NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10265, 17 October 1896, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

West Australia presents the spectacle of a colony growing with the speed of an exhalation. The population, says the Review of Reviews, has nearly trebled in six years, and numbers today 130,000, while overy week 750 persons—nearly all of them adult males—the population, that is, of a (lucentsized village— on West Australian soil. The population, it is true, is very illbalanced. There are at least three men to every woman in West Australia, a circumstance which ought to make it a paradise for spinsters. The colony, too, has fewer babies in proportion to its numbers than any other community in the world; a fact which gives it a volume of working power altogether out of proportion to its numbers, But the colony grows in wealth faster even than in population. Its public revenue in 1890 was £414,000 the Budget justs presented to Parliament by Sir John Forrest) shows that/ the rovenuo of last year was £1,858,094. The happy treasurer of West Australia, too, is unable to overtake in his estimates the revenue poured in upon him, and each year receives huge sums beyond his calculations. The process of sponding money is, of course, easy, and, like the lion's part in the' Midsummer Night's Dream,' can be' done extempore.' But West Austin* Han politicians are apparently unable even to spend the revenue flowing into the public treasury, and the colony begins its new financial year with a credit balance of £312,085. The Golden Age, in a very literal sonpe, has arrived in the youngest of Australian colonies; but, as the experience of theoldercolonies proves, this beatific period is of a very transitory quality, and vanishes even more quickly than it appears. At present, however, West Australia fills a very spacious and shining place in tho com' mercial horizon of the colonics. Some of the items which appear in the civic accounts of the London Corporation are quaint in the extreme. For instance, we have 'Ancient salaries of four-ale-conners £40.' One would like to know, remarks the Financial Times, what these gentlemen do in return for their ancient salaries, which are still represented by modern payments. It is more easy to understand the item £23 18s for' Trumpeters attending processions,' and even the item £1 5a for 'Churchwardens, St. Ann's, Blackfrinw, for landing dead bodies found in the River Thames,' can be comprehended, although why the pleasant duty of fishing for dead bodies should devolve upon the churchwardens of St. Ann's is somewhat hard to say. The critical will be more disposed to cavil at the cost of the entertainment to the Shahzada, which ran into £1543 2s lid, and out of which £892 and an odd eighteen pence went in refreshments, ten guineas in toast masters and trumpeters, and £5 19s in gloves. Almost all the- important Royal families of Europe are in some degree or other connected with literature. Her Majesty the Queen has published her diaries. So did the late Duke of Clarence and the Duke of York. The Princess Christian has contributed to the Women's World and other periodicals. King Oscar of Sweden, who is always knocking off some light and airy nothing for the entertainment of hi 3 subjects, is also a contributor to the periodical press of England, An article of his —a study of the career of his predecessor, Charles XV. — was printed not so long ago, in the Nineteenth Century. Tho Revue des Deux Mondes is, howevor, the most successful periodical in the world in obtaining high-class literature from crowned heads, and heads that aro some day likely to be crowned. Queen Elizabeth of Roumania sent tho editor a novel; the late Queen of Holland sent him historical studies revised by Renan ; the Couite de Paris sent him an article on English trado unions; the Due d'Aumale sent him fragments of his forthcoming History of the Condesj Prince Henry of Orleans narrated in bis pages his ndventuros with M Bonvalat in Thibet. The late Mr. J. A. Hartley, InspectorGeneral of State schools in South Australia, appears to have been well beloved beyond most men. While he was lying unconscious between life and doath, the following notice nppoarod as an advertisement in tho public journals:— Minister of Education would be glad if any teacher of the State schools who felt so disponed would, to-day, one minute bofore or oi.e minute after regular school hours, write on the blackboard and permit as many children as are willing to do so to repeat with him these words, or words to a similar effect 1 Our Father which art in Heaven, grant that our dear master and beloved friend, Mr. Hartloy, may be restored to health,'" That advertisement, remarks the Australasian editor of the Review of Reviews, ie, perhaps, Mr, Hartley's best epitaph. An official who could be described as ' our dear master and beloved friend' by the children of a whole colony was evidently a man of a tare and noble typo. But the advertisement is significant on another account. The school system of South Australia, liko that of the other colonies, is austerely secular, lb treats religion as non-existent. On the official theory the South Australian child is a being without a soul, and in no need of morals. A headmaster who dared, say, to repeat the Lord's Prayer with his children would be regarded as little loss than a criminal. Shakes pete's 'one touch of nature,' however, is too much for official thoories, and whon tho figure best known in tho school world of South Australia was lying under thoftshadow of death, even the Minister of Public Instruction forgot his secularism, and in hundreds of State schools throughout tho colony the children, with a strange hush, watched thoir master trace this prayer on the blackboard, and thousands of childish voices murmured its syllables. The prayer, it ia to be noted, was to bo offered 'one minute before or one minute after' regular school hours. The partition, however, has grown thin, when a narrow interval at 'on; minute' separates prayer from the State school course 1

The announcement that the oculists are hopeful 61 preserving the Queen's eyesight) will bo received with general satisfaction throughout the British Empire. It is to bo hoped Her Majesty will make 'a complete and speedy recovery, there aro indications'of the growth ot unfriendly relations between Great Britain and Germany. The Times asserts that the persistent brutal calumnies by the German press may soon convert British support into a fixed dislike. The outlook in India owing to the partial failure of the crops is very seriou?. Widespread distress has already rando its appearance, and energetic local efforts are being made to help the sufferers. The Viceroy expeots the Imperial Government will liberally assist in grappling wi th the distress. As a compliment to the Czar, and in honour of his visit to Franco, President Fame has granted an amnesty to 100 criminals. The Cuban insurgents made an attempt to capture and murder the Spanish commander, but their scheme broke down. Tynan is to be releasad. The French authorities urge that the proof of his connection with the Phcenix Park outrage is weak, and that at anyrate the offence occurred over ten years ago.