CURRENT TOPICS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1190, 21 December 1894, Page 29

CURRENT TOPICS.

THE " GOTHIC” CASE. Captain. Kidley, it seems, has been fined <£2s because the doctor of his ship mistook scarlatina for tonsilitis. The evidence shows very clearly that the doctor did make that mistake, and that he informed the captain of the result. The captain, thereupon; was asked the usual question by the Health Officer : "Has there been any case of small-pox, or any form of eruptive disease, fever, scarlatina, plague, cholera, or other infectious or contagious disease, or any case of any hind of sickness or disease during the voyage ? If so, state the number of cases and the dates of attack and convalescence, or termination of the first and last’ cases - of the disease.” To this very comprehensive question the captain gave in ~ writing the general and comprehensive answer “ No,” which means that he said there had been no sickness at all on board the ship, contagious or otherwise. Had he been more explicit and said that there had been a case of tonsilitis, the result would have been the same. As the object of the Public Health Act, which prescribes the above and certain other questions, is to prevent the introduction of certain forms of disease into the Colony, no notice would have been taken of the answer about " tonsilitis,” and the ship would have been admitted to pratique withdut hesitation. In that case the scarlatina would have developed just as it did, and the captain would have been convicted for denying the occurrence of infectious disease. We may assume therefore that the conviction was not for denying the occurrence of any other disease, but for denying the occurrence of the particular disc ase. which the Act was designed to send to quarantine. In other words, the captain was fined .£25 because the■ doctor made a wrong diagnosis. Now, this is hard, because sailors are not supposed to know anything about diseases. Not being doctors, they are dependent entirely on the reports of they carry with them., As the penalty for a wrongful declaration reaches up to <£2oo, the position of, captains is serious. It is somewhat analagous to the position of the publishers of newspapers who are responsible for libels committed by people over whom, in the exercise of their professional duties, they have no control. The case shows that there should be an alteration of the law. If the doctor reports a case of infection and the captain conceals that report when filling up his jiapers for the Health Officer, it is right, of course, that he should be punished. But if he adopts the report of the doctor he should be held blameless, and the punishment, in whatever measure may be due, should fall on the doctor. The Magistrate felt the anomaly of the position, for he declared it was not a. case for severity, and he fixed a penalty which he seemed to consider ought to be mitigated. It is somewhat curious that he did not make it lighter while he was about it. As it stands, the penalty is not enough for malicious misstatement, and too much for a mere error of judgment. Of course, if the penalty falls on the owners of the ship, who are responsible for the acts of their servants, it matters little which of their servants is ordered to pay. But if it does not, then the question of who has to bear punishment ought

to be settled according to common sense, which makes people responsible for their own acts, not for those of others. Another question which arises out of this case is as to the words of the question which we have italicised. The Act being designed to keep out certain forms of disease, it is mere sui'plusage to ask about the occurrence of other diseases of which the authorities will take no note whatever. And all - surplusage is, as was pointed out by the defence, confusing. A third question regards the duties of the Health Officer. He is directed by the Act not to rely entirely on the reports of the ship’s people, but to make an inspection on his own account. This inspection is the same everywhere. What it is the Magistrate described yesterday in his judgment with correctness and point. It is nOt far removed from a farce. As well might the inspecting general at a review be expected to report on the health of the troops who march past the saluting point. When there are medical men on board incoming ships who diagnose correctly, the inspection is safe. But when it has to check diagnosis, or to rely on the reports of men who are not doctors at all—as in the case of ships who carry no doctor —it is not much protection to the public health. The sooner some better regulations are made for its guidance the better.

THE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND. It is not wise of- the shareholders to object to the call on legal grounds, because the position is not necessarily governed by the legal technicalities. We presume the ground of objection is that which was so freely discussed during the passing of the Bank Guarantee Act, viz., that the reserve liability can only be called on by the directors in the event of liquidation. The twenty-first section of the Bank of New Zealand Act of 1861 provides that "In the event of the assets of the said corporation being insufficient to meet its engagements, then and in that case the shareholders shall be responsible to the extent of twice the amount of their subscribed shares.” A reserve liability of ten pounds per share is thus fixed, which it is contended can only be enforced under pressure of liquidation. For how, it is asked, can the insufficiency of the assets be otherwise proved ?•■ .There is a good deal in the contention, but it is open to argument on the other side. But it is useless to discuss the legal. question. The directors have not, as a matter of fact, said that the assets of the Bank are insufficient to meet its engagements. What they may be considered to have implied is that if the call of £3 6s 8d is not paid the assets may be insufficient. If the call is refused, therefore, the alternative may be liquidation, and that would involve the calling of the whole ten pounds. If the shax-eliolders are wise, they will prefer the certainty of £3 6s 8d with their property, to the risk of £lO, without it. -

, , NEWFOUNDLAND. The financial crisis in the oldest North American colony—ours since the days of Charles II. —is like a bolt out of the blue. It is a colony which has been very much in the eye of the world of late years. A couple of years ago a strong* attempt was made to get “the island into the Canadian Dominion, but that was frustrated principally by the absurd self-importance of the islanders, who imagine that the position of their little country as the sea gate of Canada entitled them to take airs. A little before that they nearly set the world on fire by their protests against the French Treaty rights. Most people have not forgotten Sir W. Whiteway’s visit to London, and the very clear exposition he gave of the history and then position of those Treaty rights, One thing he made very clear, that the exclusive claim of the French to the littoral within the Treaty boundaries was financially very disastrous to the natives. Another thing we remember the ancient colony by is the terrible fire at St. John’s which pressed hard upon every interest in 1892. That probably has something to do with the financial collapse. The inhospitable character of Labrador may possibly be also a cause. For years, since the early portion of the century, Newfoundland has been endeavouring to foster the industries, fishing principally, of this awful Labrador country. With a population of 4000'on an area of 120,000 square miles, and the usual talk of “ natural resources,” Labrador may have proved a powerful delusion to progressive financiers. But there is no evidence anywhere to that effect." Newfoundland is not overburdened with debt. In 1892 the public debt was .£1,400,000, and in 1893 a loan of ,£BOO,OOO was raised for railway purposes. The public debt therefore represents an average of about ,£ll for every head of the population of the

island ; 200,000. On the other hand, the interior is uninhabited, a fact from which we may conclude that the back country is- not an appreciable item in “our great natural resources.” Wholesale bribery and corruption have been much talked of lately, and a general election has turned upon them. It is fair to assume that the public works policy of the last few years, modest as it is so far as regards the amount expended is concerned, has turned out, on account of its political character, a s'erious hindrance instead of a help. A country of' poor resources, of religious animosities and political plunging, the oldest country has contrived to come within measurable distance of repudiation. There is one colony on the other side of the Tasman Sea, of which it is said that her turn is not far off —a thing not to be wondered at in face of the absurdities of the people themselves. When politicians table motions for the abolition of the Governor’s office, and sharebrokers begin their market reports with piteous references to the awful prospects opened out by the progress of the Labour Party, one is not surprised that , there should be predictions of Victorian bankruptcy. For the present, however, Victoria is polite enough to allow Newfoundland to go first—“ Seniores priores.” As to the older Colony, we should not be at all surprised to learn that the virulent criticisms of bribery and the rest have affected public and private credit. Being poor the oldest colony can hardly afford the luxury of being abused by her own people. Still, as no one can afford to be written down by the members of his own household, the moral of the Newfoundland story, if moral there be, is obvious.

OPTIMISM. The Minister for Lands will probably be denounced as an optimist who tried to gull the simple folk of Southland. But he did not figure as an optimist, except in the , best sense of that term. Mr McKenzie simply referred to the history of all the depressions which the Colony has ' been through. He reminded the country that it has seen worse depressions, and has seen them cleared away by prosperity His plea for courage and perseverance is founded on‘fact, and it has the advantage of being urged by a member of a Government which has found help of many kinds for the producing interest, and has therefore a right to advise courage and perseverance. To expect the Opposition to approve of the Government policy would be to expect too much. But in criticising the Government policy we trust the Opposition members who are going to be critical v will not attack the soundness of the country as well. They should bear inmind the great historical-fact that the men who do not “ despair of the Republic ” always command the confidence of the people

STRANGE STORIES. They are very prevalent just now in the Russian section of the news of the world. -One relates to the changed treatment of the Jews in Russia. Alexander. 111., it \ will be remembered, would only allow them to live in Russia proper, and though the whole civilised world protested and a London meeting sent the usual dead thunderbolt, a deputation, he continued to have the race harried and worried all over the rest of Russia with results which havebeen minutely described in every paper in Europe. The contrast of the Czar Nicholas’ treatment of them is very great, and does not surprise Russians,who have been aware all along of the Czarewitch’s very differ- , ent views. Prince Nicholas, in fact, was known to favour the Jews as no other Russian, prince or peasant, has ever done, and to have had serious differences with his father in consequence. The story to which we refer professes to give the cause, declaring that the Czarewitch was in love with a very beautiful Jewess considerably older than himself, whom he wished to marry. When his father ordered him to marry the Princess " Alix of Hesse, the story goes on to relate, the young man told his secret to his mother, in the hope that her interference might help him. He gained nothing by that step, but it was whispered about in St. Petersburg that in the event of his father’s death he would please himself, just as some of his ancestors did, for example, the Emperor Alexis, the father of Peter the Great, who did what King Cophetua did in .the charming old story, viz., married a peasant maid. The Czar’s marriage has knocked this pretty theory to pieces, but the better treatment of the Jews is an established fact. The more prosy cable compilers attribute it not to sentiment but to money, the Rothschilds having insisted on that condition as the price of their aid in floating the big Russian loan. Whichever story be’ true, the change is welcome to all humanity. Moreover, it is not improbable

that the Czar has discovered that the systematic harassment of three million people is too large an order even for the autocracy of Russia. Another and even more remarkable story deals "with the cause 'of the late Czar’s death. It was current in October in St. Petersburg, and was to the effect that the same person had poisoned both the Czar and the Ameer of Afghaniston. The Czar, when he was lying sick with influenza, was orderod to drink cinnamon tea, and was taking the advice heartily, being fend of the beverage. Now, in Siberia there is a fungus, a sort of mushroom, which is used all over Russia for the sake of the decoction made from it. This mushroom tea when taken weak is a pleasant and not powerful intoxicant, a strong infusion is highly poisonous, exciting to wildest fits of passion, violence and even homicide, and burns the kidneys as if touched with vitriol. As it resembles cinnamon tea, there was no difficulty, the story goes, in exchanging one for the other. It is undoubted that while suffering from influenza the late Czar did have some paroxysms of wild passion in which he broke furniture, smashed glasses, and for 48 hours behaved like a lunatic, and it was freely said that the kidney trouble dated from that time. Why the Afghan Ameer should have been included in this alleged conspiracy of assassination it is hard to understand, as hard as the reason why the poisoner, who was said to be perfectly well known in St. Petersburg, was not arrested and sent off to Siberia, where many a man has been sent on suspicions less pronounced. W® cannot forget, however, that shortly after the Czar’s death a Nihilist of high decree, living of course at a safe distance from Russia, claimed that the Nihilists had poisoned him, and warned his successor to note the fact and come to terms. It may not be improbable that the Nihilist claim may be the true explanation of the story about the mushroom tea. And agaiu, we" have the undoubted fact that the Czar was an exceptionally large, heavy man, very obese, and condemned to a sedentary life of closest application by his own determination to do himself the enormous work of administering his vast empire. That is quite sufficient to account for the break up of his constitution. Yet, when a man has been shot at so often, any poison story has claims on our attention.

The third strange story is highly amusing. It tells of anger in official circles at the publication by the newspapers of the fact that Father Ivan, the celebrated priest of Cronstadt, had been sent for to Livadia. Officials and high dignitaries all the world over are accustomed in cases of sickness in the highest places to hide the truth under a mass of unmeaning verbiage of the optimistic order, relieved by occasional fibs more or less elaborate, and suggestions of falsehood both ornate and artistic. In Russia in the case of Alexander 111. the Ministers and officers, the whole “ Tcliin,’ of course indulged the usual habit. Now Father Ivan was not the Czar s ordinary spiritual adviser. He owed his popularity to his austere, ascetic habits, his gift of preaching, and his resemblance to the traditional pictures of the Saviour. When the peasantry and the masses of the townsfolk heard that Father Ivan had been sent for to Livadia they regarded it as a sign of the Czar’s admission that nothing but a miracle could save him. They concluded accordingly that the case was hopeless, and that Ministers and officials had been committing perjury in the usual wholesale manner. Ministers were furious, and at once with the usual instinct of Ministers who deny great truths—the instinct the amiable but mistaken Mrs Partington once displayed towards the Atlantic Ocean with a mop—set about the suppression of the newspapers a thing they can do in Russia, and do pretty often. The amusing part of the story is that the very first paper whose issue was “collected” and confiscated by the police was the Police Gazette itself. Up to that time the press of foreign countries was much better informed than that of Russia. While the Russian press was, as the Times put it, “ forbidden to utter one word of sorrow at the bedside of the sick monarch,” the public was duped. But even after the fact of Father Ivan’s journey, the ridiculous attempt to suppress the truth was continued. We need scarcely remark that the suppression of the fact of his illness did not prevent the Czar from getting worse, and ultimately dying. Nor did it long prevent the news of his illness from getting out. From which we may conclude that in the coming reforms in Russia a strong case can be made out for giving the press some decent measure of freedom. WOOD PAVEMENTS. We quite agree with our evening contemporary that it would be a very good thing if the local bodies were to pave the streets with wood. The New Zealand wood is not so hard as the Australian, less slippery and less absorbent —in every way better than the Australian. It occupies, in fact, the very best position, the Australian being second, and the Baltic pines, which for years monopolised this field, nowhere. That is the latest report from London, forwarded by the timber expert who represents the Colony in that city. We quite agree that the local bodies ought to consider the advisability of putting down wood pavements. They are dustless and mudless, and they do not cost so much as road metal. The quantity of timber available is practically limitless, especially of rimu. In Southland, Westland and Nelson alone there are forests of that excellent timber equal to any demand that can be made on them for generations, and the wood is not absolutely unknown in the North Island. The only objection to its use in paving is that it is too good a furniture wood to be so degvaded. But it is better for paving than for burning, which is the principal use it is put to now. We trust the city authorities will consider this question carefully and give the Colony a lead,

THE HALF-HOLIDAY. The time is approaching for the day to be fixed, in the manner provided by the Shops and Shop Assistants Act of last session. Every local authority has to decide in January of every year according to its discretion what shall be the day. This governs all districts in which there is only one local authority. But there is a special provision dealing with districts in which there are several local authorities. “ Any two or more boroughs or town districts any part or any one of which is situate within a mile of any part of any other shall be deemed to constitute a district for the purposes of this Act.” The first question is what are the districts, so far as we round about Port Nicholson are concerned. To the superficial observer it appears as if the whole of the country from Karori to the Hutt must be taken in. But examination of the map shows that the mile limit of neighbourhood, which is the connecting, link, is broken between Ngahauranga and Petone, the break separating Onslow and Petone Boroughs by about four miles. The Hutt and Petone Boroughs therefore make one district, and the other is composed of Wellington City, the boroughs of Melrose, Karori and Onslow, and the town district of Johnsonville. The governing body of each of these districts is called a “conference,” and the conference is thus made up : —Every district not a city returns one member, and every city returns as many members as all the others put together and one more. Thus the Petone-Hutt district conference will consist of two members, and the Wellington - Melrose - Onslow - KaroriJohsonville district will consist of nine members. Of the latter the Mayor of Wellington City is ex-ojjicio a member, it being the privilege of every city to return its mayor as one of the delegates. The conference shall be held at the council office of the city or lorough having the greatest population; tho mayor of such city or borough shall call it together for some date in January, requesting* the local bodies to appoint their delegates in time for the occasion; their business will be, first, to elect a chairman, and, secondly, to fix tho day for tho halfholiday. When the conference has fixed that day, it will notify the Minister of Labour, who will at once publish the same in the Gazette , and from that time till the notification of the conference in the January ,of the year following the date shall be the date for the half-holiday. So much for the machinery of the Act. The main question, however, is not of machinery, but of the principle which the machinery is to apply. Much has been said and written on this subject, which boiled down comes to this: shall it be Saturday or Wednesday ? Now, Wednesday represents*, expediency, and so does every day in tho week except Saturday, which day alone represents principle—the principle of rest, taken by all the community for the benefit of the community, for the brightening of industrious lives, for the increase of human happiness under the sun, and the consequent improvement of mankind in the most beautiful country on the face of the earth. Let us consider for whom this Act was passed. It was passed for the one class of the community which works that the rest may enjoy the break of a day and a half at a stretch in the dreariness of the working week. The bankers, the lawyers, the insurance people, business men of all kinds who work /, in offices as distinguished from shops, labour of all kinds, skilled and unskilled, frock-coat and fustian, all are in the habit of leaving their work at one on Saturdn y afternoon and taking rest till Monday morning, without break or hindrance. The shop assistants have been the exception. They worked, and they work now, to the bitter end of the Saturday night that a proportion of the rest of the world may enjoy the light and the bustle of ‘ the streets, and buy what they .could very well buy at any other time. These buyers ! They ai*e the people for whom an appeal almost piteous has been made. We have been invited to pity the sorrows of the poor distressed buyers, baulked of their Saturday night’s enjoyment. Well wo appeal to the good sense of the buyers. 1 We do not appeal to the sellers, because the sellers ought to know, and many of them do know,that the public can only buy a certain quantity of goods, and that they must buy them on any day the sellers choose to fix. We appeal to the buyers only, on the ground that the Saturday night promenade, which is the only thing in it on that side, is not a thing to which the enjoyment and wellbeing of hundreds can be sacrificed. Can they not have their promenade on Friday night just as well ? ' To the buyers Friday night is just as good asv Saturday, and to the shop people it is a vast deal better, for it will give them that which the rest of the community enjoys, viz., an unbroken day and a half. Wednesday has been tried for them, and found wanting; at worst a day in the confinement of billiard-rooms and bars, at best a day listlessly passed without the zest which comes of the co-operation of a general holiday. There are other considerations, which we shall advance another time. For the present we content ourselves with urging the claims of Saturday as the day of all days for the greatest benefit of the greatest number.

“THE HOROWHENUA JUDGMENT. The Horowhenua problem, which has been before Parliament, in one shape or another, every session for the last five yeai’s, has at length been solved. His Honor the Chief Justice delivered his long-expected judgment at 11 o’clock on Monday morning, in the case brought by Major Kemp and certain leading members of the Muaupoko tribe against Warena Hunia. The judgment, it need hardly be said, was a very masterly one. It is of considerable length, and reviews the whole history of the Horowhenua case in its various phases from the first, and disposes of every point x*aised in the case

now before the Court in . a very conclusive manner. The practical result is a complete victoi’y for Major Kemp. The Chief Justice affirms tho trust for which Major Kemp has so long contended, declares Warena Hunia’s conduct in claiming to be a beneficial owner of the block instead of a trustee as fraudulent, and condemns him to pay the costs of the suit on the highest scale. The certificate of title issued to Major Kemp and Warena Ilunia as nominal owners (under the Land Transfer Act) is to be surrendered to the Court, also tho partition order made by tho Native Land Court when treating Kemp and Warena Hunia as actual owners and dividing the estate between them, in oi'der that they may be cancelled; and the title to this valuable block of 15,000 acres or thereabouts will revest in the MuaupolceNatives to whom the land j belonged when the Court made the diviI sion-order which ’ has led to so much diffi- { culty and contention. Counsel are directed I to state a case for submission to the ! Native Land Court, so that under this re- * ference from the Supreme Court the respective interests of the 143 beneficiaries may be ascertained and defined. It will be for the Native Land .Court to say who of the 143 Muaupoke Natives named ia the original certificate of title are the persons principally entitled to the block, which, it will be remembered, contains not only the famous Horowhenua Lake, but the houses, the cultivations, the burial-places, and the fishing grounds of the resident section of the tribe. The Chief Justice would not admit any of the, forty Muaupoko not named in the original certificate—omitted it was alleged by mistake in 1873 —for whom Major Kemp afterwards made special provision, with the consent of the tribe, by setting apart a block of 4600 acres, known as Horowhenua No. 6, and now hell by him in trust for them. His Honor held lhat tho was quite conclusive as to the intention of all the parties to create a trust, for the benefit of the actual owners, when the issue of an order' was agreed to in the names of Kemp and Warena alone, and -said . he. doubted whether any one of the large number of Natives present on that occasion, except perhaps Wiriliana Hunia (Warena’s elder brother), had in his mind any notion whatever of the land being held otherwise than in trust. His Honor reviewed tho evidence carefully, and said that oven on the' showing of Mr Alexander MacDonald, the principal witness on the other side, it was perfectly clear to ; his mind that a trust was intended.. Major Kemp’s offer, when there was some contention about the names, to stand aside and let some other name go in instead of his own was quite inconsistent with any other theory ; and the absence, as admitted by Mr MacDonald, of any positive statement oh the subject was ho thought conclusive that there never was any intention on the part of the owners to make a free gift of this land. The judgment ordered that all moneys received by the trustees' since the issue of the title to them (including of course the .£2OOO acknowledged:, to have been paid over by the Government'.,to Warena Hunia) be paid into Court, together with 6 per cent, on such moneys ffpyn, .the time of their receipt by the in order that they may be accounted for to the proper owners. , Tho Court, as we had fully expected, ignored altogether the sale by Warena Hunia to v tlio Crown, for which at present tlierei is ' absolutely no title, the transfer to Her Majesty having, it is said, been caveated three deep. No better proof could be wanted of the unwisdom of making that payment of /two thousand pounds, pending the completion of title. Whether it was the result of “ talking Gaelic ” to the Hon Mr McKenzie, as alleged by Mr Donald Fraser ( Warena Hunia’s agent) in the witness-box at Wanganui, or whether it was the obfuscation of these interminable Maori disputes, made worse by the importunities of Warena Hunia, who, according to the same authority, was “sore in-essed for money,” there can be no doubt that*the payment under the circumstances was very ill-judged. It threw upon the other side tho necessity of applying to the Supreme Court for, and obtaining, an injunction restraining "Warena Hunia and .Donald Fraser from receiving at the hands of the Government the balance of four thousand pounds or any part thereof, thus placing thp Government in an undignified position. The worst of it is the Government is absolutely without a shadow of a legal title to the 1500 acres on which this two thousand pounds has been advanced and upon which the State farm improvements have involved a heavy expenditure. Fortunately, ho.vever, the chief promoter of this Horowhenua case, .who for years past has found alt the money required for prosecuting* tho Muaupoko claim, is known to be a staunch personal friend of the Government, besides which lie is so much interested in the progress of the district that we may rest assured he will use his best influence to assist the Government in completing its title to the State Farm and to the Village Settlement. The price agreed to be paid is a very liberal one, and there can be no injury to the beneficiaries, Avho will now get back the entire block, in the adoption of such a course as to the 1500 acres. It will no doubt, therefore, end all right; but in the hands of an unfriendly agent possessing the confidence of the Maori owners the position of the Government might be made very emban*assing. Apart, however, altogether from this, we congratulate the Manawatu district generally on the settlement of the Horowhenua difficulty. A beautiful block of land of 16,000 acres will now be available for settlement —a block embracing some of the prettiest scenery in New Zealand, and famed for the richness of its soil. We earnestly trust that the .Native owners whose rights have at last been established will not be allowed to sell an acre of it. But they cannot occupy it themselves, whilst jf advantageously leased they would

live in comparative opulence on the rents. By taking- advantage of the admirable provisions of Mr Soddou’s Native Lands Act of last session they will be able to dispose of the leases, through the Waste Lands Board, to the highest bidder, and can make sure of getting the best possible rent. We trust that the ill-feeling and discontent engendered by the Horowhonua dispute will ere long be forgotten; and that with an assured leasehold title, we shall soon see the shores of the beautiful lake occupied, and pleasant homesteads springing' up everywhere. It is not too far from town for enterprising merchants and others to build their country houses there ; and we venture to predict that before many years are past Horowhonua sections will be in great demand.