ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1371, 9 June 1898, Page 23

ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreei To run amuck and tilt at all 1 meet. Pope.

BY SCRUTATOR.

Mr Cadman is noted for his common Sense. He talks less and, shall I say, "thinks more than his colleagues in the Ministry. And, as an outcome of his thinking about that wretched costly farco the Police Commission no doubt — he has come tc the conclusion that Royal Commissions are a mistake. I trust he will be able to din this fact into the Premier's head and make it stick there. No one ever heard of a Royal Commission in this colony doing anything like an amount of work commensurate with its cost. The plain English of the question is that the country pays parliament to conduct its affairs. To shove important matters on to a Commission, eibher composed of members or outsiders, is practically a confession of weakness, laziness, or incompetence upon the part of our legislators.

Apropos to Commissions, I see that 500 witnesses have already given evidence before the Police Commissioners. And such evidence some of it is to be sure! Had Mr Tunbridge been given a free hand he would have got at the truth at one-hundredth the cost of this precious Commission, but then he would not have listened to all the farcical or malicious so-called-",.charges " brought forward by that conceited and pushful person Mr Thomas Taylor. However, all things have an end in time. The Police Commission will have its end very shortly, and Mr Taylor will have his a little later on, when Christ' church will recover its political senses and relegate the pushful Tommy to his original obscurity of mouthing at a cart tail in Cathedral Square. But for this, alas, we shall have to wait until the general election comes round.

Leonard Isitt has been abusing the good people of Leeds for electing a brewer as mayor of the great Yorkshire town, and his remarks have naturally enough caused much indignation in " Woolopolis," for the present mayor of Leeds is one of the most estimable and generous of gentlemen. I am afraid Mr Isitt has a hard row to hoe before he can convince the Leeds men that a glass of good wholesome Yorkshire ale is " distilled damnation," as he expresses it, and if he persists in abusing Yorkshire civic authorities for the sole crime of being connected with the production of " gooid yale " he may find himself soused in a duck-pond some of these fine nights. The rabid prohibitionist is not generally popular in the "biggest, bonniest and best " of English countries.

Apropos to Prohibition, that crankiest of the hundred and one cranky fads with which we are affected nowadays, I would commend to the attention of all New Zealanders interested in the promotion of real temperance certain information published the other day in the London Times to the working of prohibitory liquor laws in Norway. Spirit drinking has largely and lamentably increased of late years in Norway, and after trying the Gothenburg system, under which very fair, if not brilliant results were achieved, eighteen towns resolved to prohibit the sale of spirits altogether. A red-hot Maine-like prohibition law was duly adopted, and every spirit shop duly closed. Note the result of the extreme measure. Lest I should be accused of over-colouring or mis-stating the facts, I give them from the Times, as condensed by the London Spectator, a journal which I imagine even the Prohlbill nlsb will accept as a honest, unprejudiced authority. Now see what the Spectator says :

Not only was a strong kind of port wine drunk in quantities, but illicit stills were set up in most back kitchens, and the people drank the raw fresh spirits with lamentable results. Even the children were found intoxicated, and the arrests for drunkenness increased by from 30 to 80 per cent. Prohibition, in fact, totally failed, as it always will fail where it is not supported by a popular conviction that it is criminal to drink alcohol. Then it succeeds, and then also it is totally unnecessary. It is always forgotten that the population of any town or village can prohibit the sale of liquor at once and finally by the simplest of expedients,—viz., not buying them. The dram-shops will not give away one drop. Drink is not sold because it is seen, but because it is wished for. ".Drink is not sold because it is seen, but because it is wished for." The Spectator is quite right and the way to bring about

real temperance is to educate the people into not wishing for it. This, of course, may take years to bring about, but in the meantime much good can be done in this colony by a strict, honest and impartial enforcement of a reasonable licensing law. To go beyond that, to try and shove down this nauseous nostrum of Prohibition down the throats of an English-speaking community, would be just as productive of bad results in New Zealand as it has been in Norway, Laws that are in advance or in defiance of popular opinion and popular desires can never be enforced; and why be foolish enough to attempt the impossible ?

The time may not be ripe for any other union than a " Union of Hearts" between England and America, and I do not think that the Americans will ever really favour anything like an offensive and defensive alliance with a power having such complicated foreign relations and in so many scattered parts of the world as Great Britain possesses. But frcm'jone point of view a mutually good understanding between John Bull and Cousin Jonathan would be absolutely necessary in case of England being involving in a big war. For, supposing that John and Jonathan were not friends at such a junction and Jonathan thought fit to cut off John's " grub," or to put it less vulgarly, to stop the wheat supply what on earth would John do ? For tho year ended April 30th last the British purchases of produce in America were valued at the stupendous total of one hundred and eighteen millions sterling. lam quoting a recent cablegram, which affords the additional information that British exports to America for the same period were valued at only seventeen millions. Of course John is a splendid customer for Jonathan's produce, but suppose Jonathan were to turn nasty and, adopting a " cut off your nose to spite your face " policy, were to stop supplies. Alas, poor John, parlous indeed would then be his case. India, Russia and Australia might pour in wheat, but withdraw the American supply, and I wonder what the price of a 41b loaf would be 1 By all means let John and Jonathan continue to agree.

The Queen Regent of Spain is said to be removing her property from Spain preparatory to flight. The amiable Christina, who must be having a very unpleasant time of it just now, is a wise woman, for what with the old Republican party, the Anarchists and the followers of that scoundrelly adventurer Don Carlos, the present dynasty must be pretty shaky. If a rumpus were to occur and the monarchy to fall, as it has fallen before in Spain, Queen Christina need not perhaps fear the fate of that other and much more unfortunate " Austrian woman," Marie Antoinette. She, poor wretch, was brought back to Paris to have her fair white neck shorn through by the diabolically ingenious machine invented by Dr Guillotin, but Christina is popular in. Spain, and although she may have to fly and the boy King over whose bringing up she has watched with such loving and tactful care may, never rule at Madrid, neither mother or son are likely to come to personal hurt. But Queen Christina is wise in packing up her diamonds. A vault in a London bank is a much safer repository just now for those gewgaws than the Royal Palace is at Madrid. „

Very likely Queen Christina hasfollowed the example of other Continental monarchs and has her private fortune snugly and safely invested in the English funds. Nap the Third, it is now well known, was from the very first frightened of the possible results of that disastrous " war of revenge " which first sent him a prisoner to Wilhelmshohe and then as an exile to the peaceful English country village of Chislehurst. The war was Eugenie's— "C'est ma guerre a moi" was her expression, anditis historic —and the man who had engineered the coup d'etat of the 2nd December had littlo of his old nerve left in 1870. But he had all his old caution, and remem bering, no doubt, how hard up he had been in his younger days in London and fearful that after all his generals had misled him as to the chances of success, he transferred huge sums of money from Paris to London. Long before Sedan sealed the doom of the Second Empire and the Empress left the Tuileries in a hackney cab, she too had anticipated and prepared for the worst, her magnificent diamonds and other valuables having all been sent over to London. Queen Christina is not a Eugenie, but she is wise, nevertheless, in preparing for evil days.

Brave old Samuel Plimsoll, the best friend that Mercantile Jack —that all British sailornien have known—has passed

away. "With his name will ever be connected the " Plimsoll mark," which shows the maximum load-line. Before this Plimsoll line vas established, overloading was frightfully frequent, especially in the English coal trade, and "death-ships" were all too common. But the load-line was not the only reform Plimsoll fought for and carried. There are a whole host of his amending Acts reforming the British shipping laws. He had a hard battle in the House of Commons to carry these reforms. The wealthy and influential ship-owning ring, largely represented in Parliament, hampered and opposed him in every possible way, but the damning evidence he had collected as to coffin ships—old rotten vessels-—being sent to sea heavily over insured, as to the villianous quality of the provisions and stores supplied to the merchant marine, and other evils under which poor Jack had to suffer, was in tho end perfectly overwhelming. .He was a blunt, rugged speaker, who on several occasions got into trouble with Mr Speaker for calling a spade a spade and not an agricultural implement, but his heart was in the right place, and wherever British sailor men do congregate this week, be it at Home, at Indian, China and Australian ports, wherever indeed a British crew hears the news that " Plimsoll is dead" there should be some very genuine regret at the loss of the " sailor man's friend."

"What will be the effect of the Emperor of Germany being adorned with the Chinese Order of the Double Dragon, I do not know. It is said that the eccentric Kaiser likes to "live up to " each foreign uniform or order he assumes on any special occasion. If he rigs himself out as a British Colonel for a day he speaks English, drinks pale ale, and substitutes an honest British big, big D for his customary and polysyllablic Teutonic cuss words. I shall not be surprised, therefore, to hear of his having ordered the Imperial cook to prepare a Chinese menu of potted puppy, 'bird's nest soup, and fungus patties on the day he received the news that the " Son of Heaven" had given him a new toy.

Spain may be effete and corrupt, and doosied to be thoroughly well beaten in the present war, but the Dons are as ready to recognise bravery in the part of their adversaries as they were in the days of which Kingsley has given us such brilliant pictures in his " Westward Ho." Lieut. Hobson's gallant exploit at Santiago de Cuba evidently aroused the enthusiasm of the Spanish Admiral, and even the baser sort of the New York papers which befoul their columns with the most disgusting abuse of the Spaniards, ought for once to show that they can appreciate a graceful action on the part of the, foe. By the wav, it is pleasing to Britishers to notice the brave young officer was once a gadet at Woolwich.

One of the first of the minor measures to be introduced by the Government during the coming session will be, I hope, a Juries Act. At present the non-pay-ment of men who have to sp'end valuable time in serving the State on coroners' and other juries is a perfect scandal. A working man ought not to lose a day's pay simply because he is called upon by the State to perform a certain duty. Another matter is that of exemptions. The exemption list badly needs overhau'ing. Dentists, for instance, have a perfect right to claim the exemption which a doctor is granted, and there are other exemptions which might well be granted. But fair payment of jurors is the main requirement, and this should be seen to without delay.

The Hon John McGregor, a fussy and pretentious member of the Council, is in a desperate hurry to avoo the suffrages of the Waihemo electors, but even should Mr John McKenzie determine to retire from that electorate the Liberals ought never to allow a Conservative to occupy the position which " Lands" has so long sustained against determined enemies. As for Mr McKenzie himself, all those who wish well to the cause of genuine settlement as opposed to land monopoly and the hundred and one evils of Toryism, will wish that gentleman a speedy restoration to full health. If he leaves Waihemo there ought to be no difficulty in securing him a safe seat elsewhere.

" No bill" was found by the Grand Jury against the wretched girl Madeline Cross, who was alleged to have cut her now-born child's throat with a pair of scissers. I am not going to discuss the question whether the Grand Jury were right or wrong in their decision, but one thing strikes me as peculiar, and that is

that up to the present no mention has been made of the man who was the father of the child. The girl had evidently been led astray by someone, and yet Society, which decries immorality hi a woman, has nothing to say about the man who was the prime cause of the girl's awful position. All honour to the Carterton jury which suggested that " legislation should be so amended as to mete out greater punishment to the fathers of illegitimate children." Those connected with philanthropic work in Wellington tell me that illegitimacy is alarmingly on the increase in the city; girls are ruined wholesale, but the seducers seem to go scot free. There is a frightful injustice in this and by some means or other the Legislature ought at least to endeavour to remedy what is at present a shameful disparity between the female and the male sinners.

Poor Mr Buchanan feels that he is by no means over safe in the Wairarapa, and his speeches made during his recent tour have, I hear, been marked by more than usual bitterness against " those wicked Liberals." Mr Buchanan's oratory is never of a very cheerful kind, and I am not surprised to hear that at more than one of his meetings the audience gradually melted away until the speaker had to face a " beggarly array of empty benches" before he reached his peroration. Even the Masterton Conservative organ laments the fact that the meetings were very " chilly." It will be a cold day indeed for Mr Buchanan at the next general election, unless present appearances in the Wairarapa are very deceptive.

Apropos to Mr Buchanan's Carterton meeting, I would draw the attention of the Press--Association directors to the openly partisan character of the message sent about the above meeting to the Wellington papers. Here it is : Mr Buchanan, M.H.E., addressed a full meeting of his constituents at Carteron last and was cordially received. The principal portions of his speech dealt with the corrupt administration of the Government in the various branches of the public service, and the glaringly dishonest statements of the Premier when addressing meet-

ings throughout the colony. Observe, please, that the press agent assumes as granted " the corrupt administration of the Government in the various branches of the public service, and the glaringly dishonest statements, etc., etc." He does not say that Mr Buchanan made these charges; he calmly assumes that these things are so. Could one have any more " glaring dishonest " —the expression is that of the Carterton agent of the Press Association —misuse jpf the functions of a correspondent of a "; non-political" Association ? There is a rule, I believe, of the Press Association that local correspondents shall not give their news items a party colour. It seems to me that unless the Press Association gets another agent at Carterton, the public will be perfectly justified in regarding with the utmost suspicion any news that may come from the Wairarapa township.

But the Press Association has its defenders. Thus, a correspondent " Growler " : Dear Scrutator, —At this time when the Press Association is being accused of being a " Political machine," &c , I think the following clipping from a Hawke's Bay paper is worth reproducing : ASTOUNDING! (per press association.) Wellington, This day. The weather is fine again. Does not this show how excellently the Association supplies the country with news of a non-political character '? To Correspondents:— " H.P.T."— Don't remember the verses in question, and don't think they appeared in the Mail. In any case wouldn't republish, as would arouse bad feeling. " J.P.' —No, thanks, have no wish to stir up a hornets' nest. "W.G.," Fielding.—Am afraid ib won't do. Too long. " Martonian."— Decidedly not. You must blame the stupidity and greed of those who had a good site and opened their mouths too wide. "D. 8.," Wanganui. Though long delayed, not lost sight of. Next week.