Clippings.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 360, 4 January 1879, Page 23

Clippings.

THE CAUCUS SYSTEM. (From the Argus ) The introduction into England of the American caucus system, or rather of secret and irresponsible conventions, for the purpose of " working" elections in the interest of party organisations, is a proceeding which is naturally viewed with aversion and dismay by the best friends of that representative government which it is calculated to subvert. That it should have received the hasty ard inconsiderate approval of some prominent politicians in the mother country is not to be regarded as an argument in its favor. It is, on the contrary, another painful evidence of the fact that public men too frequently succumb to the temptation to subordinate their convictions as statesmen to the temporary exigencies of the party with which they are associated, and to sacrifice the interests of the country to personal ambition. It is a proof, also, that the perversion and deformation of the political institutions of the United States which have resulted from the caucus and the convention, are very imperfectly understood in Great Britain. For if there is one point upon which high-minded Americans of all parties are perfectly agreed, and in which the mo3t respectable and independent reviews, magazines, and newspapers of that country concur, it is in declaring that " the machine," as it is called, is the perennial fountain-head of some of the greatest evils which afflict the nation. Aud the magnitude of these is scarcely susceptible of exaggeration. Some of them were thus enumerated by Mr. David Dudley Field in an article upon " Corruption in Politics," which appeared ia the Intcm-ational Review : " We see 39 states, owing an aggregate of 382,000,Q00d01., and of which eight pay neither principal nor interest; we see counties, cities, and townships overwhelmed with debt; and all the while these various Governments —federal, state, and municipal—take from our people in taxes more than any Government of Christendom takes from its people. We see offices which it is the function of the President to fill, and which it is his plain duty to fill with the truest and beat, farmed out to senators and representatives in Congress. We see offices claimed and bestowed not for merit, but for party work, and, as a natural consequence, we see the public service inefficient and disordered. We see venal Legislatures and executive officers receiving gifts. We see the most depraved and least responsible newspaper Press in all the world. We see a Customs tariff which taxes 502 imported articles, and 972 different grades of these articles, some of them to the extent of 100 per cent, of their value, while the tariff of England taxes only 17, and the tariff of Germany 152, arranged in 37 classes. " We see depreciated paper money forced upon creditors who contracted for coin, and swaying prices back aud forth like the swing of a weaver's shuttle. We see a commerce which once covered the seas now so diminished that in this present year the tonnage of our se»-goi«g steamers is 289,000, while that of

England is 3,33:2,000. Fifteen years ago we were advancing with the stride of a giant to the dominion of the seas; to-day the trident is in other hands." The Hon. Carl Schurz, a member of President Hayes' Cabinet, told the Senate that there was nothing resembling the depravity and corruption of political life in America in any other civilised country in the world, that the great agency of demoralisation was the caucus system, and that, unless it were destroyed, republican institutions would run the risk of perishing of the dry rot. And another distinguished politician has described how, when a convention has been organised by fraud, it is " surrounded by an armed mob of bruisers and ballot-box stuffers, with a hireling judiciary to defend, and a venal Press to apologise for it;" and how a, dozen wire-pullers control the nominations for every high office in their State, because they can maniptilate '• a sufficient number of men, trained for the purpose, who sneeze whenever their masters take snuff." These conventions, under the name of executive committees, are being transplanted to the mother country; and form the subject of a well-timed article by Mr. E. D. S. Wilson in the October number of the Nineteenth Century. He remarks that if the yoke which Mr. Forster refused to pass under at Bradford should be once accepted by candidates for a seat in the House of Commons, "it will crush out individuality of character in public life, will extinguish the discus-don and competitive examination of opinions before elections, will practically disfranchise minorities, will strike a sharp line between parries, and a line drawn not by real and natural differences of principle but by the controversy that may best bs twisted into a ' cry,' and, worst of all, will pass trader the control of the wire-pullers, and will develope all the evils which have degraded and defeated popular government in the United States." A member elected under such degrading conditions will be merely a delegate, and will not be even the delegate of the conetituency, but of the little knot of wire-pullers calling itself an executive committee or ■ a reform league, to which he owes his nomination. This will be composed of professional politicians, who will have their own venal and dirty objects to accomplish, and from whom the delegate must submit to receive his instructions, under penalty of being placed under the ban of his masters at the next general election. None but sycophants, abject place-hunters, and men destitute of principle and independence will stoop to the humiliation of entering a professedly representive Chamber by such despicable means ; and the result would be what has actually occurred in the United States—the ostracism from public life of the moral worth, the eminent ability, and in the true sense of the word, the natural aristocracy of the country. There would be in every constituency a small self-appointed college of primary electors, " holding," as John Stuart Mill remarked, "no permanent office or position in the public eye," deliberating in secret, utterly irresponsible, and exercising- their functions from motives that might Vie simply capricious -to-day and thoroughly corrupt tomorrow. When that philosophical writer discusst-d this subject twenty years ago, he .apologised " for saying so much against a political expedient, which perhaps could not, in England, muster a single adherent." The time has come, unfortunately, when this pernicious system finds, many advocates, who perceive its utility for party purposes, while they are blind to the subversion of representative government which it would inevitably entail. It has destroyed individual liberty and individual responsibility in the United States, where it has established a new form of despotism, as odious and revolting as it is vulgar and debasing ; and Mr. Wilson—who is himself a Illiberal—may well declare that "there are no imaginable gains to be expected from the reconstruction of a Liberal majority in the House of Commons that can be weighed for an instant in the scales of prudence, or in those of principle, against the complicated perils of organisation under the caucus." If Eng'ish politicians wish to be informed what fruits the system has borne in Victoria, the reply is this :—lt has substituted voting machine-? for representatives in the Legislative Assembly ; it has suppressed the open discussion of questions of law and policy in that Chamber ; and it has enabled a clique of vociferous and unscrupulous agitators to combine to deny the right of public meeting' and of free speech to their political opponents. Against such an intolerable tyranny the instincts of our countrymen at Home will surely revolt.

MATTHEW BURNETT AS AN APOSTLE OF TEMPERANCE. (From the Melbourne Leader.) Temperance principles, right enough though they are themselves, would gain few adherents perhapß were it not for the zeal exhibited in their propagation. The progress of the movement is one of. fits and starts more than of steady advance. Occasionally there arises some speaker of exceptional power, who wins his way into the hearts of thousands, and reclaims by the force of bis enthusiasm those whom no amount of mere reasoning would affect. Such a man is Mr. Matthew Burnett, who is doing such excellent work in the suburbs of Melbourne at the present time. There can be no doubt about his usefulness, for he proves it by facts and figures. In Collingwood 3000 persons signed the pledge at his invitation, in Emerald Hill 3250, and in Sandridge, where he is still occupied, he has obtained 2226 solemn promises of total abstinence. Of course these figures are open to some question. Pos&ibly the same person sometimes signs twice over, and of the rest a certain percentage will probably relapse sooner or later into their former practices. Making all deductions, however, it is plain that some thousands in this city will be benefited by the exertions of this one man, many permanently and others temporarily, but all benefited without doubt. The testimony of the police in the various localities proves the actuality of the reformation. In Stawell it is

said that drunkenness hss been almost effaced. In Collingwood the convictions for this offence have been reduced one-half, and in Emeraldhill the weekly average is lowered from fifty to eighteen. There is no escaping such evidences as & these of the practical effect of Mr. Burnett's preaching. It is superior to the ordinary temperance efforts, because it reaches exactly the class of people who most need the inculcation of sobriety, who are often the most susceptible to appeal, and whose improvement is otherwise most difficult of achievement ; and for hi* great labors and success Mr. Burnett deserves the thanks of all who have the interests and the welfare of the community at heart.

WHERE THE BAD FAITH COMES IN. (From the San Francisco News Letter.) There is a special reason why England should be exasperated an the intrigues of Russia in Afghanistan. It was specially agreed between Lord Clarendon and Prince Gortchakoff, in an interview on Central Asiatic affairs which they had at Heidelberg in 1868, that Afghanistan should be treated by Russia as in a sense a dependency of British India, and that Great Britain, in that ease, would hold the Ameer in check, and be responsible for his good behavior towards Russia, which, at the time, was none of the best. England kept her word, and insisted that the Ameer should preserve the peace towards his Northern neighbors. The opportunity thus given to the Czar has been made use of to stir up strife againsc the very Power that insisted upon peace towards him. This bad faith is deplorably unfortunate. It is calculated to create profound distrust between two nations that have recently entered into solemn engagements towards one another. No wonder that the English Chancellor of the Exchequer has just publicly announced a fear that the Treaty of Berlin may not be carried out in its integrity, and that even yet war may result. When deep cause for distrust prevails, it is difficult to tell where difficulties will end. When so much depended upon mutual trust, it is a dire evil that such palpable bad faith ebould be practised. THE MONEY "RIG." I (From the Australasian Insurance Record.) The Economist has for several years endeavored to impress upon the Bank of England the necessity of maintaining an adequate reserve. In any case, it has argued the reserve should never be permitted to sink below ten to twelve millions. The Statist now, after a practical endorsement of the Economist's theory, points out "the Bank of England's danger " of a possible " corner," gigantic, but practicable, with a reserve of no more than ten millions. It gives an illustration of how the operation could be carried out, and promises on some other occasion to show the remedies which may be applied by the Bank of. England, or, failing it, by our other banking institutions. The procedure is to be as follows : One or two millionaires, or even-one only, wanting to give an interest to life, and to add to his millions as well, could easily make a great coup. They have only to realise ten millions of securities, which not only a Rothschild, but one or two more could easily do, and the market is at their mercy. They need not realise at once, but only very gradually, the proceeds of the sales being distributed all over the market, on deposit with this bank and that, or with the bill-brokers, or lent entirely upon the Stock Exchange, so that no one could guess what was intended or had become possible. They could then become "bears" in the Stock markets to a large extent, and await the suitable moment (most probably some November when business has been inflated, and the reserve is weak from other causes well foreseen) to strike their blow. They would call in their balances from the Stock Exchange and the bill-brokers, and withdraw the sums so called in and their deposits with the banks in specie, so that in a moment money would be tight, the reserve in the bank would sink rapidly below ten millions, and the fear of a catastrophe would be general. Probablv nothing more need be done, apprehension and panic doing the rest ; but, in point of fact, such a capitalist would be able to shut the doors of the banking department, unless some desperate measure, like a suspension of the Bank Act, or a sudden borrowing of a few millions from the Bank of France, were resorted to. In any case the fall in securities would probably be such that the bare account would probably be covered, and a re-purchase .of what had been sold gradually could be made at a cheap rate. Some day or other we may have Jay Goulds among us who have the skill and daring and resources necessary for the operation, and it 3 possibility should not be pooh-poohed. The Bank of England should never be so weak as to give a chance to unscrupulous operations of the sort described. Where the weakness is so great, the ordinary and probable incidents of the market cannot be sufficiently provided for. THE STANDARD YARD. A bill consolidating the law relating to weights and measures has, says Financial Opinion, been introduced into the House of Commons. It re-enacts the enactments of Magna Charta requiring uniformity of weights and measures. By clause 4 the bronze bar and the platinum weight, now Jn the custody of the Warden of the Standards, are continued as the imperial standards of measures and weights. The ancient standards, as some of our readers may remember, were destroyed in tho fire at the Houses of Parliament in 1834. Doubts having been thrown on the accuracy of the methods adopted for the restoration of the standards destroyed, an Act was passed in 1855 authorising new standards to be made for determining the length of the imperial standard yard and the weight of th<s imperial standard pound. The standard of length consists of a solid square bar, thirtyeight inches long and one inch Bquare in trans- I

verse section, the bar being of bronze or gun metal. Near to each end of this bar a cylindrical hole is sunk (the distance betweeen the centres of the two holes being thirty-six inches) to the depth of half an inch; at tne bottom of this hole is inserted in a smaller hole a gold plug or pin, about one-tenth of an inch in diameter, and upon the centre of this pin there are cut three fine lines at intervals of about one-hundredth part of an inch transverse to the axis of the bar, and two lines at nearly the same interval parallel to the axis of the bar ; the measure of length of the imperial standard yard is given by the interval between the middle transversal line at one end and the middle transversal line at the other end, the part of each line which is employed being the point midway between the longitudinal lines. By section 10 of this Bill it is declared that the straight line or distance between the centres or two gold plugs or pins measure, when the bar is at the temperature of sixty-two degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer, shall be the legal standard measure of length, and shall be called the Imperial standard yard, and shall be the only unit or standard measure of extension from which all other measures of extension, whether linear, superficial, or solid, shall be ascertained. them ? The same happened, with us in 1812, when we leaned more than ever towards Paris, although our hatred against the French seemed to be such as to last for centurie3. After the Crimean war a whole phalanx of Anglomaniacs rose among us, althnught it was certainly not sympathy for us which led the English to take part in the defence of Turkey. If we wish to be true friends of the Slavs, we must at least know them ;■ hitherto the "rotten" West has studied them much more and written more books about them than all our Slavophils put together."

THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD. An English writer has been sharply criticising the management of the London public schools, known as the " Board Schools," and produces the following as specimens of the written examinations of some of the scholars : —" Where is Turkey?" " Turkey is the capital of Norfolk." "Where is Turin?" " Turin is the cappital of Chiner, the peepul there lives on birds nests and has long tails." " Gibberalter is the principal town of Rooshia." "What do you know of the patriar3h Abraham ?" "He was the father of Lot, and ad tew wives—wun was called Hishmale and t' other Haygur. He kept wun at and he turned t' other into the desert, where she became a pillow of salt in the day-time and a pillow of fire at night." "What do you know of Joseph ?" " Hee wore a coat of many garments. Hee were chief butler for Faro and told his dreams. He married Patiffer's daughter, and he led the Gypshans out of bondage to Kana in Gellilee, and then fell on his sword and died, in site of the promiss land." " Give me the names of the books of the Old Testament !" " Devonshiee, Exeter, Littikus, Numbers, Stronomy, Jupiter, Judges, Ruth, etc." " What is a miracle ?" " Don't know.'" "If you saw the sun shining overhead at midnight, what would you call it?" " The moon." " But if you were told it was the sun ?" " I should say it was a lie." Another boy giving his impressions in regard to Moses wrote as follows :—"He was an Egypshin. He lived in a hark made of bull-rushes, and he kep a golden carf, and worshipt braizen snakes, and he het nothing but kwales and manner for forty years. He was kort by the air of his ed while riding under the bow of a tree, and he was killed by his son Abslon, as he was ahanging from the bow. His end was a pease." " What is meant by conscience ?" said the schoolmaster. The almost simultaneous reply of half their number was : '* A indward monitor." An inspector who happened to be present inquired : " And what do you understand by a monitor ?" To this an intelligent youth exultingly answered : "A Hironclad."

THE VALUE OF THE NEWSPAPER (From the Albany Sunday Press.)

Everything considered, the newspaper is the best and most available of libraries. The one fact of cheapness is so strongly in its favor as to overbalance the majority of arguments that can be advanced upon the opposite side. It is within the reach of everyone, no matter how poor, and finds an entrance where books (as a rule) never can ; it comes weekly, and is read and loaned until actually worn out ; can be caught up if one has but a moment of time, some knowledge can be gained, and laid down again without detriment to the sense. A single brief item frequently gives what passages of book-bound matter would have to be waded through to learn ; for the newspaper is the epitome of the entire world. In the briefest possible space all that is necessary to the correct understanding of the subject is oiven—to such perfection has the art of condensation been brought. The newspapers, with the present facilities fer almost instantly learning what is transpiring in every portion of the habitable globe, is the reflection of the hour equally as much as of past ages. By it the north and the south, the eat-t and the west are brought together. We know of the crashing of the ice and the curling heat of the sun ; we are with the daring explorist seeking for the North Pole ; travel through the jungles of Africa ; have a bird's-eye view of great battles ; sail over every sea ; dive with the whale to its fabulous depths ; are present in the parliament of nations ; listen to the last words of an expiring Pope and take by the hand his successor. A wonderful, concise, most skilfully painted panorama of the affairs of the world is the newspaper ; a map of its busy life ; a faithful reproduction of all its flights and shadows, and at the most nominal cost ; at the merest bagatelle to books, even in the3e days of exceptional cheapness. Week after week the paper comes filled with all that is rare, new, interesting, and instructive. It is a history of nations in fifty-two volumes; an ever continued encyclopaedia of trade, science, biography, agriculture, and the arts ; is the "boiling down" of all books into so minute a

form that the mind can grasp at a single glance and be saved the wading through ponderous volumes of uninteresting detail —to the great saving of time. Ic is, in fact, the grandest of all circulating libraries, at only a penny fee; the throwing open to the public of all the costly archives of the world. The newspaper of to-day is a perfect omnium gatherum. Nothing escapes its notice. Every event of importance is instantly photographed upon its pages. The whispers breathed in every clime are caught and fixed. It is a marvel of intelligence ;is the stereoscope of every mind. We look back in wonder at the time when it w»s not, and human intelligence shudders to think of the barbarism and ignorance, and superstition that would follow the blotting out of this the sun of the solar system. Not a single word would we say against books. Multiply them as much as possible; there can never be too many; the world can never have too much of light ; but as the grandest, and cheapest, and widest circulating medium of intelligence —as libraries for mankind—they never can compare with newspapers. .

THE APPALLING ACCIDENT AT

THE LIVERPOOL THEATRE. > (From the. Daily Chronicle. October 12). The panic which last night occurred at a Liverpool theatre, and which resulted in a loss of thirty-seven lives, recalls the necessity that exists for a strict supervision of places of amusement. The Liverpool Theatre is situated in a part of the town which is the chief resort of seafaring men. The habitues of the Coliseum are chiefly youths, with a mixture of foreign sailors and the usual rough classes incidental to a crowded quarter of a seap.-rt town. The place appears to have been somewhat crowded, and the entertainment was of that variety character which beat attracts a very mixed audience. Durng the singing of a comic song a cry of fire was raised, and the audience at once appears to have given way to panic. Whether this cry was the work of some malicious person, or whether it was caused by the fright occasioned by the fall of a portion of a roof in the back part of the pit, there is yet no means of determining. |ln any case the alarm of fire took place \ simultaneously with a fight going on in the pit. It unfortunately happens that the upper portion of the theatre —the circle and galleries, or rather series of galleries—are so arranged that there is but one main egress from them. This sole way of escape became at once blocked up. The manager appears to have raised his voice in an attempt to inform the audience that the alarm was a false one, but his efforts were in vain. The panicstricken crowds of men, women, boys surged out in such numbers that the staircase and the point of exit became one struggling mass of humanity, whose bodies lay five and six deep. By some strange fatality, a post appears to have been fixed at the point of exit, and formed an effective barrier to all egress. When, however, the police had managed to cut away this impediment with axes, it was found necessary to extricate the bodies one by one. As these were dragged out from the struggling mass, it was found that many were already lifeless, and had either been crushed to death or had been suffocated. Cabs were procured, and the hospitals of the centre of the town were soon filled with dead and injured. In all, in is calculated that thirty-seven were killed, whilst the number of injured had not been definitely ascertained. It is said that the theatre is capable of holding between four and five thousand people. This, indeed, may be true if the people are content to bury themselves in the recesses of semi-archways which mysteriously abound in the upper galleries, and which are generally devoted to the convenience and service of tipsy sailors and rough lads. The Coliseum of Liverpool is not noted for the select character of its audiences nor for the discrimination of the performances placed on its boards. The modes of egress from the. upper portion of the house have always constituted chronic dangers, though everything was evidently done in accordance with the requirements of the law and sanctioned by the proper authorities. The place was never probably intended or built for a theatre. The terrible calamity of last evening serve as a timely warning to magistrates at this particular licensing period, and teach them that they cannot too carefully guard public safety in the matter of places of public entertainment.

(Same Paper, October 14.) According to several statements, the Colosseum at Liverpool is amply provided with means of egrees for a large audience, and the terrible consequences of the disaster on Friday night are attributed to the fact that the people rushed in a body to one of the main entrances only, instead of going in different directions, and this entrance unfortunately was less calculated than any other to sustain a heavy pressure of excited people. It is said that some of the doors in the various places of exit were locked, but the manager declares that they were only closed in the usual way, and might have been easily opened. He further asserts, and hi 3 statement we are told is borne out by independent witnesses, that on the alarm being raised the people in the upper o-allery crowded down to the lower gallery stairs into a passage, from which thers are also stairs communicating with the pit, which is considerably below the level of the street. Consequently there was a simul-' taneou3 rush from the gallery and the pit towards the passage leading t© the main entrance in Paradise street. The scene must have been a very terrible one. At the bottom of the stairs there was literally piled up a heap of struggling humanity, and the battle for life raged amid the shrieks of the living and the groans of the dying with an impetuosity akin to madnessThe exit was further impeded by a pillar between the doors, and here the fight was terrible. The wonder is that more people were not crushed to death, for when the panic had at length subsided, the wounded were dragged out from amongst the dead five or six deep.