THE Round Corners

New Zealand Mail, Issue 751, 23 July 1886, Page 17

THE Round Corners

That the “ Truck system ” is vicious to the centre has been affirmed half a hundred times, and the concensus of public opinion, on the point, is unmistakable. The system has promoted the perpetration of the cruelest wrongs, by sordid men, upon ignorant and thoughtless ones, and its toleration in any country stamps that country as semi-barbarous. And a country is semi-barbarous in which the people trade with one another by absolute barter, say a sack of potatoes for a day’s work, and so on, It is all very well for the member for Motueka, and others, to talk about old times when standard coin was scarce and the Colony was emerging from savagery into a kind of civilized barbarism. Those were the days when “the Major ” and others wore blue shirts, and boiled “ billeys,” and drank out of pannikins, stirring the sugar into the tea with a clean chip of wood, and so on. Very jolly times they were, in their way, pervaded by a debonnair freedom, precious, how precious, to some temperaments. It was in those days that the member for Motueka tramped his hundred of miles, and was glad to take the value of his labor out in produce. But since then we have advanced a stage or two ; have become accustomed to a substantial currency of gold, silver, hills of exchange; to paper collars and promissory notes; aluminium jewellery and mortgages j inflated credit and hank overdrafts; to loan securities and usury ; to living beyond means and bankruptcy made

easy ; to sticking to the l towns and scrambling for an existence. These are the signs and tokens of civilization and in the midst, of it all, all the hollow artificialism, men will not tolerate old-time barter ; they must trade with some kind of circulating medium. And bartering has been thoroughly suppressed except when railway contractors, and others of that kidney, “try it on ” in out of the way places, and succeed in making two profits, one out of the contract, and one out of the workmen. And where the “ truck system ”is practised there is no doubt about the conditions being altogether favorable to the supplier. The supplied pays through the nose for all he gets. The measure introduced by the Minister of Justice to effectually strangle “trucking” is a righteous measure, and my only surprise is that anyone in the House could be found to oppose it.

It will have come to a very evil pass indeed if the actions and utterances of men, iu Parliament assembled, may not be openly and freely commented on by the Newspaper Press without, being subjected to censorship and threats. And I say that he who would shirk plain' Press criticism, (with which I certainly do not associate scurrilous inuendo) or attempt, to “burke” Press utterance, has not the semblance, even, of true liberalism. He is rank old, crusted, Tory, and nothing, can cleanse him of his illiberality. If the people are .wise they will ponder these things, and take care that the Press, their greatest,, safeguard, is ensured the exercise of free speech void of license. It is the Press and education, and Press and education only, that can hold in check the abuses and corruptions inseparable from the free representative Governmentsof the age; and woe to that time when “gagging” the Press may be resorted to as an expedient. The Press will suffer, but the people at its back will be the greater losers.

There is nothing so blinding as political prejudice; so subversive of sound judgment. Sbme of the speeches made on the District Railway business disclosed this in marked degree. “ High falutin ” exaggeration was the prominent feature of two or three of them, but of one especially.

I have received the following naive letter from a correspondent who has withheld his name, and who is welcome to do so ; he shall have his say for all that. The letter speaks for itself, and runs as follows :

To Asmodeus.— Sir, —I write in sympathy with your extract from the Sydney Herald as to what extent divorce is to he tolerated. I cannot help expressing myself relative to Judge Windeyer’s reply to Judge Steven. Sir, their view of the cause of desertion is the only one that a reasonable person can taka of the same. Sir, I hope that our Government will bring in a Bill making five years’ desertion, sufficient grounds for divorce. lam sorry to say that I know some worthy women who have been basely deserted and left to struggle to maintain themselves and little ones as best they can, where if released from the scroundrel whether dead or alive, it is every way probable that they would look for a more endurable husband the second time. And I am sorry to say some of them are living a life of which they are ashamed. But as I take it they cannot see any specified time to be released from the scrocndrels that have blighted their lives. Sir, I hope by your advocating of the aforesaid opinions you will be enabled to help forward the cause of those unfortunate individuals. This is from an old man who has been supporting ono of those unfortunates and her little ones —over seven years,—so that you will feel that my sympathy is with you iu the cause of the oppressed.—l remaiu, yours faithfully, A Working Man, aged 66 years.

Caustic and to the point are the following remarks taken from the “ World.” It is high time that dogmatic prejudice stood out of the way and permitted people to see and breathe a little clearer : We are decidedly gettiug on. When Oliver Wendell Holmes was with us half a century ago Sabbatarianism was a burning question. He will now have some practical illustrations of our progress. On Sunday evening he was at Lord and Lady Rothschild's smart reception in Piccadily to meet the Prince and Princess of Wales, while quite half society was laughing at M. Fevre’s drawing-room play at Madame Waddington’s, and all America was enjoying Mr Broughton’s hospitality at “ West House,” Notting Hill. It is certainly time that the millions should have their museums and picturegalleries.

The good, people of England in society would be nothing without a good current craze. Anything in the shape of notabilities goes down with the upper ten from Cetewayo, the Kaffir, to plodding colonists on a visit to the Mother Land. Those in England just now are having a good time of it and no mistake. Here follows an account of arrangements for the hospitable entertainment of colonists during the month of June last. I take it from “ The World ” : Sir Thomas and Lady Brassey are to give a series of evening parties for their benefit; the steamship companies will offer them a series of trips oil the river; Lord Salisbury (now that the prospects of a dissolution have faded away) will receive them at Hatfield on Monday next; Princess Louise has commissioned M. Bertini of the Criterion to provideafternoon tea for 700 at Kensington on Friday ; on the 9th June Lord Vernon hopes to see six selected Colonial agriculturists at Sudbury; on tho 16th June everybody goes to visit Lord Carnarvon at Highclere ; on Trinity Sunday they are to have a special service at St. Paul’s ; on the 23rd June the Duke of Bedford has invited 150 to lunch at Woburn: the great Crystal Palace fete takes place the following day; on the 2ith they are to be invited to the Guildhall ball. The month is to conclude with a four days’ trip to Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, which has been very skilfully planned by Mr Hodgson.

One of the latest inventions of the age, the last sweet thing in belts, is an elastic one to keep the mouth closed during sleep, and so prevent snoring. What a blessed thing would be an invention to oblige people to beep straight in spite of themselves, curb sordid, crooked, scheming, detrimental to character of people and country. Such an invention is sadly needed in the politics of the world.

The Hungarian painter Munkacz gavo a very pretty backfall to a Vienna gentleman who wanted to buy some of his pictures, ‘ only,’ he added, ‘I cannot afford to pay the prices you now ask. Could you not tell me where I could find some of your early work, painted when you were a young man in Hangary — something that I could buy cheap ?’ ‘ Certainly,’came the reply ; ‘ there are two or three hundred in my native village of Munkacz — the houses I painted when I was Michael Ideb, painter and glazier.’ ABMODEC3.