ON THINGS IN GENERAL

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11373, 16 May 1900, Page 3

ON THINGS IN GENERAL

REPEATING ITSELF. „■ eff women are continually telling us -' ' fif they once got hold of the political ' r which has in the past been wielded T men we would soon have a perfect State. 5 1 people seem to think that the women's 7 ard movement is an entirely new thing, • A that, therefore, it is no use looking back >* history to see how similar experiments f v ° e turned out in the past. But there is ■ ffcin? new under the sun. In his " Creek - ?U Sought" Mr. Mahaffy tells us lint in ancient Ep JT <; the women had legal Enendence and freedom. Even a married 1 In made contracts in her own name, : Slpertv, and did all legal acts without , Scioto her husband. In fact, so su- :'''-'' rpmewas the P osltlon of the Egyptian ' /men 1 that.it was not an extraordinary tPfiS for '■<■ man to settle all his property, t: rjySjj and prospective, on his wife, with '! " ; " : TheVnly condition that she would support | ; lira while he lived, and give him a decent '"'■'' 1 eral No '" on( ' ,;r tno Greeks jeered at i '-' ;{J. Egyptian men, who, the.v said, followed Lales employments, while the women peri formed the graver duties of the other sex. X Yet women rights did not save old Egypt, ' !- • d lam afraid things would not be wonderi fully improved in New Zealand, if, in addi- ! tion to voting at Parliamentary elections. : !' the women were allowed to sit on juries and ■■{'-:Jut the magic letters M.H.R. after their j " DalDe3 WOMEN AND WAR. I ; The resolution passed by the Women's =! National Council regarding war is, when •;.'. closely examined, merely words. The mar- ''."..; {iil f spirit-, properlv directed and controlled, •':'; ' 'not a thing' to be deplored. _As things i are a nation cannot maintain its indepen- :| dence without it. The resolution also states that the difficulties between nations are al- '■}■-. ' vm '- capable' of peaceful settlement if ?■■'■ mediatory methods be employed in time. ■ But, supposing one party rejects mediatory •■■ methods with scorn, and sends an army into '>■ '■■■ another nation's territory ? What then '/ i.; .of course, if nations would only always do what is right, and never provoke one another, there would bo no more war. /The- - resolution also speaks of a Court of Arbitration, the women apparently forgetting v: that the celebrated Hague Peace Conference, ' which debated this proposal, nearly precipi- ; i tated a European war. How could Britain help going to war in the present case? A lifelong advocate of peace has admitted that "'-'•' •! the war was necessary, as "not only our para- ■ -^inonnt authority in South Africa," but "our fitness to inspire and guide the life of Greater ''Britain" is at stake. In disparaging the ' martial spirit, the Women's Council seem to make the mistake of thinking that war is - 'merely bloodshed. On this point the words ' of Frederick W. Robertson are well worth r pondering:—"Men will ever distinguish war from mere bloodshed. Carnage is terrible. Death—and reeking hospitals, and ' ■ ruined commerce, and violated homes, and broken hearts—they are all awful. But there is something worse than death. Cowardice is worse. And the decay of enthusiasm and manliness is worse. And ■J\i is worse than death, aye, worse than a hundred thousand deaths, when a people has gravitated down into the creed that the ■ health of nations' consists not in generous iearte— national virtues preference ' *l duty to life ; not in men. but in silk and cotton, and something that they call 'capi- - ft], 1 When war is not prolonged, tho ' kindlinc of all the higher passions prevents tie access of the baser ones. _ A nation ■'■'•■ srht and severed by mean religious and political dissensions suddenly feels its unity, ■ 'and men's hearts beat Together at the mere \ possibility of invasion."

;J BRITANNIA'S PICCANINNY. ''■ I see Britain is going to give Natal financial assistance to enable the plucky little colony to tide over the war. and after the war is over the Motherland is going to see that the Natal loyalists are to be compensated out of the indemnity. No one will begrudge Natal such help, for she is the baby of the Empire, Britannia's piccaninny, as the has been called—

- She's tho smallest, of the children . In the dear Old Lady's shoe. ->: And yet the lass has shown the rest ; The sort of thin? to do ; * For while they have been waiting, . Why, she's knocked things into shape, . And shamed Miss Wacht-en-Beetjo And her corisins at the Capo.

' She's Britannia's Piccani'.iny: .: If she isn't very hi?, , ■. She's a Daughter of the Empire, So she doesn't care a fig. ' Tho' she's landed in the front of jt— And bound to bear the brunt of it; • •-' The grim and grisly brunt of it ! MUNICIPALISATION.

1 The news that the City Council of Welling.ton lias resolved on the purchase of the Wellington tramways and to take control of the electric lighting reminds us once more that in the matter of municipal activity we are not only far behind the ape. but behind our immediate neighbours. It would be difficult to find anywhere a municipal corporation which has lost grip of the public services in the community it serves to a greater extent than haS the Auckland City Council. In these days all co-ahead municipal bodies are municipalising the monopolies, and working them in the public interest, and unless Auckland is to repeat the experience of some American cities, and become a community over-ridden by trusts, our civic fathers will have to be more watchful than has been their Wont. In Auckland we don't even sweep the streets ; we must let the job by contract. True, we have control of the water, but it is the only monopoly which we really do control, and' we have made such a sorry mess of its administration that we are slow to tackle anything else. Councillor Entrican is moving in the direction in urging the Council to undertake the removal of refuse and rate for the service, and the Conntil and citizens should be on the watch for wry opportunity to get rid of the middleman where there is no room for fair and open competition. The Glasgow City Council has the reputation of being the most up-to-date, corporation in the world ; it has earned this reputation, first, by securing control of the services which pav, and, second, by using the profits to give the citizens the benefit of needful services which, rathe nature of things, do not pay. We 'are a long way behind, but we might make a tot,

;> ' POETRY V. FACT. .■'.''. When we read of nature being "red in . tooth and claw with ravine" we are at first inclined to shudder at, the thought of the in- /■ tense suffering the poor animals must underV go) but the picture is, to a very large ex- ', tent, merely poetic imagination, as a corV respondent'of the Herald pointed out a few •":' W ago. The facts are very different, "0 less a person than J. S. Mill was mislead bv outward appearances, and it has been .aid that "his famous indictment of nature '■.'.'• J'. one .of the most emotional pieces of rher .' toric of which a professed logician was ever . ::'■ ■■■ guilty." Instead of this awful picture of ;■" suffering, the probabilities are that most • - ( animals live happy lives, terminated by the '."/. Safest and least? painful of deaths. The ,'• Masts have more reason to pity our suffer- .: ' f;s that we have to pitv theirs.' That won- ' orous power of looking before and after, ..which causes so much misery among men, ■j 8 probably almost entirely absent from the , •; lo, J'. r animals. * The phenomena of fascination shows that these violent deaths , : anwn the animals, which at first sight seem ■-. »> shocking, are as a rule painless and easy. v ■ J;'' Mvinjstoiit's experience in the lion's ,;., Pout], hears this out. He says:-"The M «k produced a stupor similar to that which |p «f.«s to be felt, by a mouse after the first §j'■■.,. J take ,of the cat: It caused a sort of OTC/tmincss in which there was no sense of :.,/Pain or feeling of terror, though I was quite W§ •??»? of all' that was happening. It :,« like what patients partially under the ;.. Alienee of chloroform describe, who see , ." tile operation, but feel not the knife. ' '• alio V '' , ' le ' shn ke annihilated fear, and IHlit fk i. no ' PIISO of !l " n-nr in looking round Um beast," I see a correspondent of the ttjSJS 3 UotM a horrible " ml wit tooth r:-,.11.p aw T Passage from a work by the late 1 " fair * Romanes. It is, however, only " ■ i *Wi. ,tale m this was written in 1878 ' statl Was l )lfi ared 1" call in question the !-: >'■ 0 { n™ 0 " 1 that beneficence was an attribute •' view. , ToH ' ar ds the close of his life his WnV-u dcnvent a great change, and his «&&« * Gore - Suva be felt the difficulties ligßrntliecnietly of nature less. His Ujiff Bbort "lien lie was writing a CfcHrtE'v? ' was Poetically a defence of bl"'V' and there can be no doubt but tertd! nk W& to modify his previous as- . /or iV'? r , (lil1 « the sufferings of animals, W^'Bta Uoall, with the Christian theory M "T i?- ing " llc adds a 'note stating . 101 tmioiing in brutes see further on. ,

but, unfortunately, , 6 did . not live sufficiently further on' to deal with this subject A? anyrate, animals have the best of man in many ways. They don't regret the ™,fc nor do they worry over the future 3R have no need to worry much a , Joufc 1° to animals in a state of nature. They pSffi suffer far more at the hand, of ffijS fortunate horse who has to work da? afto S -lldayw,ha_ u^ _ -IHE GENERAL.