AUSTRALIAN AFFAIRS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1686, 22 June 1904, Page 56

AUSTRALIAN AFFAIRS.

FROM 6RAVE TO 6AY.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, June 11. [MILITARY MEN AS CIVILIANS. They say that in the exact centre of every cyclone there is always a perfect calm. Apparently we at present occupy the centre of the political cyclonic disturbance which so lately raged with ungovernable violence. In a few days, - >,*hen Mr Reid has found an opportunity to move his straight vote against the (Government, we shall be in the storm again. Rut now there is a lull, and the ■absolute tranquillity may be gauged by the fact that Sir John Forrest actually moved the adjournment of the House a couple of days ago in order to ventilate a grievance about military titles, while the most exciting subject that has since engaged the attention of Parliament has been the question whether domestic servants should be brought under the Federal Arbitration Act. The grievance about military titles was an instructive one. Mr Mahon, the Postmaster-General, issued a ukase that Post Office employees who were officers in the local military forces should not be addressed by their military titles, but for departmental purposes should be •plain “Mr.” This order aggrieved the soul of Sir John Forrest, who thundered impressively for half an hour on the subject of the self-sacrifice of militia officers. But Mr Mahon certainly.succeeded in pointing out the inconvenience of having to address a post office employee by his military title on every occasion. He explained that at r, Ballarat the postmaster was a captain and the telegraph operator was a major. Honourable members required no further explanation. A very ordinary imagination can .weave a whole succession of misadventures out of that topsy-turvy relation between two fellow-workers in the holy pause of efficient postal communication. If Captain Smith, the postmaster, reprimanded Major Jones, the operator, for had spelling, or for blotting the Government stationery in office hours, Major Jones would inevitably revenge himself -on the parade ground by giving Captain Smith pack-drill for inattention, or by ■placing him in charge ol the fatigue squad charged with the duties of camp sanitation. Then when they got back to the office Captain Smith would take it out of his military superior by handing all the most illegible press messages to him just before closing time, \yith instructions to] despatch them before going to bedi It is easy to see than neither postal efficiency nor military efficiency would he fostered by a hard- . and-fasb rule that the operator should always be addressed as “ Major ” or the postmaster as “ Captain.” Alter an animated debate, ihe House decided .that post office employees might be addressed by their military titles, but that such form of address was not compulsory. On the whole, the wisdom of this, decision may be doubted. For if '.the postmaster in future addresses Major Jones as plain Mr Jones, then Major Jones will certainly believe that he has been intentionally insulted by his military junior officer. And there will he trouble on parade.

A FORTUNATE POLITICIAN. Tour recent visitor, Sir John See. has provided us with the sensation of the week in State politics by resigning the Premiership of New South Wales and announcing his retirement from public life for an indefinite period. He benefited greatly by his trip to New Zealand, but the death of Lady See was a severe blow to him, and State politics do not make a bed of roses these times. Sharp criticism is necessary for the welfare of the State, but it must be very wearing on the nerves of the individual, and for the last five years Sir John See has had press criticism with his breakfast every morning. That is one of the penalties of being associated with a sanguine scatter-cash optimist like Mr O’Sullivan, the Minister of Public Works, whose reckless extravagance ha? practically brought his department to a standstill. Some weeks ago hundreds of clerical officers were dismissed from this department without notice. Married men with families were ruthlessly reduced, and a vast amount of distress was, of course, occasioned. There is a circumstantial story, which has not yet got outside the department, that one desperate public servant who had received his dismissal produced a revolver and levelled it at tHi permanent head with a pre-emptory deinyod for another billet, which was found for him without hesitation. A man who goes place-hunting with a revolver would seem to have an unfair advantage over more humdrum people. Sir John SeS*is thoroughly run down 4>y a quarter of a contury of militant politics. He seems to have been one of the lucky ones of the earth. With-

o>nt a trace of brilliancy, or a spark of native genius, he has managed to make .» large fortune as a produce merchant, and to climb by sheer plodding into the highest political office in the State. "What a contrast to the brilliant but erratic Sir George “Damn-Ohicago” Dibbs, so called from bis widely-adver-tised condemnation of the great pork capital. And how different in a totally different way from that marvellously virile, far-seeing, aspirateless old statesman, Sir Henry Parkes, who rose from keeping a small toy-shop in Sydney evqj; so long ago, to become the chief founder of the Commonwealth of Australia. Mr Cornelius Job Ham. a worthy and venerable Baptist estate agent, who was for many years a pillar of tho Victorian Legislative Council, told mo once that he could remember going as a child with his sixpence in his hand to buy an indiarubber ball at the little toy-shop in Sydney kept by Mr Parkes. And Mr Parkes, who was always thorough, came out from behind his counter and bounced the ball on the floor to show that it was good value for the money. Sir Henry Parkes, who was for so many years Premier of New South Wales, was an intellectual giant, who could never put an “h” in its right place. But he towered over the men of to-day. And he coined some new phrases, and reminted some old ones —such as “the crimson thread of kinship”-—which will outlast our time. Sir John See has never coined a striking phrase nor conceived a statesmanlike idea in liis life. Yet he has amassed an immense private fortune, while Sir Henry Parkes died practically penniless.

THE SERVANT GIRL IN POLITICS

In spite of the frenzied efforts of Dr Maloney, the semi-Anarchist who represents Melbourne in the House of Representatives, the proposal to bring all domestic servants under the jurisdiction of thß Federal Arbitration Act was rejected. In the interests of domestic peace, the decision of the House must bo thankfully received. But there is no manly heart which will not feel a passing thrill of regret at the thought of the magnificent subject of conversation that ladies have been deprived of by this decision. ,If a Commonwealth inspector were empowered to visit Bridget and Jane in the kitchen, and to prescribe for them the exact number of plates that' they might wash and tho precise amount of dusting, which should be required of them per week, the mistress of the house would have something more absorbing than even Herbert Spencer’s recently-published biography to talk about Di Maloney received some support from Mr Spence, a Queensland Labour member, who professed to have an intimate knowledge of the yearning of Australian domestic servants for Federal arbitration, blit the House was unsympathetic. Hon members shrank from the prospect. of creating an army of inspectors who should be charged with the duty of going from house to house to stir up grievances. The scheme was dropped, and it ha's perished unlamented. LADY NORTH COTE’S ROMANCE. The Governor-General and Lady Northcote made their first public appearance on an Australian racecourse at Randwick last Saturday, attended by their full staff. Most people know that Lady Northcote .was the adopted daughter of the first Baron Mount Stephen, who went out to Canada from Banffshire in 1850 as plain Mr George Stephen, and who rose in the Dominion, becoming eventually the President of the famous CanadianPacific Railway, and acquiring wealth that would have made Dr Johnson revise his idea about a brewery being the source of riches—-“beyond the dreams of avarice.” I happened to met the other day a much-travelled and wellinformed Australian lady, who had just returned from a visit to Canada. '** She told me the true story of the adoption of the little girl who is now Lady Northcote, as it was told to her in Canada. According to my informant, Lady Northcote was in her childhood Alice Brooke, the only daughter of Mr Brooke, an landscape painter, whose wife died while the little girl was quite young. The death of his wife upset Mr Brooke terribly, and he got into the habit of wandering away by himself, leaving his home uncared fcr. Under these circumstances the eh’id was accustomed to make her way to toe house of Mr aud Mrs Stephen, who had no children of their own, and who be came so much attached to her that ‘hey speedily adopted her, and charged themselves with her bringing up and education. Upon her marriage with Lord Northcote, large settlements were made upon her by her adopted father, who had meanwhile become the wealthiest man in the Dominion. THE RHODES’ SCHOLARS. The news that Mr James Thomson, a Bachelor of Science of Otago University, has been selected as one of the first of the Rhodes’ scholars to represent New Zealand at Oxford University, brings to mind the fact that the committee of selection in Western Australia have alsc chosen a Rhodes’ scholar to represent that State. Their choice has fallen on Mr James Leonard Walker, a native of Sydney, and nineteen

years old. He has been attending the High School at Perth for many years, and his career has been remarkably successful. Fine times these Rhodes’ scholars will have with their £3OO a year each, which is an ample allowance upon which a man can do very well at Oxford. Many sons of country parsons and other people not overburdened with wealth, manage to scrape along there somehow or other on half the amount.

The working out of this remarkable experiment in educational Imperialism will be watched with interest far away from Oxford. Oxford itself seems like some great beautiful land-locked harbour, in which ships from all the ports of the world ride at anchor, completely sheltered from the storms that rage outside. Now and again a controversy as to the necessity of making Greek a compulsory subject for students who desire to study scientific chemistry will ruffle the placid waters, or excited dons will raise a storm of protest against the suggestion that a man who could not construe a chorus of Aeschylus decently might be trusted to administer an out • post of the Empire. But for the most part, Oxford, steeped to the lips in ancient culture -and dreaming of philosophical ideals which have little relation to the facts of life, is content to leave practical education in the application, for instance, of scientific methods, to industrial processes, ■ severely alone. Such matters may, » it is thought, safely be left to the hustling mushroom universities of the Western States of the United States of America or to the labourious educational factories of the Germans.

Possibly the irruption of several hundreds of Rhodes’ scholars from America and the British-Colonial Empire may break in upon the dreams of the beautiful old University, and wake her up to face the fact that hei piestige will not remain unchallenged for ever. But the effect of Oxford on the Rhodes’ scholars will in all probability be more noticeable than the effect or the Rhodes’ scholars upon Oxford. When they leave it and return to the new world—the world of galvanisediron roofs and weather-board houses, of churches built last year, and colleges upon which the paint is hardly dry, they may realise what Max O-Keii meant when lie said at the close of a lecturing tour in Australia, I want to go home to Europe and see some ivy growing on an old brick wall. A PLAY WORTH SEEING . Playgoers over your way will have a real treat when “The Marriage of Kitty ” gets to New Zealand, which no drubt will happen before long. After a surfeit of heavy drama like Tolstoy’s Resurrection,” and gorgeous “spectacle ” like the*“ Darling of the Gods.” it is perfectly delightful to see such a bright, clever, amusing and admirablywritten comedy as “ The Marriage of Kitty,” which is now running in this city. Of course, it it adapted from the French. All the best comedies are adapted from the French nowadays. An English playwright could no more have written “ The Marriage of Kitty ” than an English novelist could imitate de Maupassant. Even Pinero in his lighter moments, which are few and far between nowadays, works with a heavy hand compared with the author of this comedy. The brain that brought out “ The Magistrate ” has betaken itself to serious cogitations jivhich have their outcome in such plays as “ Iris ” and “Letty,” and at present the English idea of comedy-humour does not seem to soar higher than farces of the “Tom. Dick and Harry” type. However, we must be thankful that England still possesses competent adapters of French plays and the adapters have certainly turned out a really workmanlike job in “The Marriage of Kitty.” The central idea of a man of fashion who marries a lady for legal purposes and then actually falls in love with her so desperately that he deserts the shady adventuress who has been boring him to death, and falls a victim to the charms of his own wife is deliciously French. To the French playwright the idea that a man might possibly fall in love with liis own wife appealed as the very acme of humorous incongruity. And upon this novel and most comic foundation he has builtrtvith quick, deft hands and many skilful and artistic touches a very charming edifice. There is not a single dull moment in this piece, and Miss Rose Musgrove and Mr Wilfred Draycott play the principal parts just about as well as they oould be played. A BOOK WORTH READING. By the way, if anyone wants to realise the humorous possibilities of the institution of these Rhodes scholarships, lie or she ought not to miss reading a book called “The Adventures of Downy V. Green,” by George Calderon. Downy V. Green is the American-horn grandson of Mr Verdant Green, whose adventures at Oxford used to amuse readers of forty years ago. And Downy V. Green is a Rhodes scholar from the imaginary State of Lavinia, United States. His election, by purely American methods, of course, his appearance at Oxford,, aud how his rough bulky and eminently natural personality accommodates itself oi fails to accommodate itself, to the environment of the University strike the reader as something absolutely fresh. Mr George Calderon obviously knows Oxford

well. And, equally obviously, he, also knows the American cousin from the State of Lavinia. His command of American diction is unsurpassable. One of the most entertaining books I have read for a very long time.