NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10410, 7 April 1897, Page 5

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A BEOENT cable message stated that the British Government were parleying with tbt Powers with tho object of bringing ,boat a conference on the question of the treatment of the native races in Africa. It is alleged that the Chartered Company, iu its eagerness to supply labour to the gold mines, has been guilty of cruel and oppressive conduct towards the natives, gome evidence on this head will be found in , pamphlet entitled " Matabeleland and the Chartered Company," written by a Mr, Fox Bourne, Iftbofactsgiveninchispamphletare correctly stated— pamphlet, it may be mentioned, chiefly consists of quotations from Blue-books, official reports of the company's officers, and extracts from newspapers published in Rhodesia— would appear that the Chartered Company has practically created a eystem of forced labour. In other words (says the Spectator in referring to this subject) while we have been boasting, and rightly boastine, that we have abolished the corvee in Egypt, we, or rather our agents behind our backs, have been setting'up a now corvee at the other end of Africa. In our simplicity we had always imagined when we read about Native Commissioners that these persons were occupied in the work of protecting the natives, and in seeing that they were not unfairly or oppreslively treated. If, however, the pamphlet before us is to be trusted, the Native Commissioners Lave instead been used first to

whip up black labour for the mine!, and next to keep thorn at work when once engaged. Take the following extract, describing the work of the Native Commis(toners, which, according to the pamphlet, appeared in the Buluwayo Chronicle on February 22nd, 1896: — The Native Commissioners have done good work ill procuring native labour. During the months of October, November, and December they supplied to (lie mining and other industries in Matabeleland no less than 9000 boys. The moment labour deserters are reported, the Commissioner sends the native police in pursuit, and a message is despatched to the kraal of the offender, informing the induna of his desertion. The difficulty in capturing the deserter is added to by the fact that he seldom returns direct to his kraal, being far more likely to go for a time to a distant part of the country," A letter from Chief Native Commissioner Taylor to the Buluwayo Chamber of Mines, read at its meeting on February 27th, 1896, may be compared with this statement. " The number of. natives supplied for labour to the mines and for other purposes from the different districts in Matabeleland," he wrote, "totals 9102. It is estimated that the approximate number of boys who have not been supplied by the Native Department, but who have gone voluntarily to work, is 4500." The contrast thus made between the boys supplied by the Department and those " who have gone voluntarily to work," is most significant.

In an article on literary statesmen, suggested by tho retirement of Sir Georgo Trevelyan from public life, an English contemporary remarks that it often wonders why the political fever so frequently seems to take a strong hold of men who have been early inoculated with what should be the protection—what doctors call the prophylacticof a literary genius. We suppose it must be that, in England especially, the universal admiration for the life of action is so contagious and so enthralling that it perverts oven tho imaginations of men who were meant to cultivate the gifts which bestow a literary vision—a vision rarely if ever compatible to the fullest extent with a life of perturbation and hurry, and wore or less precipitate judgment. In England nt least, in is comparatively a very rare thing for a really great literary man to achieve a great- political career. Of course, Sir George Trevelyan's uncle, Lord Macaulay, who was a very great literary man, achieved a brilliant Parliamentary reputation, though not exactly the name of » great statesman; and Mr. Disraeli achieved a political career much greater than that which he could ever have attained by his rather moderate literary gifts alone. But if one runs over the political story of the last century we can place the linger on no other figure which has been really great in both departments. Burke, Pitt, Fox, Sir Robert Peel, Canning, Charles Earl Grey, Lord Althorp,- Lordj Melbourne, Lord John Russell, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Lord Palmerston, Lord Derby, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, none of these have yet achieved the double reputation in any unquestionable shape. Burke was never a great statesman, though his was one of the very greatest names in political literature. Canning wrote some of the most brilliant squibs in our language, but hardly left a literary name. The most memorable of our statesmen cannot claim 4 high place in pure literature at all. Pitt, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Althorp, Lord Melbourne, Lord John Russell, Lord PalmerstoD, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, have almost as little claim to a purely literary reputation as Lord Aberdeen of 1853. Lord Beaconsfield, so far as we can see, remains the only conspicuous statesman who, without his literary talent, would

| never hare attained the front rank, and yet ?■: . could never have attained that rank by 4, virtue of his not very great literary genius M alone. His tenacity, audacity, and politics cal imagination carried him to the top, but M without a considerable fertility in epigram ' and literary invention, that tenacity, audai's' city, and political imagination would never S"ijf have created for themselves the chance to Jain fall recognition in the political world.

In view of current events in a Eastern Europe a glance may be taken at the fUI PMent: strength and condition of the Greek army, which his recootlj ban

noticed at some length in the German military papers. It Will not be out of place to recall the fact that last December

the Kim; sent'' a special message to his Prime Minister dwelling on the necessity of reorganising the army. With that object the King proposed the formation of a permanent camp near Thebes, and the calling out of the reserves, so that an army of 12,000 men, efficient in all particulars, might be ready to take the field at a moment's notice. The King's message concluded as follows:— " I hope that these measures will enable us to attain the object pursued during so many years while the Hellenic army has been diverted from its principal aim, I feel the need of recalling it to the only occupation worthy of its mission. The realisation of my strongest desire, which is the constitution of an army worthy of its mission, will be inaugurated by the establishment of a permanent camp, which I confide to the care of my Government." One deduction may be safely drawn from that message. The military position of Greece was not satisfactory in the eyes of its sovereign

last December, and it is quite impossible for it to have mads much real progress in the brief interval.

The nominal peace strength of the Greek army is set down at 30,000 men, and it has been assumed on the faith of official returns that it could be increased on the outbreak of hostilities to 80,000 men, while the reserve numbers another 100,000 men. Some years ago the peace strength was reduced to 27,000 from motives of economy, and on examination it would be found that these totals give an exaggerated view of Greece's military strength. The permanent force is divided into 27 infantry and nine Jager battalions, three cavalry regiments of four squadrons each, eight field, eight

mountain, and four garrison batteries, and three engineer battalions. As the troops are only armed with Gras and Chassepot rifles —of which there is a grand total of less than 100,000 in store and in the hands of the troops—they would be at a disadvantage when pitted against troops armed with magazine rifles ; but the artillery consists of Krupp breechloaders, and there is a very large supply of

cartridgos in the arsenals. The weak point of the Greek army is the reserve, tho

greater part of which is practically untrained, for the period of 40 days' training every two years is purely nominal, and has

never been strictly enforced. It is bolieved that two-thirds of tho reserve have never been trained at all. The establish'

ment of a permanent camp at Thebes was intended as a first step towards the more

efficient training of the reserve, but sufficient time has nob elapsed to give the experiment a fair trial. The kingdom is divided into three military districts

Larissa, Misiolonghi, and Athens, Four infantry battalions, one cavalry regiment, and the bulk of the artillery are quartered at Athens. There is an equally strong garrison at Larissa, but with those exceptions the regiments are usually quartered in single stations. The deficiencies of tho

•reek army come under the heads of

armament, mobility, and an untrained reserve. For defensive operations they would prove less glaring than if tho army wero subjected to the strain of an offensive campaign beyond Greek territory.

| The Powers have decided that a Christian governor shall be appointed for Crete. Both Greece and Turkey have been warned by the Powers that in the ovent of their going to war the aggrossor will not bo allowed tho smallest advantage. Efforts are being made to obtain a fast Atlantic service between England and Canada. The Imporial

Government are being asked to subsidieo the service, The notorious Butler is on board the Mariposa which has left San

rancisco for Sydney. He has acknow-

ledged having killed Preston, and accounts for the death of Captain Lee Welter by saying ho committed suicide on account of grief for the death of his wife. All these

statements-are, however, it may bo reasonably assumed, pure fabrications.