Round THE Corners

New Zealand Mail, Issue 753, 6 August 1886, Page 17

Round THE Corners

Another turn in the game of “ the Ins and the Outs,” has happened in England. Again the Conservatives are at the wickets, and the character of their play will be noted with painful interest by onlookers. Will they take warning from the past ? Will they rise superior to the occasion and bear themselves like stout wise players capable of disposing of the crooked twisters of their antagonists, and yet play a fair, straight game for the Empire? For the one question paramount is still Irish grievances and how to meet them. Something must be done for Ireland in the way of giving her local Government. The autonomy of Mr Parnell and tbe G.0.M., Is of course out of the question. If necessary, the Empire will have to fight over that line, aye ! fight if “the four corners of the world” came against it. But yet a huge measure of self-government could be conceded to the “sister isle ” without weakening the Imperial bend of Union, Such a measure that would, in the long run, satisfy even the Irish themselves. A basis of agreement will not, I fear, be established without a deal of trouble. The hopes of the extreme Irish party have been so wildly excited by Gladstone’s lunatic propositions that allaying them will test to tbe uttermost the conciliatory wisdom of the Conservatives. Nothing but great concessions will fit the present crisis. A wide departure from the old rule has to be taken. To my mind the case of Ireland would be exactly met by tbe old provincial system of New Zealand. There are the provinces ready to band —Ulster, Munster, Connaught, and Meath. Bestow in each the widest practicable meed of selfgovernment, with a light federal .bond to deal with questions that affected the four collectively, questions of coarse outside those peculiarly Imperial. Certain representation, provicial representation, in the Imperial Parliament would naturally follow. I, as an advanced radical, fail to see the right, any-

J where, to demand more than this. Undeir such a system of government Ireland must advance and prosper, and become indeed an integral supporting section of the United. Kingdom. The Conservative leaders haver now an excellent opportunity of patting into practice those high gifts of statesmanship they are supposed to possess. But a policy' of coercion won’t do at all. Both sides must: be prepared to make great concessions in the cause of the common country, and if the infernal demagogic element can be only eliminated from the argument, a happy medium, will certainly be struck, and the last wilL have been heard of bloody feuds between England and Ireland.

The force of hereditary tendency is an admitted fact, scarcely anyone nowadays, who knows anything of the subject, bat recognises the certainty of the transmission of taint. Gladstone’s later and frantic propositions, and threats, about the abolition of the aristocracy—a second edition, in short, of the French revolution—seemed to indicate a mind unhinged. But if what one of the English journals publishes is true, then the G.O.M. is a victim to hereditary tendency. This is how the journal writes : The following description of Sir John Gladstone, our Grand Old Man’s father, from the pen of one who knew him well, is worth preserving : “ A man who to the sagacity and massive strength of the elephant added the feline activity, sudden, treacherous spring, and ruthless ferocity of the tiger. Tne feline qualitiea taking the predominance whenever his passions and plans were thwarted.”

The G.O.M’s later actions denote all that is attributed to his father. He would rather rule over a ruined kingdom than be a simple subject in a prospering State. This undoubtedly is a phase of insanity.

Social vagaries and weak-headedness find vivid illustration in a contribution to The World. The writer says : I had the pleasure of hearing Mdle. Thenard, who is iu town at present, recite two charming little French pieces of her own composition at a literary “At home ” last week. They were brimming over with fun, and they were delivered with a grace and brilliancy impossible to describe. She began the second of these airy trifles with the most joyous and rippling peal of laughter I ever heard, and her action throughout was inimitable. The same evening I saw, for the first time, a little lioness of the present season, Marie Coreli, author of the Romance of Two Worlds. She looks extremely “occult,” with her tiny childlike figure and great wild eyes. She wore a garment that might have passed for the robe of a Druid priestess with a Watteau back, and I am told she has invented a new religion.

What useless lives indeed, and the world fainting for want of earnest workers ! Could surprise be excited if a Nemesis arose and swept such trifling from the face of creation.

And at this end of creation social idiosyncracies are apparent. There is an inclination in certain quarters to do things to death. Here in Wellington the absorbing craze is the Girls’ Friendly Society. That a move in this direction was necessary, I admit, but only a preliminary move was demanded, and a great deal of the rest should have been left to the girls themselves. But the passion is being “ torn to tatters,” to the quiet amusement of the girls ; the comments of some of them would certainly enlighten, if they did not quite gratify, their patrons. There’s a deal of fun made over it. The latest thing in connection with the movement was converting a private party into a public entertainment by charging each invited guest half a guinea for attendance, the proceeds to go to the Girls’ Society. If this style of thing is to come into fashion I would recommend the promoters to champion the cause of more deserving and needier charities There are the Old People’s Home, the Benevolent Institution, and “Hospitals and Charitable Aid.” These are institutions that really want succour. As for the Girls’ Friendly Societies and Clubs, it is enough for the sympathising public to start them, and if the girls value them, and are worth a cent for self-re-liance, they will maintain them themselves with a little extraneous help. As it is, I think the girls are being befooled, and I know for a fact that some of the girls think likewise.

I must compliment the Wairarapa Daily upon the extremely sensible and cogent article it published upon the outcry that has been raised about the awfully distressed condition of the Rotomahana Natives. Those people who have visited the “ Wonder Land ” are aware that the facts are exactly as the Daily has put them. Idleness, profligacy, disease, and dirt have been in the ascendent these many years among the Natives of the Hot Lake country, and such a state of affairs says verylittle for the better, or, at any rate, the richer class of people who make up the tourist tribe. The visitors demoralised the Natives, but then the latter wanted to be demoralised, and now they are bowling, or someone is howling for them, that the means of demoralisation are out of their reach. It is to be hoped that timely legislation will render reversion to the old disreputable state of things impossible. The white people of the Colony ought to buy out„ rump and stump, the Native owners of the hot springs country, and see that the Natives themselves are settled on land where they will have to work (Maori fashion at any rate) for a living. Buy up Wonderland and make a public park of it—that’s the move, and that is what our astute Yankee cousins have done with their Yellowstone country.

The “poor player” still “struts and frets his hour, ” &c., but it must be admitted that the poor players of our day display a deal of ability in their particular line. No one who critically witnessed the performance of the Rignold and Sheridan Companies could have come to any other conclusion. More genuine all-round talent on the part of dramatic companies has seldom been displayed while the individual talent was singularly marked. I am afraid we don’t half appreciate, or appraise at their proper value, our strolling bretherenand “sisteren.” Unassuming, unpretentious when off the stage, content with a walk in life full of discomfort and of tar more than ordinary risks, their mission, when their ability is high, to delight, amuse, and instruct hand reds of thousands of people ! Really, my | reading friends, don’t you think that soma

* «f u 3, in onr self-sufficiency, and self-righteous-ness, are inclined to over-estimate ourselves and 'under-estimate the votaries of the sock and buskin. We go to the theatre and, by the * force of character of those poor 3ouls before the footlights, are wiled to forget the out- ' side world, and our cares and troubles for two or three hours. Are we not very much indebted to the subtle force that so readily transports us out of ourselves. Aye ! marry are we, and the least that might be done in return is to make reputable players welcome when they “come to town.” I mean something more than the mere welcome of patronage, the social welcome that would make them sharers in such home joys that we may have at command. The actor and actress with unstained reputations ought to find a warm welcome in every town they visit, and if such a welcome were accorded them the status of “the profession” would very soon receive a decided upheaval. A committee in every town of note to take the strange players by the hand when they came would be potent for good. I am much distressed at the Premier’s vacillation, to give it a no harsher name, and am beginning to be afraid my laudation of last week was premature. Of course we know that - statecraft is not bound by the ordinary rules of veracity, or to put it another way, statesmen, or say politicians, may claim the Irishman’s privilege of speaking twice to make themselves understood. The Premier spoke twice the other day, but what he avers he did not say the first time a whole lot of people, and perhaps a majority, aver he ' did. It was all over that Loan Bill business and economising and what the Government would do if the House did economise “which nobody thought it would.” But all of us look to the Premier for the laying down, and maintenance, of very straight unmistakable lines. Don’t disappoint us, Sir Robert. The Major hit you very hard the other night, or rather morning was ji ?

You talk plausibly enough on certain social matters. Youthful indiscretion in the use of tobacco was one of them. But, bless you, Sir Robert, ’tisn’t the boys that are to blame but their elders. Remove the force of example from before the youngsters, and you would have no occasion to preach to them. Show me the household where the father abstains from alcohol and tobacco, and can bold his sons in check by moral suasion, and I’ll show you boys that neither drink alcohol’ or smoke tobacco. But when the elders indulge can you wonder if the youngsters kick at self-control and selfsacrifice? The selfish man will have selfish sons, and all the acts of Parliament in creation won’t purge them of their selfishness and extravagance. Go to Sir Robert, denounce the vice of smoking, for it is one in mild form; go to the fountain head and set your lance in rest against the practice, and you shall have every vendor of the weed dead against you on polling day. You daren’t do it. Never mind, dear boy, I’ll do it for you. If we could improve tobacco off the face of the earth, intellectual, sedentary occupied humanity would be a deal the better for it, and the delicate lining membrane of the stomach, pats me on the back and says "rightyou are old fellow.”

After reading a report that was published in the New Zealand Times of certain repairs and alterations effected in the case of the steamer Go-Ahead, the question what is left of the original vessel naturally presents itself. The word “ new ” occurs eighteen times, to say nothing of implications in other places of new work. The Go-Ahead must have been in the condition of the celebrated “Paddy’s gun’* that wanted “ new lock, stock, and barrel.” She seems to have received a similar proportion of repairs, and is now quite “betterish new.” ’Pears to me, though, that the Company might as well have built a new vessel altogether.

A strikingly handsome lot, no doubt, specially fitted to adorn the walls of a Parliamentary portrait gallery. They are all handsome, according to the Treasurer. But if “ handsome is as handsome does ” is to be the test, there are a good many hon. members who ought not to claim space, for they have no Tight to it. I should say now that two or three of those who were on that cimmittee of that Starke business would be very much out of place in a portrait gallery with an inscription over the door “ The test of admission is handsome behaviour.” Mr Beetham’s proposition gave the Treasurer an opportunity to rub in a little butter. And he did it. Hon. members were mightily tickled thereby. Vogelian tickling just suits some of them.

That is a capital report on legislative expenditure, the committee who drew it up were loyal to their country. Wonder if the Ministry will scrape together enough conasistency to attempt to give affect to it? "Wonder if the House will have strength «nough to discard selfishness and reduce the mumber of representatives ? If it will suppress salaries of Chairmen of Committees; ■that the Parliamentary honorarium shall not exceed £150; that the service of all paid officials shall be utilised to the uttermost, thus and for ever banishing “the Government stroke;” that there shall be an end of all bonuses and gratuities, and additions to salaries, unless sanctioned by Parliament, and all the other “ that’s ” mentioned in the report ? Wonder if the moon is made of green cheese, if the earth’s orbit is likely to be reduced much during the next year or two, if the sun is likely to go out, or Jupiter to tighten his belts a bit ? Wonder if Vogel is likely to resign from the Ministry and turn to farming pursuits, or Stout give up law and take to divinity, or Ballance join the Salvation Army ? Anyone of these things is almost as likely a 3 effect being given to the report of the Legislative Expenditure Committee by the Ministry and .Parliament that is. Well, we shall see.

Asmodeus.