STRIKING DIVERSITY AND STRANGE UNANIMITY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1057, 2 June 1892, Page 12

STRIKING DIVERSITY AND STRANGE UNANIMITY.

THE WORKING MAN’S MILLENNIUM. It is said that ‘Variety is the spies of life,' and that ‘it adds to ir,s flavour.’ The poet (Isaac Watt 3, or C -wper, wu f-rgat which) was not v ry far wrong when he penned this oouplet, for certainly life would be but a dull monotonous thing were it not for its pleasing and relieving contrasts. In the animal world we have the graceful and sh deer and the bold and ferocious lion, the huge elephant, and the diminutive th-.ugu destructive mouse ; there is the plain, humble looking thrci3b, with its rich song, and the beautiful humming bird whose musical talents (and he has sense enough to know it) are conspicuously absent ; then there is the monster whale and the tiny shrimp on which it feeds. Whilst in mankind the contrasts are still more marked and numerous, for not only are their * physical features,’ so to speak, different, but they differ intellectually and morally also. In some countries certain acts are considered dishonourable and even criminal, and in others the same acts would be looked upon as legitimate and honourable. In China and India, for instance, we believe, lying is a virtue—we won’t say a rare virtue ; while among the Negroes of America chicken-stealing is considered one of the favourite nooturnal pastimes, and perfectly praiseworthy, too—provided they ‘ don’t get caught in the aot.’ In this oonutry our tastes differ, and our ambitions carry us higher. We don’t believe there is a single bank-teller in the whole of the country mean enough to lay violent hands on a poor unprotected fowl. As to varying opinions on political matters they are legion, everybody has an opinion of some sort; some think that Ballance and his party are the willing instruments of the evil one ; others think them the only men capable of ushering in that era of unexampled prosperity termed by some enthusiasts the Working Men’s Milleninm ; others, again, are loud in their praises of the author of the Pablic Works Policy, whilst others clamour for Sir Harry Atkinson; but one and all are unanimous in pronouncing Buchanan’s Honse of Commou’a Whisky ‘ the Purest and Best u the Market,’