STRIKING DIVERSITY AND STRANGE UNANIMITY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1061, 30 June 1892, Page 12

STRIKING DIVERSITY AND STRANGE UNANIMITY.

THE WORKING MAN’S MILLENNIUM. It is said that ’ Variety is the spice of life,’ and that ‘it adds to its flavour.’ The poet (Isaac Watts, or Cowper, we forget which) was not v ry far wrong when he penned this couplet, for certainly life would be but a dull monotonous thing were it not for its pleasing aud relieving contrasts. In the animal world wo have the graceful and sh deer and tho bold and ferocious lion, the huge elephant, and the diminutive though destructive mouse ; there is the plain, humble looking thrash, with Its rich song, and the beautiful humming bird whose musical talents (and he has souse enough to know it) are conspicuously absent ; then there is the monster whale and the tiuy shiimp on which it feeds. Whilst in mankind the contrasts an still more marked and numerous, for not only are their • physical features,’ so to speak, different, bub 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 inatanoe, we be* lieve, lying ia » virtue—we won’t say a rare virtue ; while among the Negroes of America chicken-stealing is considered one of the favourite nocturnal pastimes, and perfectly praiseworthy, too —provided they ‘dont get caught in the act.’ In this country our tastes differ, and onr 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 un - protected fowl. As to varying opinions on political matters they ate 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 Millenium ; others, again, are loud in tbeir 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 House of Commou’s Whisky ‘ the Purest and Best in tho Market,’