NEWS AND VIEWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 3676, 28 February 1899, Page 6

NEWS AND VIEWS.

Muscat, the latest State to defy—for a time—the British power, and to be convinced by British warships of the futility of defiance, lies in the Tar south-eastern corner of Arabia. The native name is Oman, the name Muscat only properly applying to the capital, a miserable collection of tumble down so-called palaces and mud hovels. Its commercial importance, however, is not small, for the town lies in a narrow rocky pass from the interior to the Indian Ocean, and this pass is the sole means of communication for the commerce between Eastern Arabia, Persia,. India, East Africa and. the' Red Sea. The total trade of the State reaches over a million sterling a year, the chief* export being pearls,fish, salt,dates, drugs, dyestuffs and horses. In 1508 the Portuguese, so powerful in the sixteenth century, took possession of Muscat and under them the State developed considerable commercial prosperity. In 1658 Portuguese rule ceased, Deing replaced by that of the native unarms, who also, until 1856, succeeded the Portuguese as masters of Zanzibar. The major portion of the Muscat over-sea trade is done by British vessels either with Bombay, Zanzibar, Aden or Liverpool. , The French appear, by latest statistics, to have little or no commercial influence there, and there can be little doubt but that.their recent and happily thwarted attempt to obtain a coaling station in the vicinity had for its sole object a menace to the British mercantile marine. ■ A decision of considerable importance to the licensed victuallers’ trade has just been given by Justice A’Beckett in Melbourne. Up to the present'the Victorian Licensing Act has been read to mean-that " any person whatever " to whom liquor is illegally supplied during prohibited : hours does not refer- to what “ Lex ” in : “ The Jurist ” column of the “ Australasian" calls “ that übiquitous and wildly diversifying person, the lodger.” By Mr Justice A’Beckett’s decision in the case of Crompton versus Starr the Act is mow interpreted to include lodgers,' and so the impartial law pronounces an anathema against the hapless landlord who fills the empty pewter of his guest during the prohibited hours ! Pernaps, says “Lex," this cruel design of the Legislature against the liberty of the subject would have remained yet hidden beneath the comfortable haze of unquestioned custom if a heedless lodger had not invited two friends to join him in a somewhat late glass, and so brought down the wrath of the police. However the law has now been writ in black and white, by the aid of the learned judge in question, and lodgers at hotels must' perforce order and receTve, before closing 'hour, the calculated quantum of liquor that will serve their needs until the lawful morning trade may replenish supplies. Nothing is more fatal to a cause than ridicule, and it is a consoling thought for those who have waited so long and are still waiting so patiently to see Dreyfus obtain justice that such imbecile arid mischievous poseurs as Paul. Deroulede and Marcel Hubert, who are' amongst the leaders ot the ariti-Dreyfusites, should have been laughed at by the Parisians. Gerieral Rogers contemptuous remark that “he wanted no humbug” was no doubt echoed by every sensible Parisian the day of M. Faure’s funeral. To be jeered at by the crowd whilst attempting a contemptibly theatrical demonstration was not only a blow to M. Deroulede’s vanity. But a significant hint—at least we hope so—that the majority of the docent people of Paris have had enough of the silly vapourmgs and mischievous intrigues of the gang of notoriety hunters who hang on to the sword belts of the army.

The rumour is circulated in some of tjio country papers that Mr George Fisher will contest the Otaki seat at the general election. It may be that Mr Fisher has discovered the fact that the Wellington electors are heartily tireS of him; but what have the Otaki people done to deserve such an infliction as the candidature ot Mr Fisher, who will certainly waste both his time and his money in contesting that or any other seat? Otaki will, however, have plenty of candidates to choose from, for in addition to Messrs Field (the sitting member), Morrison, and F. Bradey, it is now stated that Mr Maiendie, the well-known sheep farmer of Ohariu, also intends to solicit the support of the constituency.

In his address to the Cromwell people the other night the Premier maintained that the present administration had done specially .good work for the _ mining industry and those engaged in it. The Conservative Government never gave the goldfields a fair share of the millions they had borrowed. They, however, left inem to pay their share of the interest. When he (Mr Seddon) fought the battle for the abolition of the gold duty, the Conservatives were the bitterest opponents. It was the Liberals and the goldflelds members from the south who forced the Atkinson Government to bring in a bill abolishing the gold duty. The County Councils and local bodies generally left them, and they still wept; but their roads were just as good to-day as in the good old days of the gold duty and lavish expenditure on salaries. No Ministry, he declared, had done so much for the mining industry as the Liberal Government had done since his late chief (Mr John Ballance) took office. Being an old miner himself, he. the Premier, could assure them that his sympathies were still with them. He claimed that the Government had fostered the mining industry in every possible way. Their rentals had been re-

duced, but ho thought they were still too high. He was inclined to give the land at a nominal rental, provided those who took it up employed labour and extracted the precious metal from it. Under the new Mining Act and regulations special provision was made for having the marking of mining areas done properly, with a view to saving costly legal proceedings.

It is a fairly general belief amongst New Zealand colonists that it was China that practically forced war upon Japan by her imbecile mismanagement of matters Corean and by her stupid and wilful disregard of the fact that Japanese interests in the Pacific were,to Japan, just as important as Chinese interests to the Government at Pekin. But that sober, staid and generally very thoughtful journal, the “ Athenaeum,” holds quite a contrary view. Commenting upon Mr Arthur Diosy’s book, “The New Far East,” the “ Athemeum ” contends that the Japanese war with China was as unjustifiable as the raid of Hideyoshi upon Corea nearly 400 years ago. “There was no ‘casus belli/ political or moral; it was bare, bold burglary from beginning to end. It was as short-sighted as it was immoral—their own arrest of their triumphant march showed that—and the Japanese could not have held the Manchurian shores of themselves for any length of time, and it was injudicious to suppose that Russia would permit them to establish themselves in a position of permanent predominance in North China. Their punishment was swift and exemplary. They were thrust unceremoniously out of their conquests, and practically excluded in Corea from a predominance to which Japan really had some claim.