for casual discussion. It must, therefore, be passed over for the present. After some further discussion, in which Mr. Clark, at all events, showed his good sense by the remark that Dr. Richa-deon's letter showed a good deal of animus, and that their treatment of the House Surgeon had been too haity and harsb, the meeting came to an end—not, however, before it had been made perfectly clear that a majority of the committee were of opinion that a mistake had been made in asking the House Sureeon to resign. What then are the bewildered Government to do? io ignore the official suggestion that the House Surgeon «hould resign, and so to treat the committee with disrespect? or, to comply with their suggestion, and request him to resign, only m order that they too sult&» *l °PP? rtunit y. » week later, of Stttlhfymg theauelvee, by faying that they

didn't mean it, and that he needn't reaign if he doesn't want to ?

In one of Tenniel'e cleverest cartoons Mr. Gladstone is represented as looking on at a pioture of Irish terrorism, and saying that '* if this sort of thing goes on much longer, we shall really have to think of doing something." A very fair companion picture might be drawn of the Hospital Committee, defied by the House Surgeon, called to order by the Visiting Staff, and snubbed by the Government, saying to themselves that " if this sort of humiliation goes on much longer, we shall really have to begin to think about resigning." Something of the sort seems already to have entered the mindi of eome members of the committee; but it is sincerely to be hoped that the thought has perished at its birth. Far better for them is that "Mingled sentiment, 'twixt resignation and content," of which the poet somewhere sings. What on earth would be done if they did resign ? It is quite certain that nobody else would consent to take their places on the same terms. Out of forty thousand people in this city, there was not one who would come forward the other day, when the nomination of members was made, or who showed the least desire to have anything whatever to do with the management of the Hospital.

The philosophy of resignation, aa everybody knows, is the subject of a lost book of one of the most famous of the Greek philosphers. By reiiignation is meant, not that act or habit of the mind by which a man patiently endures the evils of ad verse fortune —suoh as the lose of his money, the death or desertion of friends, the wearisome monotony of nearly all social amusements, or the inopportune endearments of his wife— but that act by which he gives up and ceases to fulfil the duties of "an office to which he has been appointed. The philosopher goes on, in his usual manner, to divide and break up the subject, showing that all resignations are either actual or potential, and these, again, voluntary or compulsory, and so on. It is not intended now to enter into the details of this enquiry, but only to say that it forms an interesting comment on some events that have recently occurred in our own community. Thus the philosopher writee that " There is also the peevish man, who resigns office 'in a pet, , as they say, like an over-grown spoilt child, because he cannot have everything exactly his own way'' —was there not something like this at a recent meetiDg of the Board of Education ?— " and the self-satisfied man, who, thinking himself to be the inau best fitted to manage great affairs, but finding that others are not of the same opinion, is not content with losing the office he coveted, but resigns also the smaller office for which he is fairly well fitted." But in the case of these men, he goes on to say, Hl. often happens that their very faults save $iem. Their good opinion of themselves, coming to the rescue, leads them to withdraw their resignation, or to ignore it, as though it had never been made. There are others again, who, misled by a spurious kind of patriotism, will never resign office if they can help it, thinking that if they were to withdraw from public life the state would have no other servants so well qualified to do its work. In this there is something for ourselves. It is quite certain that there are many hundreds of men in the community fully qualified to fulfil properly the duties of any public office. These men ought to be compelled to serve the community, and, as a preliminary step towards so desirable an end, it ought to be made a law that no man shall hold tho same office for more than a year at a time, and that at the end of his year he be disqualified from holding office again for a period—seven or ten years or whatever it may be. This would be a democracy. At present we live under a Government of—but it is perhaps better not to speak evil of dignities.

Whatever the acting in " Forget me Not" and "The Queen's Favourite" may have been, it was all as child's play compared with " Mammon." The second act in that play is something that has never been seen before on an Auckland stage, and, unless the future is very different from the past, may never be seen again. It stands by itself, and is unique in its power. " Mammon "is played again to-night for the last time, unless Miss Ward will condescend to notice what is said in this column, and accept the suggestion to play it again, instead of "Forget me Not next week. However, there is, at any rate, one more opportunity to-night. Let those who know what acting is, then, and care for it, eeizo the opportunity and see " Mammon " before it is too late.

It is always pleasant to hear of the success or the promotion of one's friends. The friend this time is bo less a person than Prince Hassan. The writer used to have the pleasure of knowing him in another country. His intimacy, indeed, was so close that he once actually went to a ball with him. In the course of the evening the lady of the house (who had several very beautiful and marriageable daughters) came up and, in a most seductive manner, entreated the Prince to enjoy himself and join in the dance. " There arc many beautiful women who would like to dance with you, Prince; there is—well, may I present you to my daughter?" "That is most kind of you, madam," he replied. Then, turning to the daughter, he went on: " Your mother has given me her gracious permission; I have the honour to ask you if you will not dance before me ?" And this man is now to be Governor of the Soudan; while the writer is—well, for the present, he is Index.