PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7003, 26 July 1884, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

(From Otago Witness.)

_ The one comfortable fact about the elections ! is that they are ovor. Even the candidates will sympathise with that sentiment, the defeated candidates most of all. What a Scotch schoolboy would call their " licks " had to be taken and it must be a satisfaction to them to know that the punishment is past. How does a candidate feel after lie has been beaten ? Sick arid sore, no doubt,—tired of life, and disgusted with his ungrateful country. But yesterday he was a celebrity, Kis name in all men's mouths. Committees sat in hiß interest, canvassers touted, nightly audiences huDg upon his lips and voted him a "fit and proper person.'.' £200 a .year and pickings cjangled only just beyond bis grasp. That was yesterday; to-day the word of fate is spoken, and he drops out of political existence as suddenly and completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him. Where he goes, and what he does with himself for the nrst forty-eight hoursj no man.knows. Not even his faithful Committee may invade the seclusion of a just-defeated candidate. Hidden away, from human view, he is supposed to be vainly seeking consolation in the perusal of his own election addresses, or speculating gloomily on the probable amount of the printer's bill. Cms' respects the calamity of the defeated candidate. Any commonplaces of condolence from this quarter would probably be misinterpreted, and therefore I don't offer them. To all humane persons, however, it is a comfortable reflection that the elections are over, and that, in the case of the condemned, the bitterness of death is past.

Looking at the somewhat startling results of the Dunedin elections, there is perhaps not so much to grieve over in a decision which restores Mr Bracken to literature, and Mr Green to the Tabernacle, which kicks .(or ought to kick) Mr Dick into the Upper House, which liberates Mr Batbgate—as the Daily Times says—to prosecute his search for the philosopher's stone, and leaves leisure to Mr Msh to pursue his action-at-law against Mr Walter. Rightly conBidered, I am. inclined to think that Tuesday's vote did the happy thing for all parties. The rejected quintette will reap the advantages of a salutary discipline (much needed in the case of one or two of them), and may meditate in retirement on the uses of adversity. On the other hand, Mr Stout will get the Attorneygeneralship, and Mr Downie Stewart will get another letter from Mr Gladstone. What Messrs Bradshaw, Gore, and Ross will get is perhaps not so apparent. At any rate, they will get the honorarium. Really, when one takes a comprehensive view, there seems no sufficient reason why the 'accepted and the rejected should not rejoice together. To make things pleasant all round, the newspaper reading public will rejoice with them. A month of election literature has almost been too much for us. Our morning paper will now no longer teem with the heresies of Stout, the piety of Green, the moral anatomy of Fish, the fiscal mysteries of Bathgatßj the thrilling vicissitudes of the Bible-in-Schools question. It is time we broke with these delirious delights. For a season, doubtless, we shall miss our daily pennyworth of political stimulant, but there is a sober joy, nevertheless, in reminding ourselves that the election i and election literature are things of the past.

What, _ precisely, Mr Bathgate's financial mystery is, I am afraid I have never been at the_ pains to understand. I have a vague notion that he proposes to dispense with a metallic currency and issue unlimited greenbacks. Very possibly I am misrepresenting him, but as the elections are over, that doesn't much matter. I refer to the subject in order to quote in connection with it a curious editorial in a Graphic of May last; in which it is proposed to call in the gold coinage and "boldly issue tokens, made of bronze, aluminium,' or any other cheap and ornamental metal." The editor continues :—

Gold coins might still be used, but much fewer of _ them would be required, as they would chiefly be used for International transactions. Nor would it be necessary, as some suppose, to lock up a proportionate amount of bullion as an equivalent for. the tokens thus issued: the national credit would be pledged for their redemption, and that credit is based on the property of the whole community.

Surely this is a proposition audacious enough to make the hair of an orthodox political economist stand on end. A year or two ago I had a correspondent who used to write urging me .to advise the Banks, through Passing Notes, to adopt wood as a circulating medium instead of gold. I am afraid I snubbed him as a "crank." Had he addressed the Graphic instead of " Civis,' his communication would probably have been treated with respect. Perhaps I was severe On the "crank" because, a good many years ago, I put a very similar Buggeßtion amongst the answers to an examination paper on political economy, and I found that the examiner did not take it kindly. The question still remains unsettled, however, in my mind : Why should money, which is merely a measure of value and a medium of exchange, cost as much labour as the value it measures, and the commodities the exchange ef which it facilitates? Some day, I fancy, the common sense of mankind will settle that question as the Graphic would settle it, and (I suppose) Mr Bathgate. When that happens, the labour now spent in diggingior the precious metals—which we can neither eat, drink, nor wear—will be available for productive industries, and the real wealth of the world will be doubled at a stroke. If I am hopelessly wrong* perhaps some kind friend will refute me.

Mr J. G. S. Grant was emphatically at the bottom of the poll on Tuesday. Only one vote was recorded for the man whoj according to his own account, has cast "an imperishable halo around Dunedin." Mr J. G. S. G. has Often threatened to shake off the dust of the place from his feet for a testimony against us, and he surely never had batter reason for doing so than now. If lam not mistaken, Mr Grant's fellow patriot and literary rival, whom he is in the habit of calling a buffoon, Mr John Graham, to wit, polled a dozen times as many votes in the same constituency at the last general election. There is something truly melancholy in the history and present position of J. G. S. G. ; and I question if it is any longer worth his while to enact tbe part of a spiteful defamatory Scotch Socrates in the streets of the Southern Athens. If Mr Grant had been only half as observant of his own faults as of the fault 3of his neighbours it is conceivable he might have become a political power amongst us—tribune of the plebs, say, the stormy plebs, who now howl him down whenever he shows his head on any public platform. The one vote for Mr Grant was naturally and necessarily polled by Mr Grant himself. It will be a consolatory reflection to him that in moral weight that one vote was worth more than all the hundreds polled by his opponents.

On the subject of Mr Grant's unique position on the poll, a correspondent sends me the following :—

The general election, by its result, gives a doubtful verdict upon a number of the issues submitted, and a very decided verdict upon others. It is not demonstrated with any certainty whether Mr Bradshaw or Mr Bracken is the most welcome representative for Dunedin Central, but the polling must have tended to thoroughly assure'the third candidate as to his position. It is always as well to know exactly where we are and how we stand. Mr J. G. S. Grant probably understands by this time thoroughly that he is in a minority. He may be the most fit and proper person to represent the constituency in Parliament, but if so it has been lamentably shown that no elector, with the exception of Mr Grant himself, is alive to the fact. The irrepressible J. G. S. G. has, however, the satisfaction of knowing that, like a certain ingenious schoolboy we have heard of, he is "top but two"; and if the two candidates who have headed him can only be declared guilty .of corrupt practices, or in some convenient way removed from the path, he will possibly be declared duly elected by himself—which, by the way, would be a very striking triumph indeed, and quite unprecedented in political annals. In view of such a novel denouement I can almost find courage to hope that Messrs Bradshaw and Bracken may be tripped up. Where there's a will there's a way, and a little ingenuity would not be wasted in this matter. For one thing, both the leading "candidates employed vehicles to bring their unwilling supporters in comfort to the polling-place. Is this, or is it not, a breach of the Corrupt Practices Act ? If it is, here is the opportunity for Mr J. G. S. Grant. That gentleman is clearly upon the right side of the hedge as regards this point. For very obvious reasons, no one can accuse him of having conveyed friendly voters to the booth either in four-horse drags, buggies, cab 3, or even a wheelbarrow. Here, then, is the vulnerable point in his opponents' armour. Lot him strike, and strike quickly.

Prince Victor Napoleon has decided to leave his father's house arid occupy his own private apartments. This little bit of news is exactly two months old (though it only reached New Zsaland a few days ago), so that the young man may possibly have already set up his household. Bonapartist papers attach great importance to this move, or projected move, looking upon it no doubt as a step towards their return to_ power; for, in addition to change of Ministries, they have a periodical change of Governments—forms of Government, I mean—in France. This Third Republic has now b. *v in for more than a dozen years, a long tiiuo for a French Republic, which, as a rule, does not continue so long as the other forms. The first one, indeed, lasted about as long, under its various phases of Convention, Directory, and Consulate; but the second one was strangled in its childhood when it was only four years old. I find that since '89, the starting-point of the revolutionary era, thirteen years is the average duration of a French Government. The First Empire lasted 10 years, the Restoration 16, the Citizen Kingship, in the person of Louis Philippe, 18, and the Second Empire IS. Eighteen years are thus the longest term yet reachod, so that the Bonapartists are quite justified in regarding Prince Victor's firßt attempt at housekeeping with considerable interest. The chances are that the Republic will dissolve" very soon, and after that there will be the deluge for a. little while as a matter of course; and after the deluge the Bonapartists will have quite as good prospects' as the Orleamsts. Tonquin will perhaps prove the grave of the Republic, just as the Soudan may prove the grave of the Gladstone Ministry ; but however this may be, some change of the sort is—l say—about duo in France, and the world at large will, no doubt, begin now to take some interest in the career of Plonplon's Eon. Many people a good many

years ago imagined that Plonplon himself-

remoter ancestor; he skid &;,i™ ??$• firmed their belief,1 if indeed it required any conciliation, that moat eminent foreigners are of Scotch extraction. It is, I understand • the conviction of every intelligent Scotchman that his nation supplies all Europe with genius; Kants" grandfather/ for instance, came from Aberdeen, and carried with him the metaphee- »' sics which he bequeathed to the philosopher' And e,o of most other great men, English' o* Continental. They have all-had some Scotch' blood in them—or how, could-, they ever have been great ? Sometimes, however; the Scotch' push their claims in this direction"rattier tootar. One of the ministers who compiled that magnum opus, the Statistical Account of Hcot-' land, speaking of the Baird family of Auch'-' medden, makes the following amusing stated ment:- Of the same family was the celebrated" iSayardo, an Italian poet, who wrote Orlando Innamorato, which Ariosto made the ground-' W?V f & 18 Oriando Furioso.'' The good minister had forgotten that the poet's nama was Boiardo. Why did not he claim the honour of the Baird connection, for Bayard, the chevaher sans peur U sans tacheV Anf,^W fh k wojtby ministers .went a.step1 further though in this instance it istheinnoV cence of pure ignorance rather than of national1' Yjvmty, which displayed. The church of-kilmorack-a Gaelic word meaning literal^ "the church of Mary»-was,dedicated, like so ' many others, to theßlessed Virgin. The mini-ster-historian waa at a loss who this ?'Mary»: might be, his knowledge of ecclesiastical matters • being evidently very limited. "But S' I what, family this lady sprang • cannot $£' certainty be ascertained, though it seems mos£ t% Bu ei Wa» a descendant of one of the lairds' ' of Chisholm.' The good Mr John Eraser w^S f tehT e(? l ! at thehollour BhouW notgo out'

An inquisitive youth, who says.he makes it a ■ • rule to read every morning the lists of Sports • and exports published hv the Daily Times - proper one, my boy; and although your manner of putting it betrays the fact thaWour: ■ knowledge of commercial •.matt ß n-irT"v. . limited kind, you poaseas a laudable spirit of - SZ'r** lf. y°U will only keep on LMngfor:; information when you get puzzled,-you willY some day know enough to qualify' you foT a'■ seat in Parliament. Lei me try to help you out' of your present quandary. The word?«£*£?* according to my dictionary, means narrow' 1 cwmtcribcdt coined) restricted™ bS '' ; applied to trading companies it has diversa lake for example the term as Ration of those'paS ffto'tfdeg& ' of enterprise with which they are conducted - news or that they are willing to'devote "X" - believe in the deferred-payment system. The especially ,f ltlß written on both sides of the paper. Before committing it to the waste' paper basket he-invariablf reads it; oveland over again, juat by way of relaxation. Unfort£ nately however, the patience of the public is £S ji if' m writbg to'the paPerg. yo« i

A story cornea from Fiji which, as the New Zealand paragraphiste seem "to have overlooked . «M^m WBteba^ in Notes. Iget it from a Melbourne paper. There is a' newly-appomted Marine JSoard at Suva* •- the chairmaa of which derives his rank as captain, not from the naval, but from the military branch of thfe Imperial Service Thl Board recently investigated the wreck of the coohe ship Syria. The examination oJ thewi£ nesses was conducted by the officers of a man-of-war lying m harbottf, and referred, amongst other things, toicartain bearings taken before the • ship struck. The chairman listened with the gravity of an owl, nibbling the end of hia pen, and evidently digesting most thoroughly the information elicited. The professional inter- - regatones having ended, he electrified the ' navals by aagely inquiring: "Now tell us, having taken thes ß bearings, in what part of -< the snip did you stow them ?" A subsequent inquiry was as to whether the answer last noted had reference to the " port or the stern . sido of the ship." The Marine Board, it is ' said, consists of a soldier, a sailor, and a storekeeper. Shipmasters engaged in the risky business of navigating the Fiji group may note the existence of this intelligent tribunal as a new danger nut laid down in the chart. '■ CIVIB.