PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 972, 5 September 1889, Page 21

PASSING NOTES.

I begin to doubt whether the Ofcago Central will ever get to Eweburn. Both sides of the House express the warmest personal esteem for the line as a line, but they can never quite agree as to how it is to be made, and so it stands still. We are a guileless people in Otago, but a little more of this kind of thing and we shall suspect that both sides are fooling us. The Government denounce the Opposition, and the "Opposition denounce the Government, ?nd methinks that both of them do protest too much. If Sir Harry really wanted to carry the bill, why on earth didn't he do it when the Opposition were in the humour ? If the Opposition really favoured the line, why on earth did they change front and kill it 1 Pertinent questions both of these. Amid the storm of recrimination and cross firing it is hard to toll exactly who is responsible for it all, but we would dearly like to know. Not that we are angry— oh dear no ; but just for the melancholy satisfaction of knowing exactly how our railway died. Sir Harry rails at Mr Ballance : " You seconded the motion for its second reading, and now you turn a somersault and jump on it — solely and wholly for the pleasure of giving the Government a slap in the face." " Nothing of the sort," rejoins Mr Ballance, with a sad, sad smile. " There is really no pleasure in slapping the Government in the face. I've done it so often that it has become monotonous. When I supported the bill, I thought it a special provision for a special case, but now I find it the first of a series — part of a general scheme of underhand borrowing and tampering with trust funds. I love the Otago Central, but my soul abhors a loan, and I therefore oppose the bill."

Outside the House it is much the same. The Opposition press revile the Government for using the bill as a mere bait to catch votes, and the Ministerial press revile the Opposition for making it a party question. There is probably a good deal of truth on both sides. By dropping the bill down on the order paper, Sir Harry made it a hook in the snouts of Mr Fish and Mr Pyke to drag them into the lobby for the property tax. Both of them were pledged against the 'property tax, but that was a trifle light as air. Mr Fish Jiad killed the syndicate bill last yearf and to save his political soul alive was now bound to pull the Government bill through at any price. As for Mr Pyke, he has never pretended to support anything that might in any way peril- his railway. And so it came about. Down went the Otago Central, up came the property assessment, and into the lobby for the property tax sailed Mr Fisb and Mr Pyke. It was a. clever piece of strategy on Sir Harry's part, for it saved the

Government. But it damned the Otago Central. Antipathy to Mr Fish may be a constant quantity in all political problems, but it is scarcely a cause strong enough in itself to decide the fate of a great measure. No : by ratting at a crisis and thus baulking the Opposition of their prey, Messrs Fish and Pyke made the Otago Central what one paper calls " the price of their perfidy," and as was very wrong, but very natural, the Opposition resolved that they shouldn't get it. For my own part lam fast coming to the conclusion that neither party cares a rap for the railway, but both parties use it as a bait for unstable Otago votes.

The capping— " so-called capping ceremony," as Professor Sale severely puts it — has come and gone, and, except a few broken forms and a slight abrasion of the good professor's temper, no damage has been done. The graduates have been capped ; the undergraduates have sung their songs and said' their say ; the staff (with the exception of Professor Salmond) have sulked and dined, and all's well. So mote it be. Now that all is over and the affair a conspicuous success, I suspect that the professors who so sternly ignoredit, and (according to an eveningpaper) dined together by way of counterblast, must feel in their heart of hearts that they have succeeded in making themselves slightiy ridiculous. This possibly has something to do with the tone of Professor Sale's letter. Either that, or he and his colleagues must be sadly lacking in the sense of humour. He seems to think it a Bhamef ul thing to sing a comic song. Well,

Dulce est desipwe in loco; and it appears to me that the Garrison Hall on capping night is a proper hem in quo. The vox pqpuli to the tune of about 3000 who squeezed themselves into the hall, and another 1000 who tried to but couldn't, are manifestly of the same mind. The vox populi being the vox del, it follows that Providence is against the professors and with the students. Q.E.D. It is to be hoped that like sensible men they will accept the situation, take their seats on the platform next year, submit to the- chaff good humouredly, and give up playing Mrs Partington. Whatever may be the practice at Home, capping day here has apparently established itself as the students' carnival, and bids fair to so continue till the end of time.

Competition is said to be the life of trade. It is also sometimes the death of competitors. There is a struggle for existence ; the stronger survives, the weaker goes under. The Centennial has gone under in a very literal sense, though the event was not, stristly speaking, a consequence of the Centennial's audacious competition with the Union Company. But if the struggle had continued the same result would have been reached in another way. By a merciful interposition of Fatein the form of a Newcastle collier — the agony has been shortened, and the Centennial enjoys peace with honour at the bottom of Sydney harbour. That is better than sinking in the deep waters of a hopeless competition, — better for her owners, who, let us hope, were decently insured, though not so well for the travelling public. Thanks to the Centennial and her sister ship the Dupleix, the Union Company have been carrying passengers to Sydney at fares which exaotly cover the cost of grease for the engines, and before long they would have been paying people to go. It is a lucky thing that the instrument of Providence which gave the Centennial her quietus was not a boat of the U.S.S. fleet. It might have been, and, if it had, an illogical public would have drawn only one inference. On presumption less strong juries have convicted for murder, and Chemis, after narrowly escaping the gallows, is held in prison at this moment.

The duel between the Dunedin Ir&in Company and its rival, the man of omnibuses, will doubtless be fought out to the deadly end. One or other must go, and it certainly won't be'the trams. The omnibus man i& probably quite willing to go at once, provided his wheels be suitably greased. Those were the terms of his exodns from Wellington, were they not ? Instead of spending their money in greasing his wheels, the Tram Companylike the U.S.S. Company in a similar case — have resorted to moral suasion: that is to say, they have reduced their fare to one penny. As a shareholder I mourn, yet with a modified grief. What I lose in dividends (?) I shall more than save in tram fares. From this point of view I could even wish that the struggle might be long and lingering. The dividends of the Tram Company have hitherto been a minus quantity ; hence, as I figure it out, the reduction of fares is a clear gain. If it would only last, I should get back all my capital in coppers saved. Personally I always travel by the trams, nevertheless I am by no means averse to seeing people in the omnibuses. A moderate amount of patronage will encourage 'the proprietor to " keep it up," and penny fares will last the longer. That they will last for ever is too much to hope. As the result of a careful calculation I find that, in order to make the trams pay afc the present tariff it would be necessary that the whole population of Dunedin, men, women, and children, should travel on them continuously, night and day. The directors are reasonable men and don't expect that. They content themselves with praying for the removal of the omnibus man, and the return of threepenny fares.

We all remember the pungent paragraphs on the ecclesiastical intolerance of the skipper of the Kaikoura in refusing Dr Stuart permission to preach in his ship. I believe I wrote some of them myself. All the way to England this deep sea divine insisted on doing all the public 'preaching and praying himself, though he had a very eminent parson amongst his passengers. This seemed scandalous, and so said we all. But a story reaches me which goes to show that the captain of an ocean steamer may perhaps be right in distrusting the competence of all long-shore parsons, at any rate in bad weather. A number of clergymen were returning from synod by sea, whether in a U.S.S. boat or not I decline to say. On Sunday there was service in the saloon, and one of the party was pat up to preach. He bpgan thus : "My brethren, as I was lying in

my berth last night, thinking of the migh^ ocean on whose bosom we are floating, beautiful thought came to me ." Thei he stopped. A sudden pallor overspread t face, and with a hurried dive for the saloor door he left to commune with the bounding deep. Then the bishop arose. "My friends, he simply said, " I think we had better let our beautifnl thoughts digest." There was no collection, and the meeting immediatel-j adjourned. This shows that the Kaikoura rule which makes marine theology a branch of navigation, and limits it to the skipper may be the right rule after all.

We had recently a lecture in the tallest style of eloquence on "Gladstone, the Greatest^ Living Scotchman." A taking title, this, in a Scotch community. Mr Gladstone's Scotchmansbip, I fancy, is of the most attenuated kind, an imaginary quantity, indeed ; bat it makes what theatrical managers call " a good line in a bill." The lecture had the remarkable merit of appealing by its title to all other living Scotchmen, anc also to all living Irishmen ; for, were it not that the rights of St. Patrick are unassailable, Mr Gladstone might yet become the patron Saint of Ireland. There are Irishmen, it is true, who don't believe in Gladstone, but there are also Irishmen who have no very profound respect for St. Patrick. Mr Adams, who at Milton the other day emitted a counterblast to the Dunedin lecture, probably believes as little in the saint as in the statesman, and I suppose that Mr Adams is an Irishman. For my own part I believe in both,— or try to, miracles and all. There is as much to stagger the natural reason in the one case as in the other. Not long ago Mr Gladstone was knocked down by a cab. But, like St. Denis when his head was cut off, he " didn't care for that." Though over 80 years of age, he jumped up unhurt and ran after the cabman to take his number. On a point of law Mr Gladstone's opinion is said to be more valuable than that of any lawyer ; on a point of theology he could argue the head off any bishop. In short, writes one enthusiast, Mr Gladstone is a final authority on every subject from Genesis to jam. In corroboration, take the following fragment of talk between Mrs Gladstone and her hostess in a country house, at which the Grand Old Man and his wife were guests :—: —

Hostess : " When will this tiresome Irish question be settled, I wonder? But there's One above who knows ! "

Mrs G. : " Yes, my dear ; he'll be down presently. He's just brushing his hair." ________________ Civis.