N.Z. MAIL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1890.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 967, 12 September 1890, Page 16

N.Z. MAIL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1890.

If the War Office regulation against the use of frozen beef by the army is not withdrawn, a most injurious and unfounded slur will remain upon a great and growing colonial industry. Mr Humphreys ha 3 done a public service in calling the attention of the Government to the matter. He has added to that service by writing a letter of remonstrance to Mr Stanhope, with whom he is personally acquainted, pointing out that the meat is good, and protesting against the bad name which the regulation will give it. We trust that when this is backed by the representations of the Agent-General, which the Government has promised to suggest, it may prove effective. The difficulty,we fear, is deeper than it at first sight appeared to be. It has been suggested that the regulation is the result of inquiry into complaints made by the men. Either some wretched contractor has given .them some bad meat and called it “ frozen beef,” or a popular prejudice has taken hold of the men. It is notorious that a change has come ever the spirit of the British soldier. The leading cases are the misbehaviour of the Grenadiers, the slight outbreak of !he Transport Corps at Chatham, and the rioting of the Irish Fusiliers at Portsmouth. Questions in Parliament, the behaviour of the military authorities, and the cautious tone of the Service papers, are evidences of a general disquietude on the subject. Tommy Atkins is not the long enduring creature he was in the days when he pulled the weevils out of his biscuit and munched away in silence. And the officers of Tommy Atkins are puzzled. If he has from any cause expressed himself forcibly about eating frozen beef, it will not be easy to get the authorities to withdraw their regulation. A very big question is here involved.

The news of the death of Canon Liddon will be received with the keenest regret throughout the British Empire, Every great preacher is an exception to the rule according to which speech is silver and silence is gold. A famous preacher of other days lives in ecclesiastical history as he of the golden mouth. The famous Canon of St.” Paul’s was the Chrysostom of the English Church. Dean Stanley was in his day a great personality in the Church aud a 'most popular preacher. Canon Farrar occupies a unique position by force of his eloquence and the multitude of his writings. The vigorous Bishop of Peterborough puts the stamp of his powerful intellect on every subject that interests the world, which he influences for good. But perhaps the foremost man in the Church for the last two decades was the great preacher who has just passed away. No one ever drew such crowds as hung upon his utterances in St. Paul’s, and few have so greatly influenced the religious thought of his countrymen. Born when Newman was just beginning his brilliant career at St. Mary’s, and creating the High Church party in conjunction with Dr Pusey, Canon Liddon lived to become himself one of the most prominent and distinguished members of that Party. He came to Oxford and graduated in 1850, seven years after Newman had left the place, and the storm of the Tracfcarian movement had subsided. He took the Johnson scholarship iu the following year, was ordained two years later, and rapidly won his way to distinguished position as a preacher and theological lecturer. In 1870 he wa« installed at St. Paul’s, and held his position there for twenty years. That was the period of his greatest fame and usefulness. He has been called away while his life was still ten years short- of the allotted span of the Psalmist, and thousands whom his noble words and shining example made better Christians are mourning the loss of one of the great lights of the Church.

The Railway Commissioners possess that kind of firmness which is not content -with words. Brave words, they appear to understand, are not in themselves magical. What they have done at Christchurch is only the logical outcome of what they said iu Wellington. They are the rulers of the railways. About that there is no possibility of any mistake. Some of the men in their employment were under the delusion that there was a mistake. They got it into their heads that the Commissioners might permit interference with their orders, and the exercise of a discriminative obedience towards the regulations. Under that impression they committed the gravest offence that can be committed by the members of any service. They incited their fellows to disobey orders. Inasmuch as they did this openly, with reporters present, they are entitled to credit for their frank courage. For that reason we think the Commissioners did right in offering to overlook the matter if the offenders promised not to repeat the offence. They were misguided enough to refuse. They have therefore been very properly dismissed. The Public Service must go on, and the Commissioners must be obeyed. The country will not endure the stoppage of its business on any account whatsoever ; neither will it allow the Commissioners to be disobeyed by any one of their people for any conceivable reason. Had they been challenged in this fashion at any ordinary time the Commissioners would have been compelled to take notice of some kind. In the present public excitement, when men’s minds are inflamed and many are being lured to their ruin, it was the imperative duty of the Commissioners to uphold their authority by the severest measures in their power.

Tw6 men have actually been prevented by force from getting on to the Wharf ; several people have been ill-used ; on Wednesday a quantity of meat was stopped in the street for a long time. It was only permitted at last to get to the ship by a compromise -with people who have no more right to bar the way than they have to sit in the House of Representatives. Any man who has business on the Wharf, or on a ship, no matter whether Unionist or non-Unionist, has the right, under the laws of this free country, to go about that business unmolested. All owners of goods have a right to get them to ship how they like, and when they like. The Unionists have begun to take a wrong attitude in this. They should remember the advice of Mr Champion. And the authorities should remember that they are the guardians of every man’s liberty. We live in a free country, and we must all enjoy our privilege of freedom unmolested.

We welcome the idea of opening a new mine in the Grey district for the same reason that we welcomed the idea of getting more of the coal of the Westport district to market. Competition in the coal trade is a good thing for the public, which is the owner of the coal measures, and a better thing for the capitalist than the stagnation of undisturbed monopoly. The Grey venture announced has the additional interest of an experiment in co-operation. The new mine is to be worked by a sort of industrial partnership. The partners will have to settle what is the fair share of capital, and what should be left of the profits to labour. When they have done

that, they will instruct the Colony by attempting to show a good “modus vivendi ” between labour and capital. It promises to be one of the most interesting industrial experiments over set on foot in New Zealand.

The cable news on Wednesday was very important. The federation of labour is receding, the dockers do not wish to risk any damage to the position they won last year after so hard a fight, the leaders of the Unions are beginning to decline the struggle with the world’s capital, for which labour is by no means prepared, the estimates of financial help from the Unions have broken down. Nobody else is subscribing, and the general impression is that the Australian strikers, who are much better off than their brethren at Home, have made a mistake, and ought to settle their dispute without any delay. In plain English, I labour at the other end of the world gravely disapproves of what labour has done here. Facts are stubborn things. A very important question is contained in the project of the separation of Northern Queensland, to which Lord Knutsford referred the other day. The northern half of Queensland wants to set up on its own account, in order that it may do the work of colonisation vicariously. The sugar planters have discovered that sugar-growing can only be made to pay by the employment of black or coolie labour. Their firm belief is that the inferior races alone can do manual labour in the tropical parts of the continent. The colonisation they want is of the inferior races. Nothing would please them so much as a large immigration of Chinese and coolies. This is thoroughly realised throughout Australia, and resented. Nothing is so strong on the continent as the growing national sentiment. The National Party is at the bottom of the Federation movement, with its cry of “Australia for the Australians.” If there is one thing that party is prepared to resist more than another it is the immigration of inferior races to any part of Australian soil. That is the reason why the Australians have been so anxious to get selfgovernment for Western Australia, It is also the reason why the leading men in every colony are prepared to resist the subdivision of Queensland. The Federation of Australia will probably be the final death blow to the hopes of the Northern Queenslanders. The fact is recognised generally that coolie labour is a necessity for the sugar plantations, but it is not accepted as any reason for coolie colonisation. In the face of the Australian feeling on the subject the Colonial Office dare not entertain the project for the separation of Northern Queensland. Whatever the recent message of Lord Knutsford may mean, it cannot -mean that his Government is prepared to do anything that will risk the danger of driving Australia into independence. A claim for damages against an auditor for not discovering fraud in the accounts he has audited is a thing that will startle most auditors. The theory was set up—it was in a case tried in Christchurch the other day—that the auditor was responsible for the defalcations he failed to detect. Fortunately for the auditor, the jury declined to make him pay. He had accepted the Bank pass book given him as genuine, whereas the book was a forgery. The embezzler had, after getting the pass book opened in the usual way by the Bank people, written it up himself. Of course the “ cooked ” bosk corresponded with the “cooked” accounts ; and of course the result was that the auditor was misled. He pleaded against the action that he had followed the usual practice of accepting the pass book as genuine.; and we presume he owes his escape to that plea. If so, it is time for the usual practice to be altered. Auditors are not paid exactly the salary of ambassadors. But if they were to take the pass books to the Bank for verification the practice would add greatly to the reliableness of their verdicts, without appreciably augmenting the labour they give in return for their money. We cannot join in the jubilation we hear about the Bill which our Sydney neighbours are passing for the suppression of book-fiends. That is one of the grandmotherly list of subjects which legislation ought to leave alone. If the people of a free country cannot resist the blandishments of the book-fiend they ought to be taken in. We have no sympathy with the people who have resisted the Atlas Company’s demands lately in our Courts. They have got a good article, and they ought to pay for it. The people who most resist the book-fiend are those who have got most profit out of his wares. Newspapers like individuals are liable at any time to fall into error. With the best intentions we all of us may in spite of the utmost care publish incorrect information. When that happens every newspaper is ready to make correction. Every newspaper is entitled to be treated with the courtesy that acknowledges the liability to error. It is a want of courtesy to ascriba error to deliberate purpose. The conduct of Captain Highman and some of the officers of the Association of which he is the Secretary, on Wednesday at the office of the “ Evening Post,” was, we regret to say, not courteous. Their tearing down of the

news bill to which they obiecfceJ Ur*''with their subsequent :.' correction of “that falsehood” act of men who imputed to the P n f lu deliberate purpose of giving thV;VS* false information. If they had made a representation to the they would at once have satisfaction, as indeed was dm™ i Mr Blundell behaved with great p and firmness under the provocation ceived ; he had the nows bill rLu o ,’’ ? and added to, and the happily. We refer to the because it emphasises the necessity'l2 self-control on the part of a IJ v* have reason to feel aanme*. ed y» vise those who have to complain paper reports to keep their temmr* T abstain from imputing motives and ° take the first opportunity of getting th£ superior information—if it i 8 suDerio* before the public Apert papers altogether, if individuals refusin to acknowledge the possibility of honpJ error resort to anything like violence ®f language and action, there is no savin* what regrettable commotion may not £ caused during the present crisis, when men are specially prone to irritation. We do not understand the Christchurch ' telegram which represents Mr Millar « saying that it would be unwise to <r a * tin Press, because the Union Company W not publish its time-table. We gather however, that the publication oF the time-table has something to do with the matter. Wo take tho liberty of inform ing Mr Millar that we shall publish anv time-table, or anything else we choose* without leave or license from him or from anybody else in tho world. There is no end to the ignorance in high places about tho geography of tho colonies We quoted an instance the other day from learned Germany, the home of the “ be-' spectacled professor.” We can quote another on the part of no less important an authority than the report of the Royal Commission appointed in connection with the observations of the transit of Venus in 1882. In that document—a copy is in the possession of a member of the House of Representatives, who took part in the observations both in 1882 and 1874Hobart is twicementioned as being in New Zealand ! Here is a blunder perfectly inexcusable, as the latitude and longitude of all tho stations is given in the report. It is made by eminently scientific gentlemen who can determine the solar parallax to the thousandth part of a second of arc, and are able to compute the distance of the sun from this planet to some 250'000 miles more or less. What wonder if the dear delightful public, which cares nothing for exactness in anything, is a trifle hazy about colonial geography. “A colony, you see, is a? colony, so it doesn’t matter very much where it is. And as to the colonial towns and townships, they are very much alike, especially the townships, and even when you see them you can’t tell whether you are in one or another. So what’s the use of bothering ? Anyway, nobody wants to go anywhere near’them." That is about the feeling, which somehow nobody seems to care to counteract. The case for a penny ocean postage lies in a nutshell. Of the whole aggregate of the subsidies paid to ocean steamers— . L 640,00 L 240,000 are, the advol cates of the penny postage declare, paid for the conveyance of mails, the balance representing purposes for which the Admiralty ought to pay. Upon the mail account there is, they add, a net profit of L 146,000, that being the sum by which the postages exceed the subsidies. Now reduction to the rate would involve L 105,000, and the further reduction to a penny would take with it another L 75,000. Subtracting from this LIBO,OOO the postage profit of L 146,000, the penny champions give us L 34,000 as the estimated cost of the Dermy system to the general revenue. The postal net profit being over three millions, tho Empire could easily afford to run the risk of that small loss, which a vory short experience of the cheaper rate 3 would speedily convert into a profit. The arguments of partisans are, of course, always specious. Iu I his case it would not be surprising if they were unanswerable, for the ways of the authorities are as devious as they are high handed. Reply, if there is any, is Tho profits are taken from the official figures; the statement of the Admiralty proportion of the L 640,000 can, if it is incorrect, bo disposed of in five minutes. We shall hear more of this, as the League of the Penny Post numbers many hundreds of members and is growing. The great fire at Salonica lights up the aspirations which the diplomatists bar® nursed for years. Salonica is the port at the head of the Hfigean, which Austria has been trying to reach ever since the Treaty of Berlin gave her the right to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since tho whi uniforms have appeared in those provinces the march of Russia on Conßtanttinople has met with unexpected obstacle. Tho liberated Bulgaria formed a stW' backed State supported by Europe. I* l4 put an end to the implied with Austria that some day Russia eat up tho new Balkan State, which the time of the Treaty of Berlin V regarded as virtually Russian, » n destined to be so in name beto_, many years. By the time the A , trian flag was flying paramount

qlioniM fcke Russian woiiU riot; to this compact, have been far Sthe'dome of St. Sophia. The Union Tack would have been ready then to be displayed in Crete, as it had already been j Cyprus. Thus did the diplomatists in iopreb arrange for the succession to the property of the Sick Man ; the two Eastern Powers were to take possession and Great Britain was to have the watch towers* on the sea for the safety of the Egyptian route to India. Great Britain holds that route and one of the watch towers (at Cyprus), the Austrian has made a railway to Saloniea, the Russian has kidnapped one Bulgarian Sovereign and is intriguing against another, and the Raiser and the Czar have been lately talkin'*. Did this arrangement form the subject of tlieir discourse ?. That is the all-important question.