CURRENT TOPICS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8179, 22 July 1912, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS

POSING AND EXPOSING. The "Lyttelton Times’* refers to a recent statement of Hon. 1?. M. B. Fisher in which he said: —"I have issued instructions to the advertising departments to the effect that advertisements are _to be inserted in those papers from which the departments concerned are likely to get the most benefit, and that the department is to be run as a commercial and not as a political institution.” The southern paper’s comment is brief and to the point-.— Air Mackenzie had anticipated tires? instructions by a good three months and’Mr Fisher can be repeating them only for tho purpose of throwing a slur upon his opponents. We are satisfied that Mr Massey does not approve of tactics of this sort, and we trust that he will be able to bring his young colleague to a better sense of what is due to his new position. AFTER THE STORM. After a stormy and tyrannous southerly lasting nearly the whole week, Sunday was delightfully pleasant with bright warm sunshine and a well-nigh cloudless sky. There was a peacefulness and calm in the air which had all the mildness and promise of the spring resurrection. The songs of birds were livelier and more optimistic; the skylark that “singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest” attained unwonted heights of melody os his notes made the blue vault vibrate. Tho hillsides flashed diamond-liko with clusters of dow. Field flowers bravely looked up to receive the benieon of sunshine. The crystalline waters of the harbour threw back the sun like a mirror, and myriad points of reflection danced on tho rippling wavelets, stirred only by the gentlest of an easterly breeze. A soft haze hung over tho city, and smoke just tumbled away lazily to the west. HUMP-BACK AFTER ALL. It is reported that the stranded whale at Lyall Bay is not, after ail, of the “right” species. One who has studied marine life declares 1 it to be a young hump-back, of small commercial value. “If you opened him up,” he said, “you might find a small quantity of blubber beginning to form, but tho value of the product would scarce repay the trouble. The skeleton is broken, and would have to be patched and restored. Had the whale lived for only another year, and then come ashore, the amount of blubber would be very much greater.” Right or hump-back, however, the monster proved a great attraction yesterday, and a large number of extra cars had to be put on to cope with tho traffic. Sunday’s receipts on the Lyall Bay line should be phenomenal. Taxicabs, motor care, . motor bicycles, and, other conveyances brought hundreds. Many othcre enjoyed tho walk, but the majority emerged from a constant stream of tramcars. Unseemly competition for front places beside the. monster was prevented by the stench, and as putrefaction is now advanced, the whale will probably be towed, to sea by tbe Janie Scddon. The two men who were, granted the carcase merely hacked off the head, and one version attributes to them responsibility for removing the whale. Asked for an opinion on the matter the Crown Law officers found that, since the leviathan rests partly on high water and partly on low-water beach, the head belonged to ’the King, the tail to the Queen 1 , and tho bodv to the men who claimed tbe monster. According to this, ' the King should have been consulted before the head was removed. Apparently the men do not want the body. Legal technicalities, however, and shuntings, of responsibility will pot weigh with aggrieved residents who have nostrils.

A MINISTER’S LACK OF SYMPATHY. ■No one had ever suspected the Postmas-ter-General of harbouring: in thin his Ijosom any very Radical opinions, and it must therefore have been a shock even to the dentists he addressed in Wellington the other evening to be told that ho "was not in sympathy with the, squatter.” Dentists are as a rule dfich purposeful, unemotional men that we find some difficulty in understanding why Mr Rhodes .selected their meeting as the'place to mako-this moving announcement. We have never heard that dentists were particularly ibtorested in squatters, whom they probably view with the severe detachment of their, calling. Still it is an interesting and cheerful piece of news all the same, and will no doubt be read in C jterbury with great thankfulness, for during his wanderings in the wilderness Mr Rhodes was unfortunately compelled to vote, and vote persistently, as if he was the very special friend of the whole tribe of squatters. It would, of course, help to a bettor understanding if Mr Rhodes could see bis way to letting us know the reason for suddenly selecting "the squatter” as the person he has no sympathy with, to tell us what special sins have been committed by the gentleman, and why Mr Rhodes is so definitely against him. We, ourselves, have never seen any reason why squatters should bo elected as a class for repressive treatment, and if Mr Rhodes imagines that ho is at liberty to go about the country setting class against class in this way, holding up squatters to ridicule before dentists, he is making a very great mistake. We have had far too many of these appeals to class prejudice. Mr Rhodes’ quarrel with his old friends may be bitter, but the less the community hears of these private feuds the better..