LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16601, 26 January 1916, Page 3

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

PROHIBITION OF HOSING.

Sin, —When I wrote on this subject r(v cently yorur footnote said tho restriction was booauso of ahortago of storage, and, in en out, backing up whaf I said, that, in case of a dry season, we should bo really short, nncl require, tho attention of the powers that be. In the meantime 1 should like to know how, if tho public is prohibited from hosing, it can bo right for the corporation employees to use the hose on tho gr;iss at tho Octagon and allow the water to run hi streams over the path into tho gutter, as it did last week ? What is necessary for tho public is surely necessary for the corporation, which should set the example.—l am, cto., Ratepayer.

A RAILWAY STATION NUISANCE.

Sin,—Some time back I wrote you re tho lack of regulation of expresses plying for hire at our local railway station. My object in so doing was to see who was responsible for tho regulation of this traffic, and if it were not possible to secure for the travelling public immunity from tlio unsolicited and unwelcome attentions of what then amounted to an exasperating public nuisance. It was successful, in so iar as tho police took the matter in hand, and a marked improvement followed. With tho passage of time, however, and perhaps becauso of changes in the personnel of tho police, things seem to have drfted back into their old stato, and during tho holiday traffic it was noticeable that the old auction-sale, football-rush methods were oncc more in the ascendant. On one occasion two elderly ladies attempting to leave tho platform, carrying their luggage between them, had it snatched lrom their grasp by the floetcst-iooted amongst a bunch of promising "scrummers," and, I awi told by an eye-witness, that two very disgraceful "free lights" amongst unsuccessful competitors in tho luggage-snatching sprint have lately occurred at the station._ A few days since I noticed that a eabdrivcr had been fined for being in the way on tho occasion of tho recent visit of tho Governor to our city, so that tho poliec apparently havo power to deal with the situation, and can do so when oocasion serves. Is it not possible for this power to be used in tho interests of the public by making impossiblo such occurrences as aforementioned ? Our local station is, I think, the worst in tho dominion for the express "touting" nuisance, and the only one of the large centres whero it is so glaringly permitted. If our city bylaws do not provide for a_ free' and unmolested exit from our station, it is high iime they were amended to do so, and, at the same time, stops should be taken to ensure that licenses will only bo granted to expressmen who will use, and not abuse, them. —I am, etc., Citizen.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Sir, —Mr Thomson, in writing a most interesting letter on education, has himself pointed out why it is so difficult a thing to chango matters. It is not English conservatism; I have met slow ''Britishers" before now. The trouble is that you cannot expect men who have laboriously learnt what they regard as a life's equipment to throw it all aeide and start something fresh, let alone the well-known physical fact that as a man grows older it bccomes more and more impossible for the dog to learn new tricks. The thing oan only be dono gradually, and if the University is to take the matter up thoroughly, as I hope it will, it can only do it well by educationally legislating 'a long way ahead—i.e., it must not only have a scheme of work to remedy the old abuses, but that scherno must date to_ come in, say, in 1920; and then there will be material ready to work it, the fault of most reforming ideals so far has been the fault of all purely intellectual schemes, that they find it fatally easy to work in a vacuum. Then while being fully convinced, as I am, that educa tion —I do not mean instruction—is an invaluable thing, I cannot help feeling that Mr Thomson's ideal has a sort of tendency to become one-sided, perhaps. I cordially agree with him that the dead languages are not at all the weapons to send a young fellow out into life with. The English system certainly sins deplorably there. The publio schoolmaster at Home has been brought up on a diet of humanities aiming at Craven and Hertford scholarships at Oxford, and to him the cream of education seems to consist in a supreme ability to manufacture cleverly enamelled Greek and Latin verso. As to the fact that the pupil he is training is intended for a sheep farmer, ill, say, Canterbury, to pass a healthful and arduous day collecting the wool from moribund sheep for a rising wool market, or to study the intricacies of New Zealand finance in the shady retreats of Lambton quay or Bond street, this s of the most indifferent, as our French ally would say. The system is like our sixteenth century prayer book in the Anglican Church, beautiful but not any longer adapted to the needs of a society that has grown from a tiny nation of five millions to a huge modern Empire of hundreds ot millions and innumerable races.

But granted all this, I think Mr Thomson is thrusting language rather unceremoniously into a corner. Let us assume that Greek does not seem very useful to the future millionaire in ready-made pants of Queen street, Auckland, who passes a blameless existence supplying the genial Samoan with articles of wear which he is much handsomer without. Yet at the same time what is to hinder the New Zealand University from setting up a school of languages in the Southern Hemisphere which might become a model for the days after the war. Why not have a school of native languages for business men, and add to that Russian, French, and Japanese or Chinese. There is no doubt whatever that the Britisher is singularly and deplorably deficient in languages. At_ Home it is bad enough, but out in Australia and New Zealand languages seem tending to disappearance altogether': and even the Imperial language itself is not by any means as well known as a literature as it might be.

The great failing, however, and a fail in? that ought not to be, is the failing to teach history; both in our primary and secondare schools, of course, there are a certain number of picturesque etories and unedifying details of the squalid adventures of Henry VIII in matrimony, or the wooden-

headed political events of tlio reign of King George 111, who never could understand how tbo applo got into the durnpLing; but even now the social history of the growth of the Empire and its geographical history are almost unknown things, though many efforts have been made during the last 30 years; but tbo one fatal thing in the eyes of tbo Australasian youth always kills its study—doc® it p.'.y, he asks; and if, as is usually the case, the answer is no, then, liko Mr Podsnap in " Our Mutual Friend," he waves his arms, fiercely saying, " away with such a tiling." It does not pay, and what more can you say that will not condemn it to the utmost depths? Here, I think,' is whero Mr Thomson steps aside from his really fino ideals of educational purity. His scientific Eldorado has, to use his own words, "enabled Germany to do what sho has dona." Candidly, I don't want to see Australasia do what Germany has done; and I ana not using the words in a quibbling sense either. Granted that Germany lias done a wonderful work in science, applied and otherwise, to "what purpose has sho turned it all, to the misery and enslavement of little peoples in the name of " kultur"; to tho effort after a world-wide power. Lot us have physiology, biology—even eugenics; but let us have them with something higher than a German god behind them; and then wo shall not make the use of them that Germany has; and perhaps we shall avoid turning life into one desolate arena for what Wendell Holmes dryly called "the pratictical mabn." There is, as Mr Thomson himself is well aware, and says, " a danger for pupils attending theso technical day schools taking _up subjects which have a present commercial or merely utilitarian value, but have little educational value, and it is this last phrase which includes all else—what things do we think have "an educational value." Personally, as a clergyman, I say—God first; _ then languages, music, philosophy, science in all ils wonderful branches, poetry, medicine, and every other power man has; but I do most strenuously loathe the ideal that has made Germany an assassination factory and the United States a patent embezzlement institution for other people's money. X am, etc., E. It. Neyill. Dunedin, January 25.

CONSCRIPTION OF WEALTH.

Siu, —lii your loading article on the conscription of wealth you probably etatc the case truly when you say that ths people who believe in this have the idea that those who cannot render military service should bs made to give their money instead. You then go on to show that the shortage is in men only, that ample funds ore coming i n through .the taxation of war profits, and the conclusion you draw from this is that conscription of wealth would bt> profitless. Viewed from a standpoint of utility or expediency, your contention is right, as the oonscription of wealth would not hasten tho end of the war if the required amount of money can bo raised by taxation. Soma of your conscriptiorust correspondents take the same view, and characterise the conscription _ of wealth argument as an atterapit to sido-traolc the issue. Others say that it is merely drawing a red herring across the scent for the purpose of excusing shirkers while others do the fighting. But if the conscription 01 wealth is viewed from a standpoint _ of "justice" it will be seen that- , the principle ir, morally sound for the following reason That it will enable the required men to be bought, instead of being forced to fight for the property of others at wages in which they have had no say in fixing. No man with even a rudimentary knowledge of the j principles of liberty would argue for a moment that the Government has a moral right to force men to work while they can bo bought, and this being admitted, by what proccss of reasoning can it be shown : that it has a moral right to forco men ■ who have no stake in the country to fight j for the property of others while sufficient j numbers can bo bought for this purpose? 1 No Government can have a moral right to foroo men to either work or fight while their services for either purpose can be bought. To foroo men to fight is even more arbitrary than to force them to work, because by so doing their lives are endangered t.o such an extent that no life insurance company would accept the risk. The national register has shown that many have good reason for not enrolling, as they have interest to meet on loans. Many, if they enlisted,, would be fighting at a as far as money is concerned, because their interests would suffer to such an extent that it would more than counterbalance the wages they received It is pretty cool for men who have more than enough to live comfortably on to ask others to sacrifice positions which they have spent years in attaining, while they themselves object to parting with their surplus cash, which would make it worth the while of many to enlist. I do not say that the time has yet arrived for the consoription of wealth, but I think it should come before the conscription of men. because I place human life first a fid wealth aecond. I am not getting at the small capitalist who has to struggle for an existence, as his lot is hard enough already. There are many men who have more than enough money to live comfortably on, and it is this surplus cash of the rich that should be conscripted first. If the property of the rich is in danger of being lost, they cannot reasonably object to their surplus cash being used to pay men their own rvrice for to avert such a catastrophe. The argument that conscription is more fair than the voluntary ' system as it puts the burden on the un- | willing as well as the willing is absurd. I When the! Boer war was on no one quesI tioned the fairness of the voluntary system, ! as everyone recognised that we were freo j agents living in a free country, and that I those desirous of seeing a bit of service | wore the ones who should go. It is only : bocauso an extraordinary heavy demand is ; now being made, and it is beginning to get I difficult to get men, that this argument ' is now brought forward. The object rf this is to save money, as it is cheaper to foroo men to fight at a fixed wage than ! to offer inducements that will buy their ser- ! vices. No country can put more than a : small percentage of its population in the field, and the onee who should go are those who can be bought. At present, while the services of men can be bought, the conscriptionists have no case, but if the time arrives when they cannot be got

for money, and there is a danger of being blotted out, "then, and only then will thev havo a case. —I axil, etc., R. W. PEAB3K.

Milton, January 22.