CURRENT TOPICS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1199, 22 February 1895, Page III (Supplement)

CURRENT TOPICS.

THE PRINCE OF WALES

Mu Stead tolls us that "the puhlic both Russian unci English have noted Avith satisfaction and with joy the close intimacy between the young Czar and the Prince of Wales." That means that the influence of the Prince over his wife's nephew has brought about the impossible, viz., permanently peaceful relations between Russia and England, and that the result is popular in both countries. "By universal consent," says Mr Stead, " the Prince has risen to the height of his great opportunity, and without meddling in politics or playing at diplomacy has done more to place the relations between the two Empires on a foundation of personal confidence and affection than could have been performed by all our statesmen and all their ambassadors. That is one of the uses of royalty which, even from a pinch-penny point of view, makes it real economy to keep up the throne." Like some of the good man s sayings, this is in part sheer nonsense. It it means any thing it means that so long as the Government of Russia is autocratic, so long will it pay Great Britain to have a limitel Monarchy. This entirely ignores the main reasons for the present system, and puts a term to the Monarchy. But without going into such a big subject, we can a»ree with Mr Stead that the Prmce of Wales has a great service to two .-teat nations, at a critical moment, which gave him an opportunity open to no one else.

THE WAR IN THE EAST

ADMiiiALBmDGEhas rather fluttered the dovecotes of these southern possessions of the British Crown. Fatuous is the condition of Australasian public opinion. Like the schoolboy of seven, it knows nothing, sees nothing, has nothing but instinct. The instinct of young Australasia is always right, but the judgment of young Australasia is often beneath contempt Young Australasia has been looking on at the proceedings of the Eastern war with a languid, lordly sort of interest It gets no lio-ht from the great dailies of the Continent, which appear to regard the Australian nation as something absolutely unassailable. They have no idea of the merriment provoked by their articles on the decks of foreign men-of-war, sailing into their harbours without making any sign. The Bulletin, on the other hand, is more than dumb on the subject, for the simple reason that the Bulletin knows nothing, cares for nothing that decent people care about, and is nothing but a mouthpiece from which venom is emitted. Petween the dull darkness of ordinary journalism, and the brilliant darkness ot the BiMctin, Australia is entirely uninformed on this question of the Eastern war. I herefore we feel wo have some right to say that Admiral Bridge flustered their dovecotes the other day. He told them that Japan possesses the best fleet in the Pacific, after Great Britain. He added that the Power of Japan is a rapidly increasing Power, an ao-<>-ressive Power and a Power which will count in the working out of the destinies of these colonies. Australasian public opinion is a little flustered in consequence. Not as much as it ought to be, because it is the most hidebound, most ignorant, most gratuitously absurd of all the public opinions in the world. Still it is flustered, and that is a sign of good to a certain extent. Australian public opinion has an idea that the Admiral's description of the existing condition of things is not at all to be regarded as incorrect. The Japanese fleet, he declares, is good, the Joest^ with one exception in these seas, and the Japanese intentions he pronounces to be very far reaching, and remarkably comprehensive. Facts seem to support this conclusion very forcibly. Take the first fact: the Japanese conquest of Corea. "When that conquest was undertaken the Japanese advocates declared that there was nothing whatever in their diplomacy beyond the securing of this important and solid fact. The reasons given in support—historical, practical, moral, tactical—were numerous and powerful. Yet when tho conquest of Corea was achieved, the war went on. Port Arthur was in due time captured, and Manchuria was handsomely invaded. Winter has fallen upon the scene, but Japanese science defied the elements as it had defied the Celestial arms. The Chinese sent envoys to Hiroshima—the new Jerusalem of the East—to treat for peace, and the Government of the Mikado, after receivin"- them with the most studious courtesy, sent them back with a measure of courtesy even greater. The next event was the capture of Wei-hai-woi, and it was followed by some attempt at united remonstrance by the Powers. But what are the Japanese diplomacy knows perfectly well that the Powers collectively are •t concourse of fortuitous atoms, and Japanese diplomacy acts accor.lingly ; that is to say regardless of the Powers. One thin.-is very evident, tno Japanese object Lve?ymuch greater than the object put forward before tho opening ot the cam-

What is the Japanese object i To define ir exactly is impossible, because Japanese diplomacy has hitherto been reticent. The European concerns a thing without cohesion- it is not likely that Japanese diplomacy will do anything- to give the European coucert something to act upon, so that it may remain united. The proper course for Japan is mystery. Mystery, however in matters of this kind is never impenetrable Thim-s get out, by guesswork partly, and partly by intention of those who control them In the present case, the result is out too-other in a Chinese newspaper. I he Shanghai Mercury states that certain of the oonditions of peace which Japan desires to enforce upon China will cause some concern to those European Powers which have large interests in the Kast. Ihe

points, according to the organ of Western public opinion at the mouth of tho Yang-tse-Kiang, which have already been put forward are: (1) a close alliance between China and Japan against all European influence; (2) the development of China and the openiny up of the country to trade and commerce, to be undertaken by Japan; (3) Japan to undertake upon effective lines the reorganisation of the Chinese army and navy. The meaning of these conditions is plain. It is that the Manchurian Government of China is played out. The whole system, Emperor, Mandarins, Civil Service, benighted universal ignorance is rotten, and must be swept away; the power of China is enormous, and nothing but Japanese science will give it the weight in the world's affairs which is its due. In other words the time has come for the East to make a combined effort against the West, and Japan is the Power to organise and lead it. Admiral Bridge has diagnosed the situation with great perspicacity, the only doubt is as to whether he sees far enough. In these days of modern arms and strategic equipment, things move faster than the brains of those who look on and criticise. When the East is organised under Japanese rule, we shall perhaps see the awakening of the European concert, and we may see that it is too late.

THE AGENT-GENERAL IN REPLY

Sin Westby Perceval has written a reply to an article on the position of New Zealand in the Statist, which we reproduce this morning with pleasure, because of the cogency, completeness and neatness of its arguments. It is good, artistic work, a kind of thing for whish Sir Westby has made himself a name since he set up his tent in Westminster Chambers. At the outset we must compliment the Statist on its fairness in publishing the reply to the article which appeared in its columns. That article had nothing to recommend it except the fact of its publication in the columns of so widely read and influential a journal as the Statist. Time was when the leading newspapers in London were not wont to extend this courtesy to correspondents. We remember, for instance, the Times refusing to insert a letter from the late Mr Crosbie Ward in reply to some strictures of its own. The article in the Times dealt trenchantly with Now Zealand affairs. Mr Crosbie Ward, who was then Postmaster-General, happened to be in London at the time, and at once sent a reply to the Thunderer, with the above result. The Daily News (if we remember right) published the reply, and that was how the public knew anything about the matter. Since then the editorial practice has considerably improved.' There are many instances, and the last is the publication by the Statist of Sir Westby Perceval's reply. The Statist's article owed, as we have said, its whole force to the weight of the newspaper which published it. Those who read Sir Westby's reply will agree with us that after the reply the article lost its one virtue. To us in the Colony the article was an amusing reproduction of the usual case presented by partisan speakers and organs whenever they assail the Government. Out here we have learned how to discount these stater ments. We are accustomed to them. They never excite even a passing thought, even in the minds of political tyros. But in London when wearing the independent garb of an authority like the Statist, the effect is very different. There it looked like a real lion of criticism. Sir Westby Perceval had no difficulty of course in showing that the creature was a far humbler animal. With a few masterful strokes he stripped off the lion's skin, and the customary ass stood revealed. We think the readers of the Statist will not again mistake a bray for a roar. He may bray as he pleases, and will probably please to bray again frequently, about manufactured surpluses, dishonest Treasurers, proposed banking amalgamations, and the payment of interest out of loan. Nobody is likely to pay any attention. The fact is clearly brought to the public notice that the New Zealand Government has what the Agent-General calls a " nest-egg," of tho value of almost a million, to ease the public finance, and practically never falls back upon it. That one fact -will outweigh a thousand rash criticisms about " a straitened Finance." In future the readers ot the Statist will read these criticisms with the firm conviction that the proper covering for tho pretentious political Neddy is not a lion's skin but a strait-jacket.

BREAKING THE RECORD

How very rational and impartial the I'ost invariably pronounces a journal whoso articles condemn anything that comes from the present Government or from its Ministers ! An article appears in a recent issue of the Australasian Insurance and Banking Record, in which the writer, who is criticising some figures in a newspaper report of a statement made by Mr Ward of the margin of security for the loans under the Advances to Settlors Act of last session, is candid enough to acknowledge that he has not read and does not know what are the provisions of the Act which determines the question with which he is dealing. We are told that the Record is not a political or Party journal, but a paper written by men of business for business men. But surely business men expect the conclusions which are ottered to them to be drawn otherwise than from the imagination. We shall be told next that the Post is not a Party advocate. That the article in the Insurance and Banking Record, written, as it is acknowledged to have been, in ignorance of the provisions of the law, should be misleading and an exhibition of deplorable confusion is, under the circumstances, only natural, but that a journal of any reputation, a journal whose reports, criticisms and

conclusions are expected to be more deliberate than those of our daily newspapers, a journal to which we look as to an authority, which presumes upon our confidence, should have become responsible for an article acknowledged by the author to have been written in entire ignorance and without a reference to the Act which was so largely the subject of discussion, is, we should hope, not common even among the journals to which a large allowance has to be made for strong Party feelings, or for prejudice against social legislation, or for tlie influence of vestod interests. The Advances to Settlers Act provides for loans on freehold securities to the amount of three-fifths of their value, and consequently such securities will have a value of at least two-fifths more than the amount of the advances on them. What Mr Ward no doubt really stated, and what simpleton knowing even less than Mr' Buchanan, M.H.R., of the manner in which figures are sometimes accidentally confused in newspaper reports would conclude, is not that ,£3,000,000 would be lent on freehold securities of ■£4,200,000, but that for the advances on a security of a value of .£3,000,000, the margin of security, that is to say, the value ot the security in excess of the amount of the advances, would be .£1,200,000. The amount, in short, which could be advanced would be three-fifths of .£3,000,000, or .£1,800,000, and the value of the security in excess of the amount which would be advanced would be two-fifths, or £1,200,000. In the newspaper report the excess of c£1,200,000 has been erroneously added to the .£3,000,000 to make up that total of the subject of the letter from Mr Buchanan, to which we should have thought it idle to refer if the Insurance and Banking Record had not followed him. We all know and it has long been our habit to be kind to tho amiable extravagances to which. Party spirit leads Mr Buchanan, but we never dreamt that tho Conservative impetuosity of his temper and of his pen would be outrun by the Record.

"No advance on tho security of freehold lands shall be granted for an amount exceeding three-fifths of the value of the security." These are the words of the Act of last session, which the writer in the Record admitted he did not see. Had ho seen it, he could never have accused the Treasurer of a determination to wrest its meaning. The words are too plain to be misconstrued. They cannot be read as in any way authorising an advance greater than three-fifths of the value of the security. No amount of ingenuity will enable anything more to be lent under the Act on freehold land than three-fifths of the value of the land. The suggestion that the Act can be strained to permit the lending up to two fifths of three-fifths instead of three-fifths of the whole is, in the face of the absolutely explicit wording of the clause, a transparent and ludicrous absurdity. If tho Record writer had read the clause he would have seen that it was impossible to m iko anything of it except that authority is given to lend up to three-fifths of the whole value of the security. He would have seen either that the Treasurer had made the mistake of underrating the margin or that he had been misreported. By assuming that the Treasurer might bo " absolutely correct in his interpretation of the Act " he showed his own ignorance of the terms of the Act, which, to use his own phrase, was " a very foolish thing to do." He, in fact, broke the record for reckless blundering. When a writer falls into such an error he stamps his whole work as untrustworthy, and does away with tho necessity for more than the exposure of his mistake. We leave hirn under the weight of his broken record.

THE CITY VALUATIONS

The story of these valuations, which wo were enabled to place before tho public on Saturday morning, requires but one remark to clear it of all possibility of misleading. The point on which people may go wrong is the increase of .£277,000 during the quarter century which began with the year 1870. As that was the first year of the Public Works i)olioy, the conclusion is natural that the direct effect of tho Public Works policy upon the prosperity of tho city is represented by tho quarter century's increase in the ratable value of tho property of its citizens. The conclusion, however, is not perfect, because much of the increase is due to the position of tho city, which, although tho borrowed millions have vanished, is still attracting crowds in such numbers as to make it the only really progressive city in the Colony, a fact recognised theoretically by every financial and trading institution in the Colony, and practically by a majority of them. That must be well understood, if we are to have a just idea of what the next twenty-five years have in store for us.

AN EXHIBITION

Ouk. fellow-citizen Mr MeLullun is mooting the project of an international exhibition with all his energy, an expression which means a great deal to those who know the vim " cached " under the appearance of Scottish calm which belongs to this gentleman, it is to Mr McLollan'ti credit that »t a time when so many are crying depression, lying down and calling upon everybody to weep and Avail and gnash their teeth, and study the best authorities in bad language, he chooses to strike out a project for advertising the varied resources of this country, putting money in the pockety of the citizens of Wellington, and proclaiming the supremacy their city owes to its site. We trust that Wellington will without delay Jloat a company after the manner of the Duuedm company Avitli which the International Exhibition of 1889 and the name of John

Roberts arc associated. The citizens should mark their admiration of the pluck and public spirit of MrMcLellanby " booming- " his project, and putting- him at the head of its" working. It may not be generally known that he has been much " amongst " exhibitions, great and small, particularly the great ones, and that with the management of the only one of them all that ever paid handsomely—the last Glasgow Exhibition, which attracted visitors from St. Petersburg, Pekin and Peru —he was very intimately associated. When the citizens get this project into going order, they will have an irresistible / claim for aid from a Government which has proved its readiness to go great lengths to preserve the public credit. It is high time to take another industrial census of this country, and in as public and attractive a manner as possible. If the people cooperate in the high spirit of self-reliance with which the President of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce is seeking to imbue them, the Government must recognise that it is a case for applying the principle of co-operation in which it believes so strongly.