CURRENT TOPICS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 8054, 7 March 1912, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

HOOLIGAN ADVOCATE,

Yellow journalism having been exposed ia its Genera) tactics now deprecatmgly advocates hooliganism and the suppression of free speech. Yesterday morning Plimraer’s Steps threw out a sinister suggestion in the following terms: —The new Ministry will be very much afraid of Parliament; and we may .add that it will bo even more afraid of the electors. There has indeed been some brave talk about a platform campaign,'but that was in the heated atmosphere of the House. If the still unknown Ministers do take their courage in and mount the platform we should not be surprised to see some of the meetings run upon lines that would retail Sir Joseph Ward’s address on second ballot night. We hope it will not be-so. Pecksniff-ism hopes it will not be so, of course, but it, dearly hopes it may. It» tactics now are win, tie,, wrangle, or —hoot. ALPINE CLIMBING. In a communication to the “Lyttelton Times” Hr Samuel Turner, a well-known alpine climber who is at present at the Hermitage, says:—“After tour days’ continual rain the weather cleared on 1 el>ruary 21st and between that date and February '2Bth 1 -successfully climbed Mount Eli de Beaumont, Mount Green, Mount AValter and Mount Cook, via Green’s Route,- 1 and returned to the Hermitage. This is a week's ’record. Mount Cook was climbed by Messrs Chambers and Wright together for the first time this season. I climbed Mount Cook •twq days later.'’ The mountains are getting into good condition and will be climbable In from seven to ten days if this magnificent weather continues. Large parties of tourists are arriving at the Hermitage in three and four motors every other day. I bad a -unique view from the summit of Mount Cook. My party included Thomson and Bannister from the Hermitage staff. Bannister is the first Maori to ascend Mount Cook. He is only eighteen years old,; but a fine specimen of a Mabrj. Messrs Chambers and AVright were accompanied by Messrs and Clarke, private guides. Both climbs were made by Green’s Route, which, has not been, climbed since -the Rev Mi Green almost reached the summit some twenty years, ago.” MYSTERIES OF THE OCEAN. "On this day the ship went down (l and all hands were lost but me.” This is from Clark Russell. As an example of the perfect-narrative style it is probably unequalled. But Lloyd’s official record, with its Simple announcement that during last year thirty-three ships were poitr ed as missing, runs it /close (remarks'the London. “Standard”). The romantic- sug-' geslion of that bald statement is almost infinite. What desolation at .home and suffering at sea must lie behind it one prefers not to dwell upon. W© can dream instead of possible joyful returns to loved ones who had given up for ever their lost voyagers, or of future Enoch Ardens tapping at little lighted windows in the nighttime over the bay. Or we can make pictures in cur minds of lonely hulks tossing on the Sargasso Sea, or we can imagine -the vanished ships driving the " foam of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn." and reaching safe landfaU at last by the beaches of the Fortunate Isles. There, perhaps, all the lost sailors now lie in the sunshine, eating fruits and drinking -strange drinks, while dark-eyed' maidens sing them- songs, in response 'to which they oblige with a chorus. Certainly the missing ships must all arrive somewhere. The ancient world, with its definite edges, over which a ship, sailing too fat, dropped off the earth altogether, has passed away, and we know that this round world must still contain all the lost ships. In this fact lie the romance and the fascination of the problem. How much poorer the world would be without its Spanish galleons and its sunken treasure. ships—not because of the treasure but becauseiof.the divers, and the secret charts drawn in blood, and the little publichouse with red blinds, where the mysterious old salt schemes darkly! It is to be hoped that the world will never, give up its search for the unknown port of .the lost ships- .' ARMY OR FIGHTING MOB? Lecturing in Auckland on "Organised Army or Fighting Mob” Professor AY. T. Mills said the AVaihi miners had pro! raised due-tenth of their wages to help tho ctrike iiu Auckland, tut had these same miners voted together last election they conld have returned a Labour membeV. Had Labour done the same throughout the Dominion perhaps them would be no need of talking about striking now, and what he wished to emphasise was the insufficiency of the organisation of Labour. The general labourers were mostly in the employ of the local bodies, but that did not mean of the Mayor and councillors. It meant of the citizens, and had Labour voted together last municipal election they could

have returned the council. These questions should be decided at the ballot-box if Labour was properly organised. Kcferring to fighting by mob. Professor Hills said the mob cheered its leaders to-day and crucified them to-morrow-The man who led the mob usually ended by becoming the victim. "What they wanted in siew Zealand was a Labour movement with a programme that could be written, and proposals that could be defended. The most dangerous man in the Labour movement was the man who appealed to the mob spirit. He was like the trained steer kept in American factories to lead the mob of cattle to the slaughtering pen. The only difference was that the trained steer was not slaughtered but went back for another mob, whereas the man in the Labour movement w T ho appealed to the mob spirit was usually slaughtered with the mob. -