Round THE Corners

New Zealand Mail, Issue 674, 30 January 1885, Page 13

Round THE Corners

Co-operation is the very life of modern society. It is society’s safeguard. Co-opera-tion and competition make up the life of the age. Co-operation strengthens weak hands; competition stirs sluggish brains and excites active one 3. One is the complement of the other. To compete with power men cooperate, and what they gain by co-operation drives them into competition with each other in the race to excel. Modern society is full of organisations, and very good things they are when kept in order and subjection. Churcbes, lyceums, athenaems, clubs, associations of labor, are apt illustrations of the system, and if that system were only pursued for the purpose of maintaining an even balance, it would be an unmixed blessing. But a sad admission is unavoidable; power when attained almost invariably degenerates into tyranny of some degree. To-day men are imposed upon, they combine in self-defence ; to morrow are uprisen, and in their turn begin to dominate over those weaker than themselves. The greed of material advantages is at the root of it all, and the restless, craving, spirit of progression is ever at work, goading men onward, but not always upward. For co-operation is often put to very bad purpose indeed, in the construction of what are known as “ rings.” Colonial people have had but scant experience of them as yet; just their shadows have been apparent in a syndicate or two, and for this colonial people may be thankful, and strive with might and main to hold covetousness in check, and preserve a fair balance of trade. But in the

United States rings of every degree are the order of the day. Kailway rings, political rings, banking rings, market rings of infinite variety to influence the price of the earth’s produce. Combined, they constitute a tremendous power that has been put to exceedingly bad purpose. Every public institution is sought to be influenced by a ring of some kind. Even the fount of law has been polluted by it ; the judges of the higher Courts are scarcely free agents ; they are more or less controlled. Such a system—a system, however, eminently democratic—constitutes a stupendous tyranny under which the whole social fabric of the States groans and trembles. It has long been admitted that freedom has been shamefully prostituted in the Great Kepublic, and is to be found in a condition of much greater purity in the oft-maligned Mother Country. Individual rights are certainly better protected there, and it is only since the advent of the detestable dynamitards that social insecurity has been experienced. But in the States a widely different state of things exists, and nothing but their broad territory, that allows of almost indefinite overflowing as centres of population sustain undue pressure from whatever cause, has preserved social equilibrium there. But the time must come when the territorial resources of the States will lose their elasticity, and then pressure will result in rupture. Even as the Infamous system of slavery bred its own retribution, so will the license, that liberty is degenerating to, provide its own remedy, most probably that cf an oppressive despotism that will purge and purify. “First liberty, then license, then military despotism,” hasever been the fate of excessive democracy. And only the wisest councils, involving self-abnegation and moderation of views, will avert the evil from the States. With such an example before them, we of Australasia shall be mad indeed if we do not carefully avoid the extremes into which our American cousins are rushing.

That law is so often justiceless is mainly due to the intricacies, the absurdities of the law of evidence. Whether this, that, or the other, may be accepted as evidence, too frequently overrides and smothers the just issue. It is not really whether the subject stole or not, but whether certain technicalities of evidence are admissible. The guilt of the subject may be palpable enough to the lay mind, but to the legal mind the guilt is nothing, if it is not reconciled with certain legal technicalities — “ points of law,” they are termed. And the legal calendar bristles with ’em ; they are perplexing to a degree, and a source of endless worry to a strictly legal judge. Mr Justice Richmond made some pertinent remarks upon the subject the other day, and the public have had a telling illustration of it in the Waring Taylor trial. Twice has the guilt of that notable offender been emphatically proclaimed from the jury box, and twice has the law of evidence thrown its mat around him. Truth to tell, that law wants revising, somehow or another, and the proper way to revise it would be for the judges of the Supreme Court to meet in solemn conclave and decide upon the more glaring absurdities of the law; an Act of Parliament would settle the rest of the question.

“The Major” passed through the other day on his way south in search of a wife, and uncommonly well he looked. Joyful anticipation had something to do with it, I dare say, but the influence of “ The Mountain” had a great deal more. I have observed the effect of this influence on more than one occasion, and Taranakians aver that, to a jaded mind and body, living within the shadow of Mount Egmont is an unfailing “ pick-me-up.” ’Tis a lovely mount, forsooth, that the eye never tires of resting upon.

Nice speech that of yours, Mr Robert Stout, Premier of the colony. You must needs butt at the Press, and become shamefully personal. What object you had in the latter, your own particular gods alone know, but ’twas ungentlemanly, sir, and grossly impolitic. You showed the cloven hoof again, and the bias of a weak mind. Go to, man of the hour, and study Chesterfield’s advice to his son, and certain parts of Shakespeare, and try and reform before you die.

That fire in the neighborhood of Upper Willis-street seems to be dying out of remembrance. ’Twill go the way, I suppose, of all such fires. It does seem as if scientific fireraising was being reduced to a profitable occution. Scientific fire-raising and intelligent bankruptcies—two capital things for profit these hard times. Science defies detection, and why shouldn’t it when detection is so desperately unscientific.

John Bull has become mighty placable. It takes a lot to get his dander up these times. Attempts to blow up underground railways, clubs, detective offices, and so on, have had little or no effect upon the people, or else we should have heard of the formation of Vigilance Committees, and the adoption of other stringent measures to hold the dastardly dynamitard assassins in check. But the nation seems powerless to grapple with the grave emergency that has arisen, and is now writhing and terror-stricken under the last, and most successful, of the numerous attempts made by the Irish Yankee to destroy public buildings and imperil life. Damage, and serious at that, done to England’s most noted fane and the time-honored Tower, and the people’s great meeting house. Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, and the House of Commons, nearly blown up ! Well, if this does not rouse the people, nothing will. They must see how powerless every grade of the police force is Co deal with the danger. Policemen and detectives are absolutely incapable in the presence of the great peril to the State, and if that incapacity is maintained, there will be nothing for it but a grand national movement. And grand national movements are to be deprecated, for in such causes, with the fear 3 of the people thoroughly aroused, they are liable to be more violent than just. Still, it seems the only alternative to national degradation. The British nation cannot tamely submit to such outrages

and preserve self respect, let alone nationaF character ; that is, unless that character, once so high, has deteriorated under the influence of excessive liberty, and, as the Germans are so fond of affirming, the nation’s star has culminated, and her downward course has commenced, Truly, the Gladstone rule will long, be remembered for its abortiveness both at Home and abroad, incapable of sustaining the nation’s honor abroad, powerless to preserve peace at Home.

Only confusion, worse confounded, seems to suit some persons. The education system is their bete noir. Nothing will satisfy them but a return to denominationalism, and its mass of objections. And the objectors to the existing s system are mostly Episcopalians. To their I credit, be it said, the Presbyterians are nearly unanimous in its favor. And they may well be, for as a system it is an approximation towards perfection. To say, as did Archdeacon Stock the other night, that it lacked morality, was a gross libel upon it. To say it bred larrikins, was an unjust aspersion. The system is one of the best going; it inculcates the highest morality, unallied with doctrinalism. But to theologians of Mr Stock’s way of thinking, the rest is nothing without doctrine. A good hot; peppery doctrine, too, “ the fear o’ Hell,’* necessary “to haud the wretch in order.” Well that certainly can not be taught in the public schools of the colony. And yet, Mr Stock says that for want of proper teaching in the schools, larrikins abound. But, the high morality of the teaching of the schools can be proved to every reasonable man’s satisfaction; hence Mr Stock must have confounded morality with doctrine. But, again, the churches teach doctrine of the only right kind to intimidate a “ wretch;”;} the very essence of mustard “ Wi’ hell at the end ont” is propounded, and yet, according to Mr Stock, larrikins increase. The failing must, therefore, lie with the Church as well as the schools. The one imparts doctrine, the other morality, while the Church imparts morality as well. And yet with all this morality and doctrine, we still, according to Mr Stock, are not growing in grace, but the reverse. Well may Mr Stock despair, and withdraw himself from connection with the 'schools. But, then, why does he not also withdraw himself from connection with the Church and its Sunday schools. Talk about the young people not being sufficiently grounded in. morality or doctrine, or whatever it may be ! Why the aggregate attendance of the Sunday schools of the Colony must be enormous. And still it is retrogression and not progress. Well, the churches and their schools are guite as much in the mud as the public schools are in the mire. You did well to cut connection with the public schools,, O Archdeacon ; now do the other thing and equalise matters.

The Rev. Mr Stock drew a very unhappy comparison, on Tuesday night (at the Tinakori Road school-room meeting, to welcome the new incumbent of St Paul’s), between the labors of parsons and those of editors. Mr Stock is reported to have said that “ the newspapers often said the discourses of clergymen were uninteresting. He should like to ask editors whether, if they had to write two or three times a week on the same subject, their articles would not also be uninteresting.” Now, I should like to know what Mr Stock means by this. Is not the whole domain of ethics open to a parson as well as to an editor ? Is he compelled, more than an editor, to confine himself to one subject. Is there a vice, a folly, a weakness of the day, that a parson may not dilate upon with much profit ? May he not hold up to us our darling sins and denounce us for entertaining them? Ought he not to take his texts from what is going on around him, instead of e\ erlastingly peering into the book of the scribes ? For instance, a bad bankruptcy should be a text for, at least, two sermons ; a case of felonious fire-raising another two; such a case as Waring Taylor’s, at least, half a dozen ; hypocrisy, and the pride of wealth, any quantity ; the various phases of uncharitableness, for which our social system is so remarkable, even more ; the conceit and vanity of extravagant living beyond means, whenever opportunity serves. Both press and pulpit have a wide field to select from, the press does “goin ” occasionally, but not half enough, but how seldom the pulpit ? But church-goers are regaled with doctrines dry as dust by divines like Mr Stock, and no man careth for what her hears, or rather, he falls into apathy and heareth not.

A disgraceful scene, truly, at that poor fellow’s funeral, at Auckland, the other day, and one that tended to bring advanced thought into grave contempt. If people who love to dub themselves “Freethinkers,” would but seriously ponder upon the position, - they would perceive that their greatest strength, their greatest hope of success, lies in moderation and respectful deference to the creeds and. opinions of other people. And no decent freethinker, no one having the slightest self-res-pect, would behave as did those rowdies of freethought at’ Holmes’ funeral. What! has Christianity done nothing to entitle it to common respect? Has it not "proved a power for good for many generations ? Have not. men and women and children suffered martyrdom in its cause and the preservation of its principles ? Has it not proved the very corner stone of the family, and a very rock of defence to the weary and despairing ? Go to, you rampant freethinkers, blatant and self-sufficient, ami place your hands upon your mouths, and doSt your beavers with reverence when you pass aChristian fane. What! because some; regeneration and reformation has become necessary shall we be blind to all the good o£ the past ? Let us bear with each other in all charity*, deferring with respect to each other’s, opinions, and, for the sake of peace and progress, agreeing, heartily agreeing, to disagree. When you. freethinkers have done half as much for society as has the spirit of Christianity, you will have learned to regard Christianity with respect and perhaps affection.

Asmodeus.