TOPICS OF THE DAY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4082, 21 June 1900, Page 5

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

UNIQUE OPINIONS ON THE CRISIS IN CHINA,It is. always interesting to learn the opinions of “intelligent foreigners” whose outlook has. been widened by travel; and at the present juncture-it is worth recording the views entertained by Chinese denizens of New Zealand bn the critical situation that has arisen in the FloweryLand. A well-informed; Chinaman, interviewed for the Auckland‘“Star,” expressed himself thus’:—“Telly, good the partition, I think.... China.no.good now —bad laws, no one safe. I think velly good England, Germany,, s’m’other countlees come along cut up China into pieces, each takee slice —makee good laws alle same other conntlee —every people be quite too safe.. You savee how they do. non- in .China,, eh P - The, Empless she no good—she shut up Empler in back room, no won’t let him come out anyhow-. * Binpler”h© good fellow, likee make good law, but no can come. I think pletty soon other big,countlees cub,up China. -No sorrow for me.” Another Mongolian ,enunciated’ similar views in slightly : ! different., language. “Bad la/ws all oyer .there now,” he. said; “no -one safe, not .anywhere in villages—people -come into yony) house, rob all your things, cut up your head off. Where I think’ Empler now? He in Tientsin, locked up,' His glandmother, oh, she velly bad woman; want to nut another grahdchillen oh t’roiie. The China people they no like this; they want Empler . back. Li. Hung Chang, he the fav-rito man of the Emploss, ho put her up to all this bis-ness. Li Hhng Chang is very had man—sell his 6wn father fo’ brass if he could —too jolly clever al’gether. Too" soon, by’ndby, you see, terrible big fighting, other countlees all cut China right up.”

A RECENT PUBLIC SCANDAL,

Mr Young, the secretary to the Wellington Wharf Labourers’ Union, has addressed a letter, to the- Dunedin “Star,” a journal whose sympathies are admittedly with the cause of the workers, in which he takes that' paper to task for the way .iti fdedlfc with the action of Messrs Fisher-and Collins, members rof the ■ Conciliation! -Board at Wellington, in the recent wharf labourers’ dispute. It may he remembered that the “Star” contended, as we ourselves did, that men called upon to discharge judicial or semi-judicial functions ought not to put- tnemselves into the position of partisans by assisting or advising one party to a cause. Despite the denials made at the time, Mr Young in his letter affords ample proof that- Messrs Collins and Fisher did put themselves in that anomalous position in the matter of the dispute referred! to. The secretary to the Wharf Labourers’ Union convicts Messrs Collins and Fisher while he attempts their defence. He says: “On the. Bth of March the committee of management [of the union] met to consider the position, and- decided that a special meeting be held on the 9th, and that Messrs Collins and Fisher [members of. the Conciliation. Board] he invited to attend for the! purpose of advising the union) in-,connection .with bringing their claim-legallybefore .. the Board. They did - not ■ attend -the same, hut at a special .meeting held r on -the 22nd of March were-in attendance, and were permitted to address the same for fifteen minutes, prior’to the business being goneon with, in reply to questions as to whether the union ought- to increase the demands- . Both gentlemen advised the union not to dp so, but . . on being pressed for an affirmative answer in connection with the-rais-ing of Coal rates they replied that under the circumstances ’yon- might do so.” Mr Young announces that the unions of Wellington have endorsed Messrs Collins and Fisher’s action, and the “Star” regrets that that is so, “believing as we do,” it continues, “that such an attitude

lon the part of the unions is fraught with danger not only to tho future of viie conciliation principle, but also to the stability of impartial justice. It will be a thousand pities if the labour organisations throughout the colony allow themselves to be led, by a false notion of loyalty, into the endorsement of the unbecoming conduct of the ‘judicial partisans* on the Wellington Conciliation Board.” Our contemporary coneludes :—“ We shall never allow our sympathy with tho labouring class to lead us into the error of condoning such outrages upon the central judicial principle as those of which Messrs Collins and Fisher have been guilty in Wellington; and it will be an evil day for New Zealand and the cause of social and industrial progress when such condoning ' work is undertaken by tho trades unions of the colony."