ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1182, 26 October 1894, Page 21

ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

Satire’s my weapon, but I’m too discreet To ran amuck and tilt at all I meet. Pore.

BY SCRUTATOR.

The shutters are up at the “ Talking Shop,” and members are off home, wearied out with long hours and overwork, and some of them, I daresay, sick unto death of the very name of politics. But not one whit more wearied can they be than the general public; ; What is wanted now is complete political rest for -a few months. For my own part I would like to brain the man.who begins to talk politics to me for, ,afc atiy rate,, six weeks to come; After that, I'suppose, we shall begin to discuss the chances of the next session. ’Twas ever thus.

As to the work done and that left undone, it won’t be discussed hero, one question alone excepted, and that Is Land Settlement. Mr McKenzie deserves every credit for the dogged stand ho took upon the Lands for Settlement Bill, and I hope for his sake—for everybody’s sake—it .may prove a great sue. cess. One can’t hhlp admiring the minister for Lands for the courage and determination with which he has stuck to that measure. He has been misrepresented, belittled and abused by the opposition press until those who d'm’fc know him might have imagined a species of monster whose sole .object is to go about seeking out hardworking settlers and robbing them of their land. The barefaced way in which the provisions of the Bill were misrepresented in some of the opposition papers of “ the baser sort ” was enough to disgust every right'thinking man, but the fight is over now, and although the opposition “ heathen may rage ” the bill is on the Statute Book, and I for one anticipate the very best results from its operations.

What Mr Seddon’s future plans may bo I don’t know, but if he would condescend to take my advice he would go away right out of the country, and take full another conple of months holiday. He’s looking terribly fagged of late and has little of that outward appearance of exuberant health and physical buoyancy which used to characterise.“,pick~Seddori. He should remember, that no man, however strongcan burn the Qandle at both ends with impunity. Take a holiday, do the round trip to Sydney and Melbourne; avoid banquets, over-prolonged confabs with the politicians on the other side, cast official cares to the dogs, have a real good “ loaf ” Richard, my man. Tjie country won’t grudge you a spell, you deserve it, and it will do you a world of good.

The spectacle of the Honourable James Carroll presiding at a Salvationist gathering is not an .every day affair. To anyone who kUbws the Honourable James, it is enough to make a cat laugh. * Jimmy’ at a concert, * Jimmy ’ at a football dinner one can understand, hut the Honourable James discoursing upon the “ rescuing of souls ” and “ weakening the forces of the devil,’ is truly something refreshing and surpassingly novel. I quite expect to hear of him joining fiands with “ Brother ” Newman and sharing in the mild joys of a fruit banquet or a Temperance Club muffin scramble.

But joking apart, the Honourable James was present at the opening of an institution which does very noble work. The Army, much as one may find them a nuisance with their banging pf drums and ear-piercing screechings of grotesquelyworded ditties at the street corners, are doing splendid service to the community with their Rescue Homes. No other religious organisation, save the Roman Catholics, have tackled the reformation of outcast womanhood in such an eminently practical way as have the Salvationists, and the work they do in this direction deserves the good opinion and practical sympathy of every citizen. When one reads the terribly pathetic story told by Mrs Bailey how “one poor girl of 15 had come to the Home with a doll in her arms, and this poor child’s life had been blighted”—a horribly significant term that word “blighted”— one sees that here in this Rescue Home the Army is indeed doing Christ’s work. There is a debt, I see, on the Home. I hope it will speedily bo cleared off. Good luck to you, “ Colonel Bailey.”

This is not a page for “ booming ” anyone or anything, but I make an exception for once in the ease of the Boys’ Brigade, an entertainment in aid of which most worthy institution is, I notice, to eventuate on Monday next. I would strongly urge all city readers of “ Echoes ” to patronise the entertainment in question, for a better object could not be well found. I look upon the Boys’ Brigade as embodying one of the happiest of ideas in getting hold of our city lads and making good useful citizens out of them. There is no sappy sickly religion and water crammed down the lads’ throats, to make humbugs and hypocrites of them, to raise up a band of young prigs, but there is a strong strain of common sense land good, wholesome, practical morality running through the work done at that unpretentious brick building on the Reclaimed Land, and the institution is one to which everyone who can, should lend a yery willing helping hand,

Anyone who sees the lads marchihg out in thsir smart naval rig, headed by their own band,—marching, too, in a way which would put some of oUr adult Volunteers to shame —can see at once that good work has been done, that neatness, smartness, discipline are thoroughly inculcated. The Brigade is not always before the public cap-in hand, but ways and means have to be considered in connection with this, as witli other institutions, and the money which it is hoped, to raise by Monday concert is,. I believe, urgently needed. Therefore, my city readers, I hope to see a full house, and such as may not be able to attend can send along a small donation to the secretary Mr Maguire. You could not help a better cause A Multiply Boys’ Brigades all over tlie Colony, support them liberally, and you would do much to break the back of that ugly colonial monster, the Larrikin.

I have quite a grievance against the members of the Diocesan Synod. As a rule they annually furnish the hardpressed paragrapliist with a few “ items ”; there is generally a “scene” or two, a wordy warfare out of which the cynical layman cari find material for more or less humorous “copy.” Alas,. this year the proceedings were tame and lifeless. There were the elements of a “breeze” in the Sunday-concert discussion, but my old friend ‘ Mr Coffey ’ seems to have lost his old ardour for a fight, and, for the most part, the proceedings were as dull as ditchwater. Speaking from a purely selfish point of view, I regret there was not the customary squabble, but churchmen, I feel sure, will welcome the unwonted spectacle of a whole meeting of the Synod passing by without giving rise to anything approaching one of the old-time “sets-to,” I compliment the reverend gentlemen and their lay brethren upon the peace and concord which for once, at least, have taken the place of petty wranglings. A decided change for the better!

At the same time, I trust that the time is not far distant when women will be allowed to sit and exercise a vote at the meetings of the Synod. What would the churches do without the help of the fair sex? Why, bless me, they wouldn’t exist were it not for the women. Last Sunday night I was up amongst “ the gods ”—pardon my flippancy in using a theatrical expression, I mean in the gallery—at a leading city church, and, I am almost ashamed to admit the fact, for the sermon was short sensible and remarkably well delivered, I was beguiled by a spirit of curiosity into calculating the proportion of men to women amongst the congregation. At a rough computation I should say there were nine women to every man. And the same, I’ll warrant you, is the case on almost every Sunday evening and in almost every church.

The women, bless their good hearts, are the mainstay of the churches ; aye, I will go further and say that they are the mainstay of all religious institutions and observances in this colony. And are not they primarily entrusted with instilling the principles of religion into the children, the future men and women of New Zealand, the future church-goers, T-bope, and I trust not merely church-goers,(but genuinejpractical Christians of the future. Sure, then, it is an absurd, an unjust, an unrighteous thing, that they should be debarred from having a voice in the government of church matters. Of course they ought to have that voice and the sooner the Church of England recognises that right the better for’ the church.

Last week I chronicled the death of that delightful essayist, that good old American gentleman, Dr Oliver Wendell Holmes. This week the news is flashed over the cables that Mr J. L. Froude has also joined the majority. An able if not a groat writer, a brilliant if a prejudiced historian, Froude was for many years one of the most prominent of English literary men. A friend, and for a time a follower, of Newman, he gradually fell away from Anglicanism ; indeed, if I remember rightly, he had to resign his Oxford fellowship because of the anti-orthodox tone of certain of his writings. Then he plunged into literature, edited Fraser’s Magazine, and wrote his famous “ History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada.” The work made a great sensation, the ‘whitewashing’ of the much married Henry the Eighth being its most notable feature. There is some splendid writing in it, and the style is well nigh perfect for a history, sober, stately, and polished, Personally I prefer some of his “ Short Studies on Groat Subjects.” One of these, “Forgotten English Worthies,” contains some particularly fine sketches. Froude was a high Tory in politics, and although a friend of Charles Kingsley, made manifest, especially in later years, his distrust and dislike of the democracy.

He was particularly rabid on the Irish question, of which for years he had made a special study. His “ English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century ” caused a terrible hubbub amongst the Pats, and no wonder, for bitter prejudice and partisanship stood out on almost every other page, and marred what was undoubtedly a neatly written work. In later life, too, he wrote a novel “ The Two Chiefs of Dunboy,” the scene being cast on Irish ground, and here again he set the Hibernian back up, and, to tell the truth, not unjustifiably, for the story, though full of life, discussed Irish political problems from too purely and too unfairly an English point of view.

A strong Imperialist, Froude took a great interest in matters colonial, but his views were rarely in touch with colonial opinion. Lord Carnarvon sent him to South Africa in ’74 to investigate a Kaffir insurrection and on South African affairs he ever aft ;r

posed as an authority, writing frequently to the Times and in the magazines. Then, again, a fow years latef, did he not pay these colonies a visit and write his much-discussed “ Oceana ”? He visited Sir George Grey at Kawau, but saw little of the colony, and jet wrote of us in the most pessimistic strain. With Australia it was the same, lie either could not or would not understand the democratic drift in these colonies, and in private he frankly avowed his opinion that representative government had proved a failure. Then again he visited the West Indies, and wrote another book. His descriptions of West Indian scenery were delightful reading, almost as delightful to my mind as those of Charles Kingsley in “At Last, a Christmas in the West Indies,”Jkp£.wherever hq went his remarks" upon the' political institutions of the island vißited caused recriminations innumerable.

But it was his long intimacy and friendship with Carlyle that interests most people when Froude is mentioned. Froude was a personal friend of the dyspeptic “Sage of Chelsea,” he was his ; literary executor, and his “ Reminiscences of Carlyle ” were the literary seiisation of the year in 1881. What a storijt-th'at book and one which followed in. 1882, “ Thomas Carlyle, history of the first 40 years of his life,” did create, to be sure. Froude suppressed nothing or next to nothing, and behold there stood forth such a picture of a nervous, dyspeptic, irritable, even eontankerOus old man, as made many a warm worshipper of Carlyle tremble in his faith and almost abjure ■“ hero worship,” so far as Carlyle was concerned, on the spot. There was a stoim of controvery over the revelations. Some held that Froude had betrayed his friend, but to this there was the answer that the dead man had given unrestricted permission to his friend to publish anything and everything that he cb ose. Certain it was that Carlyle's true character was subjected to a cruel searchlight, and it is’ notorious that since that searchlight was flashed on the grim old philosopher the sale of his works has very seriously decreased. .

Towards the close of his life Oxford paid the, veteran historian the high compliment of electing him Regius Professor of- History, but beyond a few lectures and a letter or two occasionally to the Times, in which Gladstone was; most ruthlessly attacked, Froude was but little in of late years. He lived quietly down at Salcombe, in his native Devonshire, the cbqptyof his old friend Kingsley, and I read very recently in the London Gossip of the Jtiistralasian that “so intense was his.dread and horror of Radical legislation, and legislatures that he had for many years past, invested most of his immense savings in the United States.” The Australasian’s correspondent, as bigoted a Tory, as Froude himself, adds—“ Like Gold win Smith, he believes that a written constitution is a better guarantee for property than the haphazard popular sens© of 'justice which is the only security existing in the British Empire. Froude,, at, all events, is enormously rich.”

It seems to be the fate of .the, Nelson province that somebody is always cropping up whose 'sole, object in. life, js (temporarily) declared, by~ its mineral or other resources and to m'ake.:.everything “boom.” Unfortunately, .most of these schemes come to naught save the recording of one dismal failure after another. The latest philanthropist is pne Buxton, Frederick Buxton, C.E. This gentleman, who has been residing at Nelson for .some time past, and who seems to be as fond of indulging in newspaper correspondence as was the late lamented Wilkins Micawber Esq, has written to the newly established Nelson paper, to announce that Providence has, through him, Mr Fredk. Buxton, a great and glorious future in store for that peaceful, not to say slightly somnolent, district called Collingwood. Mr Buxton’s letter deserves an even wider publicity than it would obtain if left enshrined in the columns of the Nelson Star, so I reprint it here. It runs as follows : - Nelson, October 17th. I leave for Wellington by the Mawhera to-night for the completion of my arrangements prior to starting for London, and on my return, in six months, I will start an industry whereby I shall pay over .£2OOO a week in wages, and spend upwards of .£250,000 of the .£500,000, capital in opening up the works. . . I will supply Australasia with pig iron, wrought iron, wire, rails, nails, railway bolts, steel, steel rails, machinery, hardware, ironmongery, &c. The Colony at the present moment pays some .£500,000 annually to foreign countries for that which I shall produce here on the spot. „ I shall build a town for the workmen, with schools, hospital, a church, and all the rest for the founding of a gigantic industry and making Collingwood a second Glasgow. I shall run out a pier into 30ft of water, I shall bring my own steamers in, and show to the world that this Colony can not only supply all its own requirements, but those of. Australasia as well. . Providence has marked this Colony out to share in future the largest portion of England’s prestige and importance,

Hero indeed is luck ahead, for Collingwood —£2000 a week in wages, £250,000 to be spent in opening aip the works, the new town, the hospital, the church, the ‘ second Glasgow/—why goodness me, what glorious fortune is there not in store for poor modest little Collingwood. I had almost decided to take a trip to Coolgardie with the intention of course, of . returning a millionaire, and then having a delightful time of.it for a year or two in spending the money in running a newspaper, but Mr Buxton’s letter has more than shaken, it lias positively destroyed my previous idea. Why seek fortunes at Coolgardie when an industrial El Dorado is within six months to bo founded as it were at one s very door ? After the Aladdin like magic of Buxton* C.E., has been worked, Collipg-

wood will be worth a visit. I hope, however, the present residents of Colling wood will not count the Buxtonian chickens before they are hatched. ‘The best laid schemes of men and mice aft gone agley/ and well meaning as may be Mr Buxton, he may not be able to carry out all the details of his remarkable prophecy. By the bye ‘ there is just one omission in Mr Buxton’s sketch of the model town, the new Collingwood, which is to spring into existence with such mushroom like speed,’ there is no mention of a lunatic asylum. Somehow I fear such an institution might be needed on Mr Buxton’s return. ...

At Napier the other day, Mr Walter Bentley played his English version of “ Nos Intimes ” under the title of “ Life’s Shadows,” -whereas in Wellington it was staged under the name of ••Friends.” “ Life’s Shadows,” as produced here, was a melodrama, and I regret to say the very Worst melodrama I ever had the misfortune to witness. Could M. Sardou have possibly seen the Wellington production' of “ Lifols. Shadows,” and then learnt that his famous “ Nos Intimes” was masquerading under that same title, ho would, I fancy, indulge in ah unlimited number of sacres. What on earth does Mr Bentley mean- by playing one piece under the title of another ?.

Assuredly John Jap is not making such undoubted mincemeat of John Chinaman as the earlier cablegrams would have had us believe. With 2000 wounded Japs at Chemulpo and and another 1500 wounded ditto, carried back to the “ Land of the Chrysanthemum,” it certainly does not look as if the Japs were having everything their own way. And where, oh where, is that? great fleet which was to smash up the Talcu forts, and to land a force which- would march to Pekin and play Old Gooseberry with the “ Son of Heaven ?” Nary a word, of it of late! There are some fine . concooters of tarradiddles at work at the Eastern end of the cables.

According to a cable from Yokohama the Mikado “ requests authority to borrow to. the extent of twenty millions sterling;” A A pretty large order that, and it will he interesting to see where and how the money will be raised. The total debt of Japan la already (March 311892) dose on 270 million yen. The yen or dollar is of the nominal value of 4s, actual vplue 3s 4d, so that at the nominal value the debt is, roughly speaking, oyer 64 millions sterling. Quite heavy enough a burden, one would imagine, for a country like Japan, without an addition of eighteen millions more. But warships and rifles, and all the rest of the Devil’s playthings are expensive. If you would play the game of war ybu must have the money to buy your cards with. It seems a great pity the’European powers can’t interfere and stop the war.

King Football is dead, for some tiihe come at any rate, so doff your caps and’/' 1 hurrah for King Cricket. I do so *che6r-> fully and heartily, for it is the true king-.-V. of English games, worth a : thousand of ' that rowdy, flaunting, boasting .anding potentate Football. Give me a bright ■ green sward, eleven smart fellows out in the field, some loose bowling and a couple of slashing bats, and that’s a sight to: nie which is worth a million “ scrums.” The local season is beginning well, there are more clubs than ever, the youngsters ate. keener than usual, even the are enthusiastic on the good old game.' 'Right.* glad am I to see this good start. : Mriy*fch» interest be kept up right to the very end. of the-season, and may the best clubs win the cups.

I am sorry to see, by a paragraph' in the Napier News , that there is some fear of the journalistic champion of Liberalism in Hawke’s Bay being Bilenced by adverse fate'. A financial trouble—always the worst trouble a people's paper has to face—-has arisen out of the death of the late Mr Napthali. to whose estate the News, by a recent; decision of the Supreme Court, was held to be indebted. The creditors of the estate have instructed the D.O.A. to sue for irame. diate payment, refusing all compromise, and the worst is evidently feared, the said worst being the closing of the paper’s carreer.

All I can say is that if the people of Napier let the News die for the sake of a few hundred pounds they will bitterly regret it, for the paper has been a genuine people’s watchdog, and the rancourous hatred with which it is regarded by the land monopolists of the “ province of landgrabbers,” is the very best proof of its services to the great mass of the people. I (fust that the threatened catastrophe may be avoided, but times are hard, the Liberals in Napier are not of the wealthy clase, and—this must not be forgotten—the paper has already beep helped out of financial troubles by the public more than once. Nevertheless I sincerely hope that the requisite ‘ needful ’ may be found and that the old ship, once off the rocks, may again sail along to tho profit and benefit of all concerned.