NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11540, 27 November 1900, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The ideas of Dr. Archdale Reid, the distinguished author of " The Present Evolution of Man," under whose leadership a new school has arisen in regard to the drink question, have been much discussed in medical and scientific circles and in reviews, and up to the present time Dr. Reid claims that not only does the scientific basis of his theory remain intact, but that the vast bulk of his opponents, including many medical men, have not touched the real points at issue, and, indeed, display an astonishing ignorance of the real and indisputable advances which medical science 'has steadily made within recent —advances already embodied in medical text books. Dr. Reid holds that the temperance method of eliminating alcohol in Order to eliminate the drunkard is —that it is placing the cart before the horse. He says: —" If the child is prone to drunkenness it is inborn, and not the result of the drinking habits of the parent. And here comes in the question of the transmissibility of acquired characters. I hold, and no proof to the contrary has yet been obtained, that acquired characters are not transmissible. Hence, if you find out the drunkard and prevent his having children you gradually evolve a race ' immune' against alcohol. This should be the aim of temperance reformers. The history of nations in regard to alcohol proves my theory. The most sober nations on earth are those which are surrounded with the facilities for drinking, but which have evolved out of drunkenness into sobriety, the South European nations for instance. The Germans and the Anglo-Saxon race have not yet evolved through natural selection, but the process will be all the quicker if artificial selection, as I have suggested, is brought to the aid of natural selection, Shortly, my argument is, and everyone who has gone thoroughly into the matter agrees with me, that most men are born with a taste for drinkhow and where the taste originated has yet to be found out—that hitherto that taste has been gratified moderately by. some, and immoderately by others, the latter inevitably being ' eliminated, and the

race being the stronger by the process. I propose 'that the drinking shall still be allowed to go on: as, if a child has a proneness to drunkenness, he does not get it as a' result of. his father's drinking it, but because it is an- inborn trait. If his father or mother did not drink, the child would still have that proneness. Drunkards would be found out at once, segregated from alcoholic drink as far as possible, and prevented from adding to the race. Thus an absolutely ' immune' race would be evolved. Otherwise, on the lines of the temperance party, in so far as they advocate the abolition of alcohol, the 1 race would speedily lose its already gained immunity and revert to the position of native races who have no experience of alcohol, and upon whom the effect is immeasurably more destructive in many cases than total annihilation."

Mr. W. S. Lilly, writing in the Fortnightly Review, on , "The Burden of Empire,". concludes a striking article as follows :—"Assuredly, in the present grave crisis of our national history, there is imperative need of men who can, and will, see and act ; or, at the least, of one 'strong man in a . blatant land who can rule and dare not lie.' Without one such man to sustain the burden of Empire, the vast Imperial fabric of British greatness must fall; and great will be the fall of it. As we lo'ok around, we see a throng of weak Parliamentary rhetoricians who dare lie and cannot rule. But that strong manwhere is he ? I suppose—to confine ourselves to the present Government is only one member of it to whom the adjective 'strong ' can be applied without positively inhuman satire. I hold no brief for Mr. Chamberlain, with whom my personal acquantance is of . the slightest, and frcm whom I dare say I should widely differ on many public questions. But what is certain is, that he has eyes of his own which can see, and that he uses them truly to discern facts ; that he has a mind of his own, and knows his own mind ; that he has a will of his own and pursues tenaciously his settled purpose. He is the one man in a Cabinet of d; ift and scuttle who has had a policy and has resolutely ♦"rried it out. He it was. let us remember, who, more than anyone else, broke down Mr. Gladstone's scheme for the dismemberment of the United Kingdom. To him we owe it that Greater Britain has at last realised its unity, and from, a name has become a fact. Does a still more arduous and essential work for the Empire lie before him T

Amongst the Acts of the past session of the Cape Parliament, was one which, for obvious reasons, was passed with a minimum of discussion. It slipped through quietly and without opposition, for although it wa3 a measure necessitated by the troublous events of the past year, it afforded a common ground for agreement amongst all political parties in the Legislature. The grave-side is holy ground, and it was meet that, in regard to the measure whereby provision is made for the care and preservation of those sacred spots, sounds of political strife should be unheard. The Bill was one to provide for " the expropriation of land for the purpose of burial grounds for certain of Her Majesty's Imperial and colonial forces, and certain of the forces belonging to the late Orange Free State and South African Republic, who have died either from wounds or otherwise during the recent campaign in South Africa." Under its provisions the Governor of the colony is empowered to set aside, enclosing, and maintaining as a burial ground any land in which those who have fallen in the war, either from the effects of wounds or otherwise, have been buried, and to set apart such land for that one purpose. The land required is to be secured by expropriation, due compensation being paid to the owners, and the Governor is empowered in cases where there exist no means of public access to acquire and establish a right of way from the nearest and most convenient public road. All land so acquired may be transferred to Her Majesty's Secretary"'of State for War upon payment of such portion of the total cost as may be agreed upon between the colonial and Imperial authorities. The care and maintenance of the burial ground's devolves upon the Government of the colony, who may cause the land so expropriated, "to be enclosed with proper and sufficient walls, rails, or fences, with suitable gates and entrances, and to be maintained, preserved, and kept in a cleanly and orderly condition, and to make rules and regulations in that behalf." Provision is also made for the prosecution and punishment of any person wantonly doing, or causing to be done, damage to monument, vault, tombstone, tree, or shrub belonging to any land so enclosed, the fines accruing from conviction being appropriated to the preservation, maintenance, and improvement of the burial places.

In referring to the above Act the Cape Times says that in passing it Parliament has discharged a national duty. The care and maintenance of the graves of the men on both sides who have fallen in the war is a trust which is rightly undertaken by the community at large. It is one of the sad and sorrowful necessities imposed by the struggle of the past twelve months, and in its faithful discharge men and women, of whatever nationality or political creed, may be expected! to assist. The magnitude of the task thus imposed may be gathered from the returns that are published front time to time of the number of the men— and Britons —who have fallen in the course of the struggle. Several thousands of men have given their lives for their respective causes, and there they lie, out in the cheerless, barren veldt, their last resting-places marked out for the most part by rude cairns of stones hastily thrown together, with nothing to protect them from the depredations of man or beast. The mournful little mounds are scattered over a vast area. The traveller by rail will sec many such painful reminders in the course of a day's journey, though the railway passes within sight of but a small fraction of the whole. It is a blessed comfort that these graves are to be cared for and tended by the State, and the more so by reason of the fact that the State is to be no respecter of persons or races in the discharge of the sacred duty to the heroic dead. Death is the great leveller, and so wherever a grave is found there will the melancholy duty be fulfilled, no matter whether it cover the mortal remains of a burgher of the late Republics, or a Cape Colonist, or a colonist from Australasia, or Canada, or a yeoman from the Mother Conn? try, or a member of Her Majesty's Imperial forces. The same loving care will be bestowed on each and all, regardless whether the mould covers friend or former foe. The action of ■ Parliament will, _we are sure, afford! solid comfort and satisfaction to all whose hearts have been torn by the great events of the past twelve months. It has long been a reproach to the Government of Cape Colony that so little regard has been paid to the last resting places of the men who have fallen in the wars of the past. The frontier districts of the colony are bestrewn by the graves of colonists who in years gone by have died on the field of battle against tie native races, and nothing has been more painful than the official indifference of the State in regard to the care and maintenance of those silent evidences of duty well andl faithfully done. The forlorn graves of soldiers at Pretoria, Bronkhorstspruit, Ingogo, and Majuba, ere likewise

perpetual reminders of our neglect in th« pact. The reproach if. now to be removed, for we may take it that the action of the Cape Parliament is but the beginning of a similar movement to be adopted in Nr.tat, Rhodesia, the Orange River Colony, and the Transvaalwherever men have fallen. j