CALAMO CURRENTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7270, 7 March 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

CALAMO CURRENTE.

HERE seems to be aome misunderstanding— {f we may judge from the tone of much that Jβ being said and written by many persons, including "the most distinguished man of letters who has ever visited this colony"— about the attitude which the Australian Colonies have taken up in regard to German annexation in New Guinea and other places in the South Pacific. It is supposed that the Australians are putting forward a claim that nobody bat themselves has any right to annex within that region. As a matter of fact, the Australian Ministries have never eaid anything of the sort. What they do say is, that their interests have been seriously neglected by the Colonial Office. The colonies concede to the Home Government the control of their foreign policy on tho condition that their interests abroad shall be as jealously guarded as are thoee of England itself. As long ago as the beginning of ISS3 they made representations to Lord Derby that the occupation of New Guinea was of the first importance to themselves; it was a field from which labour could be drawn, it was capable of being made ia time tropical dependency of Australia, and its occupation by another Power would entail on Australia a foreign policy, with its accompaniments of a standing army and a fleet. On these grounds they demanded that Great Britain should keep all other Powers away by at once annexing the island. Lord Derby, ja July, ISS3, definitely stated in Parliament that " the Government would undoubtedly not view it as a friendly act if any other country attempted to make a settlement on the coast of Guinea." The colonies accepted this as an assurance that their interests would be properly looked after by Lord Derby, and that their fears on this Bubject were ungrounded. Their fears, it now appears, were not ungrounded, and theninterests have not been attended to. It ia only natural, therefore, that they should feel some anger, and, feeling it, it is only proper that they should express it in plain terms. The fsct that Lord Derby will never again havo the chance of mismanaging the Colonial Office is no consolation to the colonies. They seem determined that they will not submit topreseut arrangements in the Pacific ; and, if diplomacy- can effect nothing in the way of mending matters, it is not impossible that the Germans may bring with themtols'ew Guinea the materials {or an Australian war.

"Whether the Liberals come back to office In the new Parliameut or not, it seems to be generally understood that Lord Derby's days of power are at an end. The English newspapers which have been the strongest and moat consistent supporters of Air. Glad_tone's Government have for some time past been openly urging that Lord Derby ought to resign. It is not a very glorious ending to a political career. He held office under the Conservatives, and deeerted them at the crisis of their fortunes, as his ancestor deserted Kichard on Boaworth Field. He has held office under the Liberals, aud now, in his turn, he is deserted by them. He is the one man in the front rank of English politicians who has no friends. Even his own tenants, it is said, are waiting for the day when his title and vast estates will pass into the hands of Colonel Stanley, the Minister for War in the last Conservative Government.

That some few men would ridicule, even if they could do nothing to prevent, the offer and the despatch of troops from the colonies for service in the Soudan was nothing more than might have been expected. " Why should Australia send men away from its shores ?" they say ; " it wants all the men it can get, and more than it can get. Let countries that are overstocked with men provide troops !" This would be all very well if Australia were nothing more than an independent country — friendly and welldieposed towards England ; but it ia something more than this. When Australian troops fight for England, then —so far as Australia is concerned —the federation of the Empire is an accoirplished fact, and Australia is as much an integral portion of the Empire as is Scotland or Wales. The formalities of union may be delayed, but no amount of delay can seriously affect or modify the truth that is implied in the fact of national responsibilities shared in common and the burden of a war divided between two peoples.

To eay, then, that because Australia is not overfull of men, it ought not to provide troops, is as who should say that recruits ought not to be taken from the manufacturing towns of England where their loss will be felt, but only from the surplus population of overcrowded cities. Be that as it may, the expedition has set out and is now on its Kay to Egypt. Six or eight hundred men may not be a very large force, but it is something, and it has in it the promise and potency of greater things. " The colonies feel in all their veins the vigour of youth," imd they are now about to show the world for the first time that they are a power with which the statesmen of the future will have to reckon, and which they will be compelled to respect. They are about to give fresh proof of I;he old truth that it is by the young that the world has been made.

After all the noise and turmoil there has fceen, after all this ill-feeling and reckless reCrimination to which a long suffering public has been treated, it turns out that the hospital ia in a condition as near perfection as can well be expected in such a place managed on such principles. At any rate, this is the verdict of Dr. Grabham —a man who certainly ought to know what he is talking about. It is a suitably lucidrous ending to a business that has never been anything but ludicrous throughout. Not the least amusing part of the whole thing is the Parthian shot of the " poor helpless patient" at whose word all the stormy wind, which is now subsiding, first arose. He received but a short shrift at the hands of the Inspector, it is true, but he Beems to have found an opportunity to tell Dr. Grabham that in his opinion the blarr e ought to be divided equally between the House Surgeon and— the committee! This, Barely, is the most unkindest cut of all. After they had done bo much, and so foolishly, at hie bidding, to be turned round upon like this ! Was ever ingratitude so base ? At the same time it is probably about the truest word he baa jet said upon the subject, and few will be found to say anything else than that it serves the committee right for having permitted themselves to have anything to do with such a man. And what, exactly, is the position in which the committee now fiiid themselves 1

Peace having been restored here for a time, it becomes necessary to look abroad for amusement of a similar character. The nearest place, as far as is at present known, at which Hospital brawling is going on is Wellington. There, the combatants at present engaged are the House Surgeon and a certain Dr. Fell. The committee very wisely are leaving them to fight it out for themselves, and this they are doing to the best of their powers by means of a newspaper war. So far, it must be confessed, Dr. Feil seems to have got the beat of it. His letters are much more amusing than those of his antagonist. They have the further advantage of being better written. But Dr. Fell is fighting at an advantage, he is, though a young man, one who has seen men and things in a city which teaches its children many useful lessons. Of these, one i» that in controversy the man who can keep bis temper is most likely to win.

The determination of the Government to have nothing to do with these disturbances Jannot be too much applauded, nor themselves too warmly congratulated on the decision which they have formed. They, at all events, seem to possess in some measure that reetraining grace of common sense which has been said to be the distinguishing mark of &11 valid minds.

The Parliamentary Union seems to be in a parlous condition. Those who know most about it are in despair of its life, and believe that its doom is already sealed. It is a touching spectacle. With a constitution never very healthy or strong, instead of husbanding its powers, and, if poseible, increasing them by a diet of good homely and nourishing food, it has squandered its little energies in the pursuit of frivolous amusements and the eearch for every silly vanity that came Within its reach. General debility was the natural and inevitable result. This has now determined in lethargy, and the time of its fiiesolution is at hand. In other words, the parliamentary Union has been a farce from the beginning ; a harmless farce, but a farce *U the same. If it had been content with

baing a debating society for the discussion of such subjects as are of interest to every intelligent mind, it might have grown strong and prospered. It might even have become a power in the community, certainly it must have done an immense amount of good. Eut instead of this, all that its members seem to have thought about was, how they could best play at Parliament, and imitate its formalities and ahows, making copies of things which themselves are ac best only copie3 of real thiDgs. This is an amusement suitable enough for children, but it is one that is unbecoming in, and soon palls upon, grown up men ; and the members of the Parliamentary Union were grown-up men. They are now tired of their toy, and they are about to throw it away. For their own sakes let us hope that they will soon forget that they ever possessed it.

Out of absurdity, however, as out of evil, good sometimes comes. There «vere some few members of the Union who wished and did their beet to make the thing not a Punch and Judy show, but a school of philosophical debate. Among these men there is one who haa had a large and varied experience of Auckland debating societies from the beginning. This man, as all his friends will testify, not only remembers all he has ever known, but also has the talent of writing what he knows in a dramatic and historical—not to say a romantic—manner. It may now be announced that he has been prevailed upon to write the history of debating societies in Auckland, and of tho men who took part in them. It will form, it may be added, one instalment of a yet larger work to be entitled "Personal Recollections of Men and Things in Auckland from the Earliest Times."

Yes, dear friend, " the age of her robust manhood " was something of a " bull." But aliquando bonus —of that, however, more anon. What is meant is that everybody makes mistakes, sometimes. And it is generally in that sort of writing. It only shows how careful a man ought to be when he attempts the sentimental or the grandiose style. It is almost sure to lead him into some impropriety of speech. More care shall be taken for the future.

Speaking of " bulls " calls to mind a story which an Irish friend told at dinner the other day, of a conversation which he overheard some time ago between two tenant farmers in Kenmare, one of whom had just got the worst of it in a suit against his landlord. "But won't ye appale?" asked his friend. " No," replied the unsuccessful litigant, " I'll lave him to God Almighty, and he'll surely play the divil with him." There was an account given, too, of a case that appeared before the Land Commissioners in another county where the tenant of a few acres of swamp land gave his evidence in the following manner:—" I have rayalised siven childhren, and if I was to rayalise siven more, I wouldn't wish one of them te imbibe an acre of land." Later on, he reverted to the same metaphor, and remarked that it was "bad weather for them tli3t were immersed in land." Index.