PASSING EVENTS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1511, 14 February 1901, Page 34

PASSING EVENTS.

History is philosophy teaching by examples. —Thucydides.

The famous preacher, Dr Parker, was given an* opportunity by the proprietors of the “Sun -’ to edit that paper on religious lines for one week. The experience couid not be said t° liave resulted in success. Of course, the worthy doctor, whose pet aversion is sporting and all its appurtenances, excluded all tips and betting quotations from the columns of the “Sun* during his week’s reign. It happened fortunately for the future well-being of the paper that the week was particularly barren of sporting intelligence. Dr Parker was equal to the occasion, however. He invented what he termed a. “correct race card,” which satirised the ordinary racing schedule and included the following quotations : 10 to 1 on The Bookmaker, 2 to 1 against Ruin, 3 to 1 against Penal Servitude, 20 to 1 against The Novice, 40 to 1 against Tire Yokel, 100 to 1 against The Flat. Now supposing Dr Parker’s odds are fairly correct, it is surely a lowering of the principles of ethics to warn people against a practice because it is not profitable: If that were to be the basis on which all morality were founded people would rapidly degenerate into a .sordid, grovelling lot. If men and women are moral simply because it does not pay to be otherwise, their morality is not worth a straw. But the good doctor pursues his policy of expediency and worldly wisdom. He tells of a wealthy bookmaker who built a magnificent house out of his turf earnings'and called it “Silly Shillings.” The point the reverend editor desires to make evidently is that if so many people had not been silly this mansion would not have been built. Bookmaking is an abomination and its practice is to be abhorred; but the same point in the doctor’s story could be made against the public for their wanton extravagance in other directions. As we have said, Dr Parker’s journalistic experience was not a success, and it is gratifying to know that he has returned to his pulpit, a sadder, and it is to be hoped a wiser man.

There cannot be the' least objection offe red to employers of labour, manufacturers and producers welding themselves together for their mutual protection. On the principle that bodies of men are more easily dealt with than many individuals acting separately, it is a, distinct gain to the community when associations of trades are formed. What is called the labour legislation of this colony has induced employers to form associations for protection against any aggression by the unions of their employees. If combinations of men have the effect of maintaining wages at a. certain standard, then it is reasonable that there should be combinations of manufacturers and producers to maintain prices of commodities at a profitable height, and in order to pay the increased demands of labour. It is more difficult for manufacturers and producers to establish associations for mutual advantage than for employees to form unions. For instance, the flour millers’ employees have had a union for years, whereas the flour millers have been carrying on a war among themselves for the limited trade of the colony. They have, however, now succeeded in forming an association, the object of which is to regulate the output and prevent cut-throat competition. It is expected from this that the price of bread will not be higher, hut that the price of flour will be steadier and: the price of wheat regulated in so far at least as the colony is concerned. That is to say, that since the head office of the association will buy for all the associated mills, there wil be virtually no competition in the colony for the farmer’s wheat, and its price will only be dominated by the London market price. This is practically the standard of values now, but frequently fancy prices have been given for fancy wheats. If the combination is used to the detriment of the people, then it will be for the people to institute legal enactments for their protection. Nothing of that kind is anticipated, however, as the result of the flonrin illers’ as sociation.

It is a high testimony to the purity of the German law courts that the wickedness and depravity of Sternberg, the millionaire banker of Berlin, were not allowed to escape punishment. We have been informed that this man, who had

lived a life of filth ami impurity for overtwenty years, has been sentenced to two and a half years’ penal servitude and deprivation of liis civil rights for five years. This punishment does not seem to be sufficient. The details cf Sternberg’s criminal practices so disgusting as to be publication in respectable journals. He had destroyed numerous young lives in the gratification cf bis illicit viciousness. The disclosures made of the moral condition of Berlin were appalling. The child prostitution of the German capital as revealed by the Sternberg trial reminds one of the stories of “Modern Babylon.” It was no uncommon thing in Berlin for 3'oung women to apply by the score for situations in which they knew they were wanted' for immoral purposes. Sternberg, the millionaire, was in all this, and used his gold for the corruption of many. In the trial the vast wealth he possessed was exercised to screen his abominations. From the meanest slut on the street to the highly-paid official, all fell alike victims to the corrupting influence of Sternberg’s money, and the culprit would have been acquitted but for the intrepedity of a policeman named Stierstadter, who refused the offer of a villa on Lake Geneva and fifty thousand marks if he would be silent. The public morals of the city could not have been, improved by the trial, for frequenters of cafes and restaurants discussed the filthy details of the case as published in the evening prints. The sentence, by no means severe, must have given great satisfaction to the better class of Berliners, who will have now an opportunity of exerting themselves to purify their city, which is regarded as one of the most immoral in Europe.

In the columns of some English newspapers a correspondence is proceeding upon the question -of whether the hereafter for the writers is Hell or Annihilation ? The subject is inexhaustible. Previously conceived opinions are not affected by controversies of this kind. The question has been discussed since the days when the philosophers of Athens assembled on Mai’s Hill to- hear and discuss some new thing. Even before that day there were disputations upon this somewhat fascinating subject. Nowadays in educated and cultured circles the idea of a. material hell is scouted, although in some quarters yet Burns’s -

line, “the fear o’ - hell’s the hangman’s whip,” is not without- its effect upon human conscience and action. Among the majority of divines a belief in the existence of a material hell is not now seriously entertained. No longer are congregations of people held metaphorically by preachers over the mouth of a bottomless pit which' emits sulphurous fumes and forked flames threatening their destruction or overlasting torment. Since latter day theologists agreed that good or evil emanated from man him'self the existence of a hell has faded away, and so men are discussing now what is to be t.heir future fate. It is not our function as a secular newspaper to offer a solution, but it might be appropriate to close this note with the folio wing quotation from Boswell’s “Life of Johnson”:—"Miss Seward. There is one mode of the fear of death, which is certainly absurd, and that is the fear of annihilation, which is only a pleasing sleep without a dream. Johnson. It i§ neither pleasing nor sleep ; it is' nothing. Now mere existence is so much better than, nothing, that one would rather exist in pain, than not- exist.”