EDITORIAL NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 10011, 30 November 1908, Page 1

EDITORIAL NOTES AND COMMENTS.

| I,.\<r \v«-ek Mr M'Nuli. who, during the I threv years, lias eimiered i JiK ::'na!e. ;i strenuous and st<»nny I terial fxistencf. lelt ourshores j tor Australia, where he will take a holi- ! da\ whii.-h will, it is to he hojKMi, he aii I ilit- l»»ttt-r enjoyed he«ause of the hard i and thankless work wliirh juvckUhl it. j \\ v have had occasion to difler from .Mr j in lfg.ud to certain acts ot ad- | ministration: hnt they arc insignificant hlemiiihe.- when compared with what he I attempted and what he achieved. It he ! had suet ceded in all he attempted, nearly ; tlie whole of the remaining State landt> j would have ix-cn reserved as endowments, j in of ;h.' example so admirj ahly set t y tin* ( 'oiwrv:!; i\e pioneers of lour couniry. 1 tut we ail t«.-o well know ' what hape*-ne<! : A » ry was raised .{hat to j reserve &<* mtu h laiwi was rank socialism i and that the next step would he to rol> every settier ot his freehold! Singular as j it may seem, so large a proportion of our p»vj|)!e believed that this declaration was I justified that Parliament was prejudiced | against -Mr M'Xabs proposal and it was 1 withdrawn. Hut it will never he forgotI ten, whatever may be the public sentiment | at the moment concerning Mr M\Nab. that he was the chief instrument in reserving nirv k million acres of the State's lands. Whatever else Mr M'Xab may be, he is self-denying, honest, and earnest. \\ e ha\e never had a more conscientious Minister of the Crown, in Xew Zealand. His character as public man is reminiscent of the late Sir John M'Kenzie's. It is said by a contemporary that Mr M'Xab "may have no inspiring enthusiasm, and lie is not blest with the gift of oratory, but he commands respect by his straightforward utterances and by the general impression of solidity and cautiousness which he creates/* The power of oratory may be used for vicious purposes; but the writer could not have neard Mr M'Xabs remarkable speech on his original Land Hill, which was eloquent enough to hold the House of Representatives' undivided attention and to elicit unqualified eulogy. It is just as erroneous to proclaim that my M'Xab was the Government's scapegoat. This is equivalent to attributing to him the advocacy oi principles with which he had no sympathy, and he is not the man to thus swallow his convictions. Such a backhanded compliment to Mr M'.\ab emanated, of course, irom a paper which wants to see every acre-of the country s lands sold and the Government turned out of ottice. We believe that, if Mr M'Xab possessed any qualifications at all for his public position, he was inspired by a sense of honor and a desire to fit his ideas with the needs of the situation which would adorn some of his time-serving and liidebotmd critics. He was in otlice scarcely three years, but he attempted much during that time to make the Agricultural Department a real help to our agricultural and pastoral industrialists.. and though he, line the rest of us. made mistakes, he at least may be credited with one brilliant achievement beside which all shortcomings fade away. When the vulgar selfishness of those who would have seized and sold every acre of the State's land .will be an abhorred incident in the history of our country, that Mr M'Xab rescued *fron£-the clamorers so large a portion of it will beget him an honored memory. We would have ielt proud to have had our name so prominentIv asso.i ated with so glorious a service to the peepie of this country. It goes without saying that the political career of a man who is endowed as Mr M'Xah is has not been ended by liis thoughtless rejection by a misguided section of the electors. \Yhen we express a hope that he inav return to Xew Zealand to he oi still further service to it. we are not hanij>Cred in our loyal expressions by a consciousness that we advised, as some of those who are now* expressing admiration for his virtues have done, that he should he rejected at the poil becau.-M.* he was not imoued with Torv instincts.

TilK rejection of tiu; Licensing Hill by the 1 loiim* <jf Lords is :*ntwfkat other epoch - making the rmxrnsou -event added to the of vicrtmv. list of tlie pimple's travail to achieve genuine liberty and that righteousness which exaltetn a nation. ilaii the spiritual Lords, including the two Archbishops, voted against- the Lords spirituous: and this circumstance may lead us to hope that the Church—every creed—will yet join hands to.sweep away the remorseless demon drink. It is impossible that, with such an example set. the episcopalian Church can remain deal and dumb to the appeals of the weak and the martyrs of an indescribably destructive custom. The time has well niijh come when it must exert its power in the cause of men, women and children ratuer than of indulgence and in the uorsnip oi tne golden calf. The rejection of the Licensing Hill was not unexpected. In the very nature of tilings, the Peerage was bounc. as usual, to attempt to crush, without ceremony, such an effort to shake oft another ancient and barnacle-like blight. The most Tory of a!i the institutions of the world has been true to its traditions. But there is a limit beyond which national tolerance cannot be stretched without breaking, and, as in the case of the Reform Bill, that limit has been reached in regard to the drink traffic. The tyranny of irresponsibility will provide its own antidote. One cannot stop the gale with & feather, or smother Vesuvius with a handful of dirt. If there be anything in . the Church whirh aspires to <jirect the nation heavenwards it will show it now. there never was a more opportune moment for it to justify its professions and its existeme. ami to prove that it is something more than a tinselied convenience—a decorative garnishment to a rotten social condition. Let it lead me way with its banners, with its great men in the forefront and not smothered by an overwhelming mass of ignorance, prejudice, and pretence. What has just happened in London will influence all Christendom in i its attitude towards drink. (iodly :ne,i and women will no longer be satisfied to persuade themselves that they are en.an cipating humanity whilst the world is, in truth, putrifying their Christian organisations and using them as an appro priate adjunct to schemes that have their source in the Anti-C'nrist. 'Lhe Archbishops and Bishops who voted for the Licensing i.ill have honored themselves for all time, and done something more than say nice things in conventional vestments to win a place in eternity. Can we, in this country, do nothing to encourage them and to help the cause they ha\e espoused? If the Church of Kngiand was what it proteoses to be, trom all its remotest outposts in the new lands there would be sent words of approval ami fraternal assurances of moral help to its heads who have come out from amongst tlie hosts of degenerates and asserted themselves in the name of all that is good. AH sections of the Church could do this, without exceeding the hounds of that nice scrupulousness which buries, as -Mr i.a!four does, the kernel of reason in the mass of empty and involved pliilosophical argument by wiiich he surrounds it. 'lhe Licensing Hill did not attempt to do too : much. Its motive was to relieve the I people from their grovelling servitude to ! a national indulgence tne magnitude of whose ravages cannot be estimated by finite minds. A few davs ago we shewed | what the measure sought to accomplish. I That it was not accepted only proves how ; exacting the trade has become through : generations of privilege which has been virtually unlimited. The final voting in the House of Commons was 350 to 115. and it is not likely that there would have been such an immense majority if its proposals had been either unjust or impolitic. Even if it did propose to suppress 32.C00 licenses within the space of 14 years, no one could claim that the maintenance of

j those licenses was necessary ill the public ' interest: and, as t-o the right of compensation for a period of 21 years, it was an 1 absolute bribe to the traffic to secure some abatement of an accursed nuisance. As in this country, however, the trade and its myrmidons professed that their objection to the measure was that it would not : help the cause of true temperance. The qu:isi rights of brewers and investors in ■ brewers' strip were also argued, as though the nation had been participants in their ■ enter "rise to make money at any price, whereas it did nu more than to grant from ; veal' to year licenses, during good be- : iiavior, to* cater to the public convenience. It was not the liquor interests that the nation considered, and if brewers and uthers invested money lavishly with no other object than to exploit the public that was their own look out. If the rei strict ions and the privileges which the Bill 1 set up would not induce temperance, then : that would be the fault of those who are so anxious to have it that- they, in their i ignoble and sordid aims, scatter their : potations where they are good neither for ! man nor beast. Nothing but doing awav I with the drink will avail; so "that it is ' moekerv to suggest that the Government i should "save its face and achieve its object ! without injury to the "dear money bags" ■ bv bringing in a measure to merely regu- !, kite the" traffic. The traffic can never be ! regulated till human ingenuity has devised some means of regulating the greed, ; the capacity to drink, anil the folly of ; the drink lunatic, and that would entail j "interference with the liberty of the subject."