ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1424, 15 June 1899, Page 31

ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

"Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet To run amuck ana tilt at all I meet.” —Pope'; BY SCRUTATOR. If New ‘South Wales votes “Yes” on Wednesday next, it may be taken for granted that Australian Federation is a certainty. Queensland does not vote on the question until August, but it is pretty safe to say “ditto” to a New,South Wales affirmative and the other colonies are “all right,” as a party whip would say when ticking off his list for .a coming division. But when Federation is accomplished what a lovely fight there will be between Reid and 1 Barton for the Premiership. Mr Reid has been telling the electors of Newcastle that he believed in always being “on top” and hinted in the plainest possible manner that he intends to rest his corpulent person m the Federal Premier’s chair if he can only get there. There was no need to say that he believed in being “on top” for Mr Reid’s political career has proved that whatever happens he always plays to win the purely Reidian game. Hence the volte face in favour of the Labour Party, and the yet most astonishing round about turn on Federation.

“But where do I come in” said the “Insect” in Paul Jones, and this is precisely what Mr Reid’s great rival, though temporary ally, Mr “Toby” Barton, will probably remark. It was Barton who has really headed the Federation movement all along; he was a stalwart, staunch', uncompromising “Yes” when the time-serving Reid was giving a lond “No.” Reid’s conversion —or perversion —as some consider it, Tnust put him out of court for the Federal Premiership with many of his old admirers. Barton has been the popular hero all through, and although Reid is a past master in the art of gulling the people into the belief that he is the one and only man to save the country—and that other pretenders to that glorious honour are frauds of the first water, it is just possible that the people of New South Wales may awaken to the fact that there is an abler man in Barton, who has voted “Yes” all through, and who, both in the Assembly and on the public platform, has done more than any other man in the colony to bring about a United Australia. Reid may be “on top” just now, but the spectre of Barton the possibly triumphant must be haunting the dreams of the cocksure fat man.

By the way, talking of Reid, the Opposition Party in New Zealand might, do worse than import the notorious John Norton, the editor of Sydney “Truth,” who has recently been “slang-whanging” the “Yes”-“No” gentleman most unmercifully. Norton would come in very handy at the general election as a coiner of opprobrious epithets, which he might supply at, say, a guinea a dozen, to Opposition speakers hard up for new expressions of abuse.against Richard J., of Kumara. As a sample of the style of thing the amiable Norton can throw off his chest when he gets thoroughly well wound up, a recent outburst of his against Reid may be quoted. In this the Premier who “believes in being top” is referred to as “the unprincipled political panderer who disgraces and degrades the high and honourable position” ; “this penniless political pirate and putrid perjured politician”; this wobbly, wriggling, writhing, worthless waster”; “this perfidious Premier and perjured political trickster.” The “Post” people might take note of the above. Apart a*om being a curious example of that may be done by “alliteration’s artful aid” they will be useful when next the “Post is douching the New Zealand Premier with its acrid abuse.

Will the Dreyfus affair end before the end of the century ? At present the connually varying cablegrams concerning “the case” are becoming quite a bore. The rough and ready English pronunciation of the much-injured officer’s name-“Dry-fus”—has its significance:. The most satisfactory feature of later developments of the case is the possibility of Colonel Picquart, a most foully injured man, mired because he was honest, obtaining justice. With Henry suicided, Paty de Clam under arrest, and Esterhazy a fugitive in the nerfidious Albion he was so wont to abuse, it does seem-as if the minor rogrfes at least were "getting their deserts. But the generals who employed these rascals are still flaunting their epaulettes, of which they well deserve stripping with all possible publicity and ignomeny.

Mr Samuel Vaile, the would-be railway tariff reformer, threatens to make an attempt to enter Parliament at the general election, and, with a view no doubt, to .adhering his candidature, has gone to the expense of printing his views on railway and other questions in a neat booklet, a copy of which has duly reached me. On railway matters Mr Vaile is the same amiable crank that he has been for some years' past, totally failing to comprehend the difference between thickly populated Austro-Hungary, where the much-vaun-ted “zone” system prevails, and this sparsely populated colony of ours. And it is very doubtful whether, even were the fares on our railways reduced to onefifteenth or even one-thirtieth the present rates, the average New Zealander would travel much more than he does now. If, for instance, I could journey to Master-

ton for, say, 2s 6d instead of 12s, I should not visit the pleasant little Wairarapa town any more frequently than I do now. The element of cheapness is not the allimportant factor Mr Vaile supposes it is.

But it was not Mr Vaile’s views on the “zone” or any other railway system that attracted my notice in his pamphlet, but the extraordinary opinion he is pleased to express concerning Wellington. The good man has been reading in the Auckland paper about the “selfishness” of Wellington (in demanding an alternative mail service, for instance) and no doubt has also been influenced by the stupid cry, so often raised by the Opposition, that the present Government terrorises over the Civil Service. He has therefore come to the conclusion that the city and suburbs of Wellington ought to be disfranchised. It is hardly possible that the stunid jealousy of Wellington which prevails to a certain extent in Auckland could be so successfully traded upon by Mr Vaile that he could become a member of the new Parliament, but I have no doubt it might give him a few votes. For this jealousy of Wellington is no new thing. Dipping on a recent wet Sunday—most Sundays of late have been wet —-into Hursthouse’s “New Zealand, the Britain of the South,” I find the author appealing to the “cits and shopkeepers of Auckland” to “cast off their huckster selfishness, and to begin to regard the government of New Zealand in some other light than that of a means of “filling the till.”

In Hursthouse’s time (his book was published nearly fifty years ago, to be exact, in 1857, the great bugbeai of the Aucklanders, was that “the seat of Government could not be removed from Auckland without endangering peaceful relations with the Auckland natives.” Mr Hursthouse scouts this “argument” as “bosh,” and says “Make the Colonel of the Regiment, the LieutenantGovernor of New Zealand, and leave the troops, the parades( the drums and trumpets for the natives to admire; and they would still bring their pigs and produce to Auckland, and carry back their blankets and tobacco, precisely as they do now.” Mr Vaile’s jealousy of Wellington is merely a recrudescence of a mania which existed nearly fifty years and which ought long ago to have been exploded. There is room enough and to spare in the North Island for both Aucklanders and Wellingtonians to push their trade. What is wanted is a main trunk line to relieve Auckland from her isolation, and if a certain noisy clique in the Northern city had not chosen to meddle and muddle and to pursue the Stratford route Will-o’-the-Wisp, the trunk line would today be c!oss on completion.

Harking back for a few moments to Hursthouse’s book, it is amusing, to a Wellingtonian, to find him sorely afflicted with the earthquake terror. The capital should not be Auckland, he says, but lie favours Nelson rather than Wellington. It is the Wellington earthquakes that choke him off the advantages of Poneke. He says: “It is a more serious matter than mere boisterousness of climate'’ (he had been discussing that even then tile topic, the Wellington winds), “which damages Wellington’s metropolitan claims,” and he then refers to the prevalence of earthquakes. “Wherever the permanent metropolis of New Zealand is placed,” he says, “certain good and substantial buildings must be erected.” Now I would ask any provincial councillor of the good city of Wellington, whether, as a private speculation, he would lay out £SOOO of his money in building a stone or brick mansion there ? “He answers the question himself, as follows : —“I could not, and should regard a £25,000 set of public offices in Wellington as the very reverse of permanent ‘public property.’ It certainly would not conduce; he continues, “to the domestic comfort of the Governor to know, that, any night, some little volcanic eccentricity might reverse his sleeping position, ministries shaken by earthquakes could never be stable Ministries; and the spectacle of the Speaker toppled from his chair would not promote the course of smooth and tranquil legislation.” This was written in 1857 but in 1899, much more than £25,000 worth of public offices exist in Wellington, and the buildings seem fairly “permanent” despite Mi Hursthouse’s dismal forebodings; the Governor, I fancy, sleeps well ; ’ nights without fear of his “sleeping position being reversed,” and =o far, at least Mr Speaker has not been “toppled” from his chair.

Mr A. R. Atkinson is an all round genius, whose versatility is well-known. In the interval of spreading the gospel according to Isitt—and Atkinson—it appears he devotes some attention to the study of Carlyle, and has recently delivered, before: the Froebel Society—a new “society” of some sort or other is apparently started every week in Wellington—a lecture on the dour but essentially practically minded Sage of Chelsea.” With Mr Atkinson’s estimate of Carlyle, as reported all too briefly, in a daily paper, I agree, but the trouble is to me, that the lecturer does not model his own mind a little more on Carlylean models. For instance the lecturer, said Hiat Carlyle was neither sage nor statesman, but prophet; the gist of his message was that we shpuld clear our minds of cant. Just so, and if Mr Atkinson would only adopt the advice above given and < 'ear his rather narrow mind of prohibition, “corruption” and other varieties of cant which dwarf and bemuddle his in many ways clear and vigorous intellect, how much more useful a citizen and publi-

cist our young friend would bo. By all means let Mr Atkinson continue Ids studies in Carlyle—and act upon Carlyle's advice.

it is all very right and proper—under that particularly stupid piece of legislation known as the “Gaming and Lotteries Act” for Commissioner Tunbridge to set his myrmidons to work and break up the Chinese gambling “den”at Christchurch, but is not the law under which such prosecution has been made most wofully onesided? Is there not one law for the rich and one for the poor, one law for the white man, and another for his yellow skinned fellow? What about the clubs scattered all over the colony, at which 100 and poker, and other gambling games proceed unchecked ? These Christchurch Chinese may very properly and fairly say that their so-called “den” was just as much their “club" as the aristocratic “gentlemen’s club,” to be found in the City of the Plains? If it be wicked and illegal to play fan-tan for trifling stakes, surely the same terms should apply to poker and 100 played at the European clubs. And how about the totabsator ? So long as the “tote ’is allowed by law, and surely it is beyond all question a “gambling machine,” why pounce down upon a few Chinamen for doing in a very small way what it is perfectly legal in public to do on a very large scale ? Either ,gambling should be made illegal all round, or colonists, white and yellow alike, should be free to have a “little flutter” just as it may please them to have, without police interference. The present system of differentiation is perfectly illogical.

“Traitor on the brain” has been a permanent disease in the French army lor many years past. Every second general during the “terrible years” of 1870-1871 was howled at as a traitor, and on the slightest possible pretext the French officer of to-day is just as ready to cry “Traitors, traitors” as were his predecessors of net, to thirty years ago. This accounts for the wide-spread hatred in the army of Dreyfus and the Dreyfusards. and the extraordinary gullibility of the army as to the foreign gold—the “gold of Pitt” over again—which, according to such canaille as Drumont, Deroulede and Rochefort, has been provided for the purpose of corrupting the judges and assisting the rehabilitation of the prisoner of Devil’s Island. Anyone who has lived in France and mixed, even in mere cafe society, with the French sous officie-s, could tell you of the colossal ignorance, the fatuous conceit, the general lack of moral fibre, which makes the junior officers in the French army such willing swallowers of any idle tale. And it is not to English witnesses that one need go for corroboration of the fact for M. Gobier’s articles on the French army, the articles of a patriotic Frenchman, show how true it is that in the lieutenants, poorly paid, useless for aught else than mere soldiering, France has a vast body of men who form exactly the right kind of material for a cunning, unscrupulous agitator to work upon.

It is this class of Frenchmen, who at Nice have been crying “Vive l’annee, down with traitors,” and to this class it is that Bonapartist and Royalist pretenders look to upset the Third Republic. Meanwhile the toiling peasant and industrious bourgeois is frightened for his savings, for recent French newspapers record the fact that savings bank deposits and . small purchasers of rentes or consols have greatly decreased. Fearing a coup d’etat the peasants and the smaller bourgeoisie are going back to their faithful stocking and making private hoards. This was widely done when the Boulangist panic was on.

I have to welcome the first number of “Atea (Daylight), a New Zealand lierary journal, with which is incorporated “The Journal of the Wesleyan Literary and Debating Society.’ “Atea,” under the editorship of Mr J. W. Black, makes an excellent start. The articles are well chosen, and there runs throughout strong evidence of a genuine love for literature, with not a trace of any priggishness_,or pedantry. Sir Robert Stout’s aid has been enlisted, the result being a well written apreciation of Whitman’s “Letters to a Comrade.” There is perhaps a trifle more extract than comment, but Sir Robert’s notes, though brief, are thoughtful and to the point. Referring to the charge of indecency, so often, and us I think. so justifiably brought against Whitman, lie says: “Some people don’t like some of Whitman’s poems. There is a realism about them that savours of rudeness, and, it is said, even indecency. It is only in the form. He was a pure-minded soul, whose devotion to his fellows was ever exempli-fied-—in the hospital, where he nursed the sick soldiers, both Federal and Confederate, and in his daily intercourse with men.” This is all very well but there is too much reason to believe that Whitman had a perverted love for dwelling on sexual subjects, and treated them at times in a spirit of repulsive eroticism. In “Leaves of Grass” there are passages which can only be equalled for downright filth by Zola’s “La Terre,” and Swinburne’s essay on Whitman in his “Studies in Prose and Poetry” makes out a very clear . case. Swinburne, it is true, has himself been a great sinner in the same direction, and the man who wrote “Laus Veneris” should be the last to cast a stone at Whitman. But such staunch Whitman-lovers as John Addington Symonds and Edmund Gosse have both frankly admitted that Whitman

had moods during which he wrote passage-s which are absolutely revolting.

“Atea” has some “Literary Notes” by “Verax,” who is very severe on literary critics—“men with poniard in hand, stealthily waiting ready to stick it into all the innocent victims who stray across their path.” This is rather an extravagant statement, which cerainly does not apply to latterday criticism, whatever may have been the case with the “Review” that so cruelly < slated Keats or the “Saturday Re viler ’in his earlier period. To-day it seems to me that- literary criticism is far too tolerant towards the mass of rubbish which is poured out—along with good literature—from the printing press. erax” has, however, a capital defence of Dickens, and makes some very apt and sensible remarks concerning Harry Lawson’s recent wail i:i the “Bulletin.”

Mr T. W. Rowe commences what promises to be a very delightful series of articles entitled “Odd Quarter Hours Among My Books.” Mr Rowe is evidently of Hazlitt’s opinion “When a. new book is published I read an old one.” It is impossible nowadays to follow such advice au pied de la lettre, but in the rush after novelty we are apt to neglect some of the finest things in English literature simply because they belong to a bve-gone age. Mr Rowe s first chat is on good old Isaac Walton’s friend Chalkhill and his quaintly charming poem "Thealina and GTearehus,” and very entertaining and instructive his little essay is. J.W.B. contributes a timely and very welcome chat with Professor McKenzie, of the Victoria College. Mr McKenzie’s advice to literary students is that of Frederick Harrison, who, in his “Choice of Books,” so warmly recommends young men to read the‘best and the best only, and to eschew the purely topical and trivial. But surely there is a misprint when the Professor replies “Decidedly” to the question whether he considered the prevalence of magazines a good sign. “Decidedly not” was, I venture to imagine, the Professor’s actual reply. So at least I hope, and so also. I should judge by the context. E.L.B. contributes a suggestive .practical article on “The Aims and Influence of Debating Societies”; and there are other good features in “Atea,” a modest, unpretentious but well written little magazine, to which I cordially wish long life and prosperity. Mr Black is to be heartily congratulated on his first number.

Says “Woomera” in the “Australasian” —One of the members of the New Zealand Legislative Assembly, who is distinguished by vigour of speech and force of character, has a curly head of hair. Sitting down after a good speech, he was surprised by one of the weak, ineffective members placing his hand on his head and saying, “I wish I had your bonny head of hair.” “Hoots, mon,” he retorted, “it’s the lieid ye need. It would be mail* use to ye.”

Name, please, name! And the next time “Woomera” publishes a New Zealand yarn, new or old, imaginary or otherwise, please remember that we New Zealanders have a House of Representatives, also a Legislative Council. As to a "Legist lative Assembly,” I believe, with the lamented Betsy Prig, “there ain’t no such pusson.”

The ’Frisco mail items about the “side” put on at Simla by the new Indian Viceroy’s American mother-in-law, Mrs Leiter, will surprise no one who reads the Yankee papers with any regularity. The Leiters like other immensely wealthy people in the States, sprung from humble surroundings. Mrs Loiter herself, who presumed on her position as mother of Lady Curzon to demand the escort of an aide-de-camp, and the according of viceregal honours to her sacred person, has long been famous in Chicago as a successor of Mrs Malaprop. At the time Lord Curzon’s appointment as Viceroy of India was announced, the yarn goes that she was asked if she knew the Himalayas ? No, replied Mrs Leiter, “I have neve* met them, but I believe they are delightful people.”

The busy country editor, assisted by the busy and sometimes .careless eountry “comp.,” sometimes manages to turn om a pretty specimen in the “mudcllegram” line. As an example take the following curious combination (from a North Island paper) of two separate items, one the accident which occurred to Towns, an Australian sculler, and the other the death of Strauss, the “waltz king”: “By a boating collision on the Thames, Towns, the Australian sculler, smashed two ribs of Johann Strauss, the famous composer.”