TABLE TALK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1013, 31 July 1891, Page 20

TABLE TALK.

Sir George Grey’s tributo to Sir Frederick Weld is, as everybody has been saying Yvho has heard it, one of the best things that ever fell from Sir George’s lips. We all know Yvhat an English gentleman is. No one can ever mistake him for anything else—or anything e’se for him for that matter. But Sir George Grey is one of the feiv men that I know Yvho can properly describe him in few words. The old settlers, yvlioso memories are being Yvalcened up just now in various Yvays, all remember him perfectly Yvell. They remember his absolutely fearless

courage, tho man who never thought about the odds, yvlio possessed the true English bull dog virtue in that respect. He never sought a quarrel, but, being once in, it Yvas a case of beware. On many a political platform and in many a Maori pah this quality Yvas exhibited in great perfertion.

Culture be had, moreover, culture of that high order which makes so much of natural capacity. There is a story told by Ellen Terry in her recent “ Recollections ” about an old gentleman—“ a white-faced old man,” she called him—who used to go round the garden every evening just saying “ Good night ” to his flowers. She admits blundering upon him one evening, and, having heard him talking, she slunk aivay ;and afterthat she used to sit in a bay YvindoYV with her work watching him every evening. She concludes—“ lam sure he saiv fairies.” In this remark there is a world of meaning. “ Oh,” said the great actress “ for an audience of many such as he ! Ho could not read Shakespeare well himself, but lie Yvas so simple a gentleman, so single minded that any actor not a born fool would haY'e learned much from him on listening to his reading of ‘ King Leah,’ ‘ Othello,’ the Friar in ‘ Much Ado,” &c., etc. “Ho used,” adds this charming Yvoman and excellent describer, “to sing a simple ballad too, with the tears pouring down his face, the beauty of the plain story going straight to the heart, and the eyes just running over for sympathy. That is the kind of people who have been my best teachers. Hold the mirror up to Nature, and one can learn so much. Observe a child, a dog ; imitate tho unconsciousness of the dog if you can—a dog going through a crowd of people after his beloved mistress, Yvho is in a cab ahead. ‘ Look at it, think of it, dissolute man ; Yvatcli it and imitate it if you can.’ ”

In this charming description the quality of culture such as Sir Frederick Weld’s is hit off to perfection. I do not know that I have ever seen it done so well. But then you knoYV that Ellen Terry is one of a very small and select circle of nature’s best. How many of us are not reminded by her account of the old man of some one or two in the faroft time—elders they Yvere to us ' Yen we were young—YY'hose method of reading the great dramatist, the tales of Scott and liis poems, Dickens, Byron, all that was good in poetry ar.d prose wa3 everything that could be desired. Have we ever beard anything so unstudied since ? The best on the stage in some respects fails in comparison with that simple natural cultured stylo of the pleasantvoiced sympathetic reader of the days of yore. What a shock it was to hear the first performance of the actor of reputation on the stage after that ! How stilted it seemed— lioyv artificial ! What a forced cadence there Yvas, and hoYV monotonous 1 If a passion had to he torn to tatters we should liaY'e preferred it to lia\'e been murdered , YY’itli more decorum. I liaY’e often wondered during the years that haY r e gone by whether this feeling \\ r as tho mere shock of transition into the world of reality from the region of boyish romance. It is a region iu which our elders all have the strength of Hercules and the mental power of Aristotle and Socrates combined. They are all wonderful in those days. And even at a later time all the women are beautiful, and all the Yvine is good, and all the cigars are magnificent ; and the Yvit—has it eY’er been surpassed ? Possibly I have thought the memory of the superiority of the oldreaderis but an hallucination like the others. Bub no, here Yve have one of the greatest mistresses of the histrionic art acknowledging her great indebtedness to the type—“ so simple a gentleman, so single-minded, that any actor not a born fool Yvould have learned much from him on listening,” &e., &c. And the same she says for the singing of the ballad. I thank thee, Ellen Terry, for rescuing from romance, perhaps, one of the finest pieces of beautiful reality which exists in the romantic realm of youth.

These are the critics of the generation. To them Yve owe the high standard of criticism Yvhich is maintained throughout the British Empire. That standard has been ascribed to the writers at so much a line Yvho manufacture —or think they manufacture the literary opinion of Great Britan and Ireland. It is a superstition believed in by the authors themselves, no less distinguished a man than Walter Besant thinking it necessary to devote pages of careful remonstrance to gentlemen of the quill. Bub everybody knows how most of the criticism is done. Too many books have to be written about for ono to be criticised properly. The critic’s Yvork is nothing but an extended index of the publication he is criticising. We knoYV from his Review Yvhat kind of thing to look for, whether it Yvill interest us or amuse U 3 or instruct us, flatter the particular bent of our minds or not; and yvo seek the book accordingly or otherYvise. But the criticism is our OYvn. We all have a sense of the fitness of things implanted in us by our elders ; the full stream of opinion has been carried on from generation to generation in thi3 manner. The critics are the scum 011 the surface, the true sources of the stream are still maintained by the high standard of the simple-hearted gentleman of culture. Nay, more, these are not confined to any class. I have heard the “ Cottar’s Saturday Night ” read by a gentleman

clad in the blue suit which is affected by mechanicians and ship’s carpenters ; I have heard it recited with as much emphasis, power of voice, natural sympathy and exquisite refinement os I have ever heard it anywhere. Never a word had he been taught on the subject of elocution. Simply the beauty of that immortal poem had mastered him, had tuned his voice for him, and had compelled him to produce its various melodies exactly in their right keys. I need not say that his accent was decidedly provincial, Doric—very Doric indeed, it was —but as the poem happens to be in the Doric language his exposition rather gained by the circumstance. I hare heard Shakespeare read likewise by a gentleman of similar attire, and there the provincialism might have been considered to detract from the merits of the performance. So it might to a cultivated ear, which, however, would soon have got accustomed to it; and even the cultivated ear would have learned a good deal by the simple dignity of the natural eloquence. As for the hearers with a tendency for provincialism themselves, nothing but the highest benefit could possibly result from the performance.

Mr Grant Allan, writing in the Fortnightly Review, declares a wonderful thing about English literature. There are 110 millions of English-speaking people, of whom some 35 millions reside in the British Isles. The great traditions of English literature have there their home. The great development of Anglo-Saxon freedom was worked out there almost in its entirety—in the entirety of its main features, certainly—with the exception of on?, namely, the American Revolution. The 110 millions are the heirs of that greatness, but do they all share in maintaining the vigourous growth of English literature as it exists to day ? Where are all the great writers,-the thinkers, poets, philosophers ? They are to be found in a country of 35 millions. Thirty-five millions, Grant Allan says, do the whole literary work for the 110 millions. Literature is an exotic plant in some parts of the American Union —Boston, which is the hub of the universe, Harvard University, and one or two other favoured spots ; but the bulk of the people does not form a soil congenial to literary production. Take out a few of the names whose songs are not very high in the templo of fame, and nothing remains to eclipse the great names and great traditions which have emanated from the cradle of the race, whose credit, moreover, is fairly well kept up in that cradle by the descendants of those who have stayed at home. Whan can be the reason of this ? Grant Allan has not told us, but 1 have my idea. It is that we owe the British pre-eminence to the simple-minded gentlemen who supply the sources of criticism and keep the stream strong, full, vigorously running in their native country. Such is the conclusion to which 1 am driven by a tender recollection of my youth revived and strengthened by the authority of that great actress Ellen Terry, and the charming description which I have just introduced, to my beloved reader.

Another thing we are reminded of by the praises bestowed on Sir Frederick Weld. It is of the courage of the English race. Everybody is talking of that courage in consequence of the fighting in Assam. 1 notice a very straightforward article, in the old English style, in the Spectator upon this subject. Some of the newspapers had fallen upon the memory of Mr Quinton, for having assaulted an army of 8000 with three or four hundred Ghoorkas. The Spectator points out that the odds in the East are never counted. The audacity of the British nation in holding down 2SO millions of people, 140 millions of whom are born soldiers, with an army of 60 thousand redcoats, not picked, is the governing feature of the situation by which every officer in the service is bound. The traditions of the conquest tell in the same direction. The Spectator points out that Clive at the great battle of Plassy did not have more Europeans under him in proportion to the other side than Mr Quinton and Colonel Skene had Ghooras in proportion to the troops of the Senaputty. The so-called rashness of Mr Quinton is eulogised by the Spectator warmly as a boldness proper to the occasion. Tt proved fatal to him not so much because it wa3 rash, but for two other reasons. First, the little force was badly handled ; secondly, its commanders made the mistake of offering to treat. They ought to have tried to fight their way out, and they would have got out. Tho natural consequences have fallen upon those in command. The prestige of the Empire has suffered in no way, for .mmediately the disaster to the little column was known there issued from the banks of the Irrawaddy, the Brahmapootra, and the Ganges small bodies of troops handled by English officers. They were separate! from one another by enormous reaches of country. Combined by telegraph, their movements were concentrated upon the doomed rebel capital with rapidity and precision. Thirty-three days after the massacre the capital was in their bands—- “ the Regent, bis Commander-in-Chicf, and all his triumphant soldiers have been blown away by the mere wind of British advance.” After that came the trials, and the incident was over. Moral from one end of India to the other—it does not pay to fight against the rule of the Empress Queen.

Moralising upon the merciless criticism showered upon the unhappy leaders who were massacred, the Spectator declines to waste breath in futile indignation. “It is the nature of Democracy never to pity failure or to be just to its unsuccessful servants, and it is futile to expect from it, inexperienced as it is, tho self control which only hard experience teaches to other kings.” There is much wisdom in these words. The state of our political atmosphere at the present time in New Zealand illustrates very forcibly one phase which is there handled with masterly touch. “ The Democracy is still inexperienced and wanting in self-con-trol.” Never were truer words spoken. The Democracy, as we have it represented upon tho Government benches, is not wanting in the courage of the British race. That Democracy not being guided by sufficient maturity of experience, tho representative of Democracy has attacked the great social problem with a whole battalion of measures. They arc raw troops, more likely to do damage to their own side than to that of the enemy, and are highly dangerous for such a service. Only the greatest courage could load them on in the direction in which they have been headed. Fortunately there is considerable shrewdness and care on both sides of the Lower House, where this great social problem is being worked out, and the courage of tho Ministers does not degenerate into that foolhardiness which insists upon carrying every point of the position. Therefore, the raw levies cannot, after all, cfo so much damage. We have in the battalion the company of Land Nationalises, the company of Shop Hours regulators, the company of Employers’ Liability, the company of the Truck Bill, and we have many others. The discussion on the Shop Hours Bill that took place on Tuesday night last, keeping the House many hours until three in tho morning, is one of the most instructive that this deponent has ever listened to. He saw a Government animated by the best intentions bringing forward a measure admirably adapted to the circumstances of a high and complex state of civilisation—apparently totally unsuspicious of the fact that in large portions of this unsettled country it cannot be applied without serious disaster. The principles were most excellent, but the far - reaching details produced numberless discussions in which the truth came out with great force. However, the best thing that can be said is that the Government accepted the new light that was thrown upon it. By the way, the courtesy and consideration shown by Sir John Hall and .Mr Rolleston to the Minister in charge of this Bill were very remarkable and excellent features in the discussion.

Take'the Land Bill again, with the principle of land nationalisation. I can understand beginning a new country under this principle, letting everybody grow up under it, keeping for the State the advantage of the unearned increment. I think it may be doubted whether you would ever fill up a country of virgin soil under these circumstances, because the love of a freehold is one of the sacred feelings of the human heart, it is one of the mainsprings of human action ; from it flow all the patriotic virtues ; it is tho firm ground in which is embedded the anchor which holds us to the great principle of social order. But let us waive that aside for a moment, for the sake of argument. I can understand a country beginning the experiment of nationalisation from the very birth of its history. I can likewise understand the policy of buying back every aero of land in the State as the beginning of a policy of nationalisation. These two are whole, solid complete, logical policies which can be worked out in a clear field without allowing anyone to expect favour under them.

But to nationalise the remnant of the lands in this country by gradual process such as is contemplated by the Land Bill is a thing hi ell is nob understandable on any terms. The position of tlie perpetual leaseholder in fifty years will be incomparably worse than the position of the freeholder. For this reason ; the property for fifty years will pay rent upon the unimproved value and a tax upon tho unearned increment steadily increasing ; at the end of fifty years it will pay rent upon the unearned increment upon which it has paid taxes for fifty years, and will pay taxes besides. Compare with that the position of the freeholders who pay rent to nobody. They simply pay the tax and they are quit. Compare that position with the Irish posit.on, in which s une thirty years’ paymenbat four per cent grants the freehold. But to say nothing of Ireland, the position of the leaseholders is far worse than the position of the freeholders. The position is aggravated by the complete freedom of the freeholder to do as he pleases with his property, as against the very stringent conditions by which the leaseholder is fixed to the soil.