Current Topics.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 998, 17 April 1891, Page 26

Current Topics.

In all largo cities boys congregate in the streets at nights and let off their superfluous energy —there is a great deal of superfluous energy in boyhood—in a manner which makes rash people talk fiercely of larrikins and hoodlums. There are no larrikins and no hoodlums in New Zealand like the young gentlemen who answer to these descriptions in the big cities of Australia and America. Nevertheless the “ vagrom ” boy is nuisance and a difficulty. The pity of it is that he may so easily be made something of. In the Old Country they cope with him by means of “Boys’ Institutes.” In these establishments there are reading rooms, gymnasiums, recreation halls, class rooms. Boys are induced to attend, they find pleasant amusement, they get a taste for reading, they are taught to draw, to sing, to use their hands in various useful ways ; and last, but by no means least, they are given a share in the management, encouraged to elect committees from among themselves, and obey the rules they make for the common benefit. An appeal is being made in Wellington for tbe establishment of a “ boys’institute,” Mr J. G. Aitken and others having taken the matter up warmly. They want LSOO to secure a section of lanl and put up a building upon it. It is an excellent object, which we heartily recommend to the public of Wellington.

The doubling of the English correspondence in "Victoria since January in conseauence of the 2id rate of ocean postage is a very noteworthy fact. To a very large number of people it is the unexpected. It is more, for the idea was very largely held that only a certain class of people wrote letters to the Colonies, a class to whom a sixpenny stamp matters nothing, a class to whose numbers even free postage would never add anything. The idea confronted with a doubling of the English correspondence in three months vanishes, and vanishing discloses further possibilities of reduction. A penny ocean postage was the dream of Sir Howland Hill before the days of ocean greyhounds. iYIr Henniker fleaton has proved conclusively that there is no reason why it should not be the reality of our time. It would have been that long ago, but for the dead level of officialdom throughout the world.

In Westland, about Hokitika and Hoss, Mr Seddon has not managed to escape the Death’s Head at any of the numerous feasts tendered to him tbere. Yet he< rose to the occasion every time he got up to make a speech ; developing a richness of laudatory vocabulary which captivated his hearers greatly. But they regarded words as the seed of cash harvests. When he told them that they were a fine manly self-reliant race of colonists, they thought he meant that therefore dollars would flow their way from the eternal source of the Government Treasury. They applied the test very soon, and then they—well, they wondered what on earth is the use of haviug a representative in the Ministry. This i 3 the way the wags down the Coast put it ; which is rather complimentary to Mr Seddon than otherwise. But that part of Westland is in a bad way. There is little revenue and much requirement of necessary works. Th e Gold Duty is gone, and in its place is Nemesis in the shape of a notice of motion from Mr Grimmond, ex-M. El.fi. Mr Grimmond’s motion provides for the cessation of all work of all kinds, and-the dismissal of everybody except a few roadmen who live 20 miles apart, and who are to be formally notified not to expect any pay, and the stoppage of all charitable aid expenditure. That is _ the kind of thing the Skinflints would like to do for the Colony as a whole, with the exception of their own districts. Mr Grimmond has given'them an example of retrenchment of which they cannot complain as wanting in thoroughness. The local comment is that local government has broken down in Westland. They want a little more of that self-reliance on which Mr Seddon complimented them.

Sir Charles T upper’s return to England marks the close of the Behring Sea negotiations with something like the certainty we experience when the lid of a box shuts with a snap. The closing is unmistakeable. At the same time the presence of Sir Charles in London is the presence of a good adviser to Her Majesty’s Government on all matters of Canadian importance. At the age of 70 he is entering upon the seventh year of his career as High Commissioner of Canada, an office created for him in consequence of his great services to the Dominion. Sir Charles is the man who did more than any other in Canada pxcept Sir John Macdonald to bring about the Federal Dominion. He mooted the project in 1857, two years after his entry into political life in Nova Scotia, and he used his increasing influence as Minister of that Colony, and finally its Premier, in the cause, until ten years later (1867) he saw the Dominion established. That is his greatest service tw Canada. The education system of the Dominion owes to him the pattern which was found in the Nova Scotian system — -a system of free education based partly on local assessment and partly on general funds, with separate provision for denominational convictions. He has served in the Dominion Cabinet, of course,

having held the portfolios of “Public Works,” “Railways and Canals,” “ Customs,” besides being President of the Privy Council. At the Washington Fisheries Commission inlßß7he contributed chiefly to the success of tlienegociations. That and the successful financing of the Canadian Pacific Railway have been his main services during his High Commissionership. It is not improbable that his diplomatic capacity and great ability may add to these services presently by helping materially to maintain pleasant relations with the States.

We have cabled another Portuguese incident in South Africa, and yet another looming near. The first is a second edition of Colonel Andrade’s famous fiasco. The Colonel marched into Mashonaland, protested, _ and though accompanied by a strongish force was arrested, and sent out of the country. This time an officer of lower rank. Lieutenant Frere, has marched into Mashoraland, protested, and been arrested in the midst of his force by some of the Mashonaland column. The incident will not tend to make the Cortes at Lisbon any more inclined to come to terms. _ Lord Salisbury, not many months ago, said that he would not look at another treaty until it had been approved by the Cortds. Since then, while tbe Cortds has been cooling slowly, some member of the British Government has intimated that it is no part of the duty of Her Majesty’s administration to save the Portuguese throne from Democracy. The sting of the expression is that we would rather establish ourselves in certain places with Portuguese approval, but we must be established somehow. The third incident which is looming near may precipitate the establishment of the second method. If 250 men, half digger, half soldier, from Mashonaland, are repulsed by force of arms, there will be a little conflagration in that part of the world which will probably burn the little Portuguese difficulty out of all recognisable shape. Mr Cecil Rhodes will take the opportunity to force Lord Salisbury’s hands. He said the other day, that as everybody is parcelling out Africa, it is time for tbe Africans to do a little parcelling too.

Baron Munchausen died long ago, but his spirit remained on earth wandering. The country it has just reached is Melbourne, from which place the most astonishing medical reports are disseminated, everyone a fabrication, yet everyone swallowed by a singularly gullible press. The last Melbourne story is that a man has recently passed through there who at Glasgow, a few weeks before, was in the last stages of consumption, and was there cured by tbe use of tuberculine. Dr Koch himself has said that his remedy is very dangerous to the last stages of phthisis, and Sir Morrell Mackenzie, his panegyrist, has after careful observation and experiment written that in the. last stages the tuberculine is a deadly poison. Had the Melbourne story been even remotely probable we should have been favoured with the recovered patient’s name, with the particulars of his disease, and the details of his cure, and we should not have had to wait for the information till he got to Melbourne. The whole story we fear is a deliberate invention, one of many devised for hoaxing the Melbourne press, which in some respects appears to he the meekest and most stupid upon the face of the earth. The matter is worth attention, because the tuberculine is to be tried in a few days in Dunedin. Has the Government made up its mind to prosecute in case of failure ?

Manipur is undergoing the fate of many native states, which have ripened and fallen into the circle of the Indian Empire. Originally the country formed with Assam part of the Kingdom of Bur mah. After the first Burmese War, in 1826, Assam was handed over to the East India Company with Cacliar ; and Manipur became the frontier district of independent Burmah. After the third Burmese war (the other day only), the rest of Burmah became British territory, except Manipur, the most northerly province, lying south and east of Assam. In such a position, the place was like a walnut lying in the crackers ready to he cracked —and absorbed. The process was begun when a Resident was stationed at the capital. In due course the Resident underwent one or other of the numerous methods of massacre practised by jealous races. In due course also the country over which he was set as an observer will be annexed to revenge his murder, and the line of British rule xvill be unbroken from the Brahmapootra to the Irawaddy.

Hope springs eternal, even in the journalistic breast. The “ Times ” observing the end of the National Convention’s labours is astonished, as every student of history must be, by such unexpected rapidity of discussion. The “Times” goes on to feel hopeful about the new Federation’s . prospects of continued loyalty to the Empire. The hope is based upon the loyal protestations of Sir Henry Parkes and the other leaders. . But why say anything about loyalty, which ought, in a Federation of British Colonies to he taken for granted ? Obviously because there are suspicious circumstances. Taken by itself the title of “ Commonwealth ” is nob in any way significant. But it must be taken in conjunction with the other things done by tbe Convention, viz., the independence of the Australian judiciary, and the irre-

sponsible character of the Federal Government. The latter is absurd in every aspect except one— the aspect of a stepping stone to the elective Presidency of the Australian Republic, otherwise called the Commonwealth. The three things together are nob reassuring. It is possible that the Federal Assembly may do what the first New Zealand House of Representatives did—insist upon making responsible government an integral portion of the Constitution. But at present the question is an open question. Nevertheless the Times has good hopes of the continuance of colonial loyalty. We hope the Times may be right.

Our suggestion that the best cure for the shingle difficulty at Timaru is a bridged gap at tbe shore end of the breakwater is, we have been informed, impracticable, because no bridge can avoid obstruction of the sliingle that is not at least as long as tbe breakwater itself. There is, therefore, nothing for the Board but the plan, recommended the other day. by the engineers, who differ merely as to details, Mr O’Connor advising a more powerful and therefore costly machine than Mr Goodall. Mr O’Connor’s scheme of dredging will, he estimates, be able to suck away in four months the accumulations of a year oil the outside of the breakwater, and the restoration of this shingle by the dredger’s barges to the coast above the breakwater is relied on to restore the cushion of travelling shingle which protects the coast from the encroachments of the sea. . This may be regarded as tbe most feasible and tbe most hopeful of tlie suggestions of the engineers, who now at last regard the Timaru breakwater problem as solved. On the other hand it is computed, in Timaru that the saving in the price of imported goods, and in the handling and embarking of?exports, more than recoups the rates paid by the district in aid of tbe breakwater. If that be so, and we see no reason to doubt, then we can only say that “all’s well that ends well.”

Prohibition won its first great victory in Sydenham on Saturday last. Sydenham is the town in which 30 brewers’ men wanted to get on to the rate roll the other day as buyers of a block of building land conveniently cut up for them. Had they succeeded they would not have been able to affect the result by their votes. The fight was for the election of the Licensing Committeß. The Prohibitionists had five men in the field and the Moderate party had an equal number. Sir William Fox threw himself into the fray with his accustomed vigour, on which side it is perfectly needless to say. The local papers teemed with correspondence, in which much was said about the “eight bars” in the place. These eight bars the five Prohibitionists pledged themselves to shut up. After a very brisk contest they won by large majorities, their lowest man on the poll heading the highest of the other side by 200 votes. We piesume that the eight bars will be shut up. In some tlieir owners will present themselves for the annual renewal of their licenses ; there will be an objection on the score that the houses are not required in the district —one of the grounds on which the Act allows objections to be based ; tne committee will refuse the renewals, as they are pledged to do; after which everybody will live happily for evermore within the precincts of a Court of Law ; we mean that there will, according to the general local opinion, be litigation. It will be a test casfe of considerable importance. In the meantime," Sir William Fox, who did more than anybody else to introduce. the present Licensing Act, can take credit to himself for having struck a blow at the public houses which this very Act permitted. Before the Actwas passed in 1881; there was not a single public house in Sydenham, known then as “ the Model Borough.” Many applications for licenses were made, and always refused by the nominee Licensing Bench of those days. As soon as Local Option became the law in 1881, these applications were all granted, and since then other houses have been licensed. Local Option which brought the houses has now declared that they shall be shut up. Among the defeated candidates were the popular Mr White, Mr Lanjdown (a popular employer of labour who has never had a difference with his men), and Mr Hoban (president of the Railway Association. On the whole it is an interesting and as yet unfinished episode in the history of licensing in New Zealand.

We are fond of deriding our neighbours the Tasmanians, as old and slow and small. But they do things very thoroughly .in. Tasmania as the delegates from that country proved to the National Convention where there were none better instructed in the subject than they. There is a newb silver field in that Colony which has been attracting the attention of all in Australia who know anything about silver. The field is at Zeehan and Dundas, on the western side of the island. All Melbourne is Hiking of the fabulous richness of the lodes, gloating (no doubt with exaggeration) over the greatness of the field, and reckoning the fortunes already made. At Zeehan there are 4500 people, land in the town pegged out for nothing a few months ago fetches Ll2 a foot, magnificent horse teams ply between the place and the port of Strahan, and the Government is making a railway. Four hundred ounces of silver to the ton is talked of, the ore pays well after being sent to Fort

Pirie, most favourable assays have been obtained by the enterprising people who have sent ore to Friebourg, Swansea, Sydney, and Adelaide, dividends of very comfortable dimensions are steadily paid. The rainfall is 100 inches in the year, and the place is going ahead at a marvellous rate. At Dundas the discoveries are said to be even richer than at Zeehan. We shall probably hear more from this favoured locality and often.

The great Scotch railway strike has added one more proof to the difficulty of the strike as a weapon. The men had a most legitimate grievance. In the Board of Trade returns it is shown that 90 per cent of the goods guards, drivers and firemen average more than 12 hours work a day. The men asked for a reduction to 10 hours with overtime. They were not furnished with means for carrying on the war ; they got no help from the public though they got much sympathy ; none of the eight hour organisations did anything substantial for them ; they suffered terribly, and they were defeated. In its way the strike is as great a lesson as the great colonial strike of last year. But thero is this great difference, that the Scotchmen deserved to succeed by reason of tlieir cause, whereas the colonists did not. The two strikes have proved that isolated efforts avail labour nothing, that nothing but isolated efforts are possible in the direction of force, that the only possible battleground is the Constitutional arena of Parliament. There the battle will be fought with more reason and les3 suffering to individuals without imperilling the trade of the country.

In Lord Salisbury’s proposed arrangement with Portugal, by which he assigns the whole plateau of Manicaland to the British the hand of Cecil Rhodes is evident. The South African Premier was in London in January last making representations (inter alia) in Downing street to justify the action of the British South African Company in Manica. The publication of the new “ partition ” has followed close on the arrest of the Portuguese Lieutenant Frere in Manica. It is presumable therefore that the representations by which Mr Rhodes sought to justify the arrest of Colonel Andrade some months ago have been held sufficient to justify the policy of force generally. To settle the matter on a broad permanent basis the Prime Minister offers to make the whole country British territory. No doubt he gives concessions of some kind to the Portuguese. Nothing is said about them, but as their absence would imply a highhanded course which with any power of respectable strength would lead to war, it is a fair inference that concession of some kind is offered. But concession or no concession it is pretty clear that Mr Rhodes is forcing Lord Salisbury’s hand on the Zambesi. In August and September last year Lord Salisbury expressly recognised the effective occupation of the Portuguese. Mr Rhodes since then obtained a concession of the plateau from the Chief Umtesa. This concession Lord Salisbury now recognises. The British South African Company is building up a vast state on the Zambesi, while its moving spirit is organising a South African Federation to back it up. One member of the coming Federation has got possession of Bechuanaland we observe by a late telegram. Before ten years there will be a mighty British Power in South Africa.

Tme financial argument against Federation with Australia we stated tlie other day, without going quite so far as Sir Harry Atkinson. It was evident in the face of the Federation Bill that every colony would have to give tip its Customs revenue, and would not receive back enough for its wants, less its proportion of the cost of the Federal Legislature. It is possible also that a change of tariff — the first thing that Federation would bring in its train —might lessen the Customs revenue very considerably of several colonies. If New Zealand lost LIOO,OOO by the free sugar of Queensland, besides the heavy loss a change to the Victorian tariff appears to imply, New Zealand would have a difficulty in paying her annual interest charges. Sir Harry Atkinson says that if the loans were taken over that would balance the account. Of course it would—with a vengeance. It would be a good thing for us if our debt, tlie biggest per head of population in Australasia, were taken over and the revenue we raisefrom the public pocket at the same time diminished. In that case, Federation would simply mean a method of getting Australia to join substantially in paying our debts. It would certainly be detrimental to keep out of a Federation that promised us such a result. But would it not be dangerously like “jockeying” the Australians to join them with Buch an intent ? We are not plunderers. If we are to join the Australias, let it be with all eyes open to all things.

Not many days ago we read of the bankruptcy of a very honest and very unfortunate man, once a member of the House of Representatives. He was a contracting builder with a fine establishment in a large Southern town, and the building business somehow did not pay. That is not astonishing ; but it was astonishing to read that in one big contract for the building of a celebrated hostelry he had

osfc L3OOO. What sort of a contractor can he have been after all ? Contractors do cut things very fine, but to lose L3OOO on a contract of between L7OOO and LIO,OOO is to make too large a loss to live on. The question asked by Mr Carmichael of the Minister of Public Works on Tuesday reminds us of this case. Whether prompted or original it is no matter, tlie question was the most astoundingly idiotic that has ever been put to a Minister of the Crown. “ May we tender in a lump sum,” said this gentleman in effect, “ and send in our schedules afterwards. Sometimes we only have tlie specifications two days.” “ Not to the interest of the State to encourage haphazard tendering,” replied Mr Seddon with decision. At this unexpected style of Ministerial answer the contractors subsided, and went on to something else. But what a light their request throws upon the system of contracting, upon its losses, and its unavoidable sweatings ?

Mr Benjamin, of Dunedin, is a very fortunate man. He was the possessor of a banking account which a Judge of the Supreme Court describes a 3 “in liquidation ” ; he nevertheless induced the public to believe that he was a safe person to deposit money with ; and the public deposited its money with him, tempted no doubt by the high rate of interest he offered. When the inevitable crash comes, the Judge makes some strong remarks, but ends by taking rather a mild view of Mr Benjamin’s position. In this case Judge Williams has tempered justice with too much mercy. Judge Ward would have been more severe ; he would also have been more logical. The mercantile community is always asking tor a reform of the Bankruptcy Act. Why not begin by reforming the too great kindliness of the administration?

While one little war is raging in Assam not far from the banks of the Brahmapootra, a serious disturbance is coming to a head at the other end of the Indian Empire. A few days ago one of the hill tribes of the Afghan frontier broke into rebellion at Kohat. So fast has the thing spread that the whole of the turbulent tribes of the frontier are seething, and as the Mollahs are preaching a holy war (Jehad), the probability is that there will be serious trouble all along the frontier. These tribes are always more or less disaffected. But their power for mischief is limited. In both our Afghan wars they tried to hamper the advance of the troops marching on Cabul, but even with the Afghan troops at their back they made nothing of it. In the massacres which destroyed the whole of the British army in 1841, when only one single survivor (Dr Brydone) escaped, they took their full share under the infamous Akbar. That was their only success. Our troops under proper command have always scattered their levies as they pleased. As these tribes are practically independent, there is not much danger of their getting Afghan support in their present outbreak.

Sir George Grey’s visit to Adelaide is perhaps the most unique experience even of his eventful life. Forty-five years ago he laid down the Governorship of South Australia after pulling the affairs cf the country together, and came on to New Zealand. He has in the interval made himself a name, and South Australia has grown into a great Colony. When he went away he left Adelaide in the pioneer stage of existence ; on his return he finds a handsome, prosperous, populous city, in the enjoyment of every comfort of civilised life. His old friends are gone, the generation among which he laboured has passed away, but his memory is green yet in the land. There he did his first responsible work, after his early explorations, so simply and gracefully described in his reports from which we had the pleasure of quoting long extracts the other day. Of course he was well received, and made heartily welcome. The fact that he was able to give himself the refreshment of revisiting the scenes of his youth shows that at the great age of 79 he still retains considerable vigour and enterprise. When the great meeting at the Guildhall protested against the treatment of the J ews in Russia, its memorial was sent off to the Russian Government. That Government, knowing all the tricks of diplomatic and etiquettal fence, never received it, and the Czar said he would send straight to the devil any foreigner rash enough to meddle in the the affairs of Russial. But the Russian press being an approachable potentate has not been slow to reply. It has nothing, curiously enough, to say in the Russian defence. It attacks the British vigorously for the doings of their ally the Afghan Ameer in his recent campaign of vengeance. Subsidised by English gold, they cry, armed with English weapons, supported by English officials, he massacred all the men on his road, carried off the women into slavery, destroyed the children. His cruelties excited amazement, they add as their climax, even in Bokhara. It is very terrible, if true. But then two blacks do not make a white ; and after all are we responsible for the doings of our ally ? It is not quite the same thing as doing bad work one’s self.

There is more than meets the eye in the complaint which the contractors made to the Minister of Public Works. When Mr Carmichael put that question about

the schedules he really made a complaint that contractors are often put to great disadvantage by the practice in vogue. If the quantities were all taken out by the department and the results supplied, tenderers would not be compelled to rush their work of tendering in a manner which makes them run the risk of haphazard contracting. The practice elsewhere is, we understand, to supply the quantities to all tenderers. The Midland Railway Company does it ; P|ost architects in England we are assured do it ; the Public Works Department of Victoria does it too, if we are correctly , informed. The work is done by the engineers here for their own estimates of cost. The expense of making copies for the contractors would be but small. If that expense were incurred the danger of haphazard contracting would be considerably lessened.

We hope that when the Minister makes his Public Works Statement there will be provision in it for the fire-proof buildings so much required at the Government Buildings. The subject was brought very prominently forward when the old Printing Office was burnt down. That fire showed what might happen any day to the big buildings opposite. These buildings are fairly well supplied with appliances for coning* with fire. But the best appliances are liable to be defeated. In case of defeat the valuable documents stored in the various offices would be irreplaceable. The Department has in its possession estimates for detached buildings, fireproof, in which these documents can be housed with absolute safety. The expense is not great, and the buildings are imperatively necessary. Every day there is unwarrantable risk.

There is a custom in Germany that apprentices, after the expiration of their term of service, shall travel two years before becoming masters—hence journey men. “Pig iron*' is a mere play upon the word sow. When iron is melted it runs off Into a channel called a sow, the lateral branches of which are called the pigs. Here the iron cools, and is called pig iron. Sow has nothing to do with swine, but is from the Saxon “sawan,” to scatter. Having sow for the parent channel, it required no great effort of wit to call the lateral grooves little pigs.