THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 1892, 15 May 1890, Page 23

THE WEEK.

" Nunquam sliud natnra, allud saplontla dixit."— -Juvknal. " Good nature and good senae mast over join." -Port. The Ministry have decided to reject Mr Goschen's proposal to reduce Declined the postage between Engwitu i an d an( j the colonies to 2^d, Timnks. so f ar as this country is concerned. It is one of those questions which cannot be adequately dealt with by public opinion, because the special knowledge which must largely enter into its discussion cannot be made publicly available. It must necessarily be entrusted for decision in an unusually complete degree to the Government ; and while we have expressed a strong hope that the reduction might be found to De possible, we have admitted that it might be found on full examination to be otherwise. Sir Harry Atkinson, as Post-master-general, has now definitely decided that it won't do, and has declined on that account to join in the conference on the question proposed by the Premier of South Australia. The reason given by our Premier for definitely rejecting the Imperial offer is, however, not so convincing as it might be. He says, according to the inspired report, that " the proposed change would mainly benefit one particular class at the expense of the taxpayer generally, which is deemed ineqaitable and inexpedient." The class referred to is pretty evidently those big merchants, banks, companies, and the like having regular heavy correspondence with London, and who would therefore save largely by theproposed change. It is of course quite indisputable that these would save a considerable annual sum, and as far as regards the actual money benefit of the change, in a direct way, certainly the bulk of it would be so accounted for. But there are other benefits besides money benefits ; and indeed, our big mercantile houses think nothing of their postages, and probably would not write a single extra letter if the change were made to-morrow. The benefits of cheap postage are, as the history oi the penny post shows, far more in the direction of enabling an immense number of people to communicate with their distant friends who cannot now afford to do so than in lessening the cost to those who must and do send out their regular daily budget whatever the post office may charge. In one sense, therefore, so far from the benefits falling upon the rich mercantile houses, they may be said to be bestowed a wholly different class,

namely, those who— unlike the banks and merchants, to whom, as we have said, the amount of postage is immaterial, and as a matter of fact is never considered in the day's work — are actually prohibited by a high tariff from using the oceanic post at all. No country should refuse a benefit to its poorer classes on the ground that the rich would inevitably be benefited also by the reform. We quite understand that there may be sufficient reasons for the rejection of Mr Goschen's proposals outside those given by Sir Harry Atkinson, but we fail to find finality in connection with this very weighty question.

The dull and uninteresting condition of our politics is well exemplified Non by the speeches of Sir John Nobii. Hall, the lieutenant-general of the Ministerial party, and Mr Ballance, the leader of the Opposition. One can really read through both their addresses without being the wiser or better for it in any way, but fortunately also without being the worse, except one counts the enervating effect of unrelieved dulness. We do not in the least blame the speakers themselves for having nothing to say, and saying it. On the contrary, they have our most profound sympathy, both personal and professional. Journalists and politicians ought really to sympathise with each other a little more over these things than they do. It is the proper thing for the latter to make a political speech to their constituents in every recess on the political events of the day. If there are no political events of the day, why, still they must make a speech upon them. Similarly in the case of journalists who are called upon to fill a certain space in commenting upon the speeches so delivered; if there is nothing in the speeches to comment upon, still the comment must be made. Thus these two unhappy classes suffer from the same deplorable misfortunes, and even make mutual trouble for each other in the way we have attempted to describe. But even that is not the worst of it. A suffering audience, partly from commiseration and partly from electioneering necessities, is dragged into the discomforts of the one; while a host of weary readers, under the supposed necessity of " keeping up to what's going on," are beguiled into wasting their time upon the unnecessary columns of the other. It is not until the chairman wakes up with a start and looking benignly round the room makes the apparently unnecessary (but, as a matter of fact, highly debateable) remark characteristic of chairmen : " Well, gentlemen, you have all heard what our member has to say," that the majority of the audience find out that they might just as well have stayed at home. Similarly, it will not be until the end of this paragraph (which, the writer is delighted to add, is now close at hand) that our deluded readers will realise the full force of the fact that there is nothing whatever in it, and never was intended to be. We are very sorry ; but Sir John Hall and Mr Ballance began it. We did not expect them to benefit the age; still, we regret that they should have become responsible for adding such extra dulness to the " Week."

We present Mr Fish with the admission, for what it may be worth to him, An Advocate that he was within his rights

ortho in criticising, as a shareChonp ana ifmty. holder, the Exhibition balance

sheet. Beyond this, as he was so hopelessly and ridiculously in the wrong, we are at a loss to know what to say about his action ; for, be it remembered, to condemn anything Mr Fish does is an enterprise as absurd in itself as that of the man who, being unable to afford a patent safe, meekly exhibited over his cash cupboard the legend, " Burglars please refrain." Mr Fish's virtue is cased, as Horace would say, in triple brass — only that the phrase has a meaning in English which the old Latin satirist could not have known he would convey to autipodeal readers nearly 2000 years after his time. A rebuke to Mr Fish has the same effect as castor oil on a graven image, if we may for once nse a somewhat vulgar simile. Why, therefore, should we waste our words ? Besides, Mr Fish is no fool. He knew perfectly well that his criticisms were the merest childishness, that they could not possibly deceive any sensible man, that everyone who read them must be well aware that Mr Fish knew better than to believe in them himself. Did he also know that those who have had the means of watching his astute manipulation of Exhibition business in certain departments of which he has special knowledge would point with contemptuous amusement to the true origin of his dissatisfaction ? Very likely he even knew that. Very likely it would neither disturb him nor turn him from his course if he even knew it beforehand. A man who has braved out what Mr Fish has braved out is not as other men are, and verily be may think little of braving out lesser things. As for his criticisms themselves, really it does not take' a newspaper to expose their absurdity. Every intelligent reader who saw his indictment has long ago analysed it for himself. Mr Fish says " the Exhibition Commissioners spent too much money, and had it not been for the phenomenal attendance on the pait of the public there would have been a financial disaster." Well, it is really wasting space to point out that the phenomenal attendance of tbe public was the direct result of the liberal expenditure. Why did Colonel Mupleson take Patti to America at £1200 an evening when he could have got a lion comiquc from the Oxford at £10 1 Why does an impresario advertise that dresses and scenery have been provided regardless of cost, when he could hire the former at a pawnbroker's and manufacture the latter out of the leavings of his predecessors ? Why will people pay a shilling to hear a Christy minstrel bawl out a stump speech on the stage of a theatre when they can go and hear Mr Fish on a public platform for nothing ? Of course the whole thing won't hold water for a moment — and no one knows it better than Mr Fish.

This very phrase of Mr Fish's, however, de-

serves attention from another The Champions P oiQfc ° f vieW » which has ortiio nothing to do with Mr Fish iiiijcmi nmi Brisiit. — and maybe is all the better

for that same. The proposition that the expenditure by the Gardens, Music, and Buildings Committees was lavish,

coupled with the admission that the attendance of the public was " phenomenal," is in reality, though not so intended, something like an epigrammatic summary of the causes ' of the Exhibition's success. Ask any dozen people in the country, chosen at random, to tell the honest, sober truth without any humbug about why they liked going to the Exhibition, and 10 of them at least will reply that it was because of the bright and pleasant time they could always depend on spending there. There had never been anything like it before for real recreation and delight. To crowds of toilers in the workshops, of toilers in the fields, of toilers at the counter, of toilers at the desk, of toilers in the dark tunnels of the mines, of toilers at the thousand dull, hard occupations of colonial life, the Exhibition was a fairy palace. Its memory now is in thousands of minds a delightful dream, the awakening, from which has not ceased to be a regret, and the hope of renewing which, some time or other, will not soon fade from the minds now turned sorrowfully back to the dull round again. We don't believe we are overstating the case — especially as we speak more particularly for our country friends, into whose lives so little comes that is capable of being described in such terms, and whose faces at the Exhibition galas used to shine upon us more hackneyed town folks with an honest delight at their surroundings, which itself was enough to warm the heart of the most blas6 old globetrotter that ever hurried round the main avenues for the purpose of going home and saying he had been there. Well, where did all this pleasure come from 1 We have no desire to depreciate the importance of the industrial exhibits, which were very well and very instructive in their way, but we have no hesitation in declaring that it did not come from them. It was provided for the people by the liberal and generous view taken of their duties by the Exhibition chiefs, who did not hesitate to incur for themselves and others a responsibility of a most tremendous kind, and to supplement it by the hardest of hard work without thought of pay or revsard, in order that there might be in some sort repaid to our people the enthusiasm with which they had risen in a body to support the enterprise. That is why the Exhibition succeeded ; and so far from carping and cavilling at paltry details, the whole community should unite in a cordial vote of support to the men who, not to their own interest, but to the benefit of us all, have borne the heat and burden of the day.

Judgment upon the Shag Point dispute

will have to be suspended Tho until the statements made simg roint by each s \^ e are more f u }]y Dispute. reconciled. The men's ver-

sion of the matter is that the mine manager demurred to the quality of coal which Blackie was sending up, and wished to deduct two trucks from his tally because of the admixture of stone. Blackie would not allow this, and mentioned the Union. Thereupon the manager threatened to discharge Blackie on the spot for mentioning the Union, or any one else who did so. A deputation waited upon the manager, and asked that Blackie should receive 14 days' notice of dismissal in order that the matter might be investigated. The manager declined to allow Blackie to resume work, and the miners, having previously pronounced the coal which caused the dispute to be of fair third-class quality, and having offered to make up the amount ok coal necessary to complete the tally, thereupon ceased work. They also state that the manager, in addition to summarily discharging Blackie, intimated that he would also discharge the secretary of the Union after 14 days. It should be mentioned that Blackie is president rf the local Union. They further say that it is no new thing for the miners to have had to object to similar deductions; that this had been a longstanding grievance with them ; that deductions had been made when the air in the mine was so bad as to render it impossible to pick the coal ; and that no weighing appliances are provided at the pit's mouth, the overseer passing or condemning in an arbitrary manner. Such is the side of the matter presented by the men. We now come to the manager's version. He says that complaints were continual about the quality of coal sent up by Blackie, and that Blackie had threatened to leave because of these complaint,?. The pit-head man, whose duty it is to receive the trucks from below, put one truck aside in order to show how much stone it contained, when Blackie immediately replied that they might be very thankful they did not get it worse. He made a similar remark to the underground overseer. Upon this being reported to the manager he discharged Blackie, who thereupon threatened that he would "put the " Union on to him." To the deputation the manager insisted that the dispute was not a Union matter at all, but one between himself and Blackie regarding the quality of the latter's work. He demurred altogether to the men's dictum that the coal was of fair third-class quality, and stated that it would have been rejected by customers.

The point therefore in dispute is this : Whether the manager sought •lho Kcmd or t 0 take undue advantage of the Blackie by making the deducDhpnto. tioD) and tried to gfcifle re _

monstrance by threatening to discharge the officers of the local branch, or whether Blackie arrogantly assumed that he could send up what quality of coal he pleased, relying upon the power of the Union to support him. The dispute seems one eminently suited for calm judicial examination by the central committee of the Union, which course we see has been adopted by the Maritime Council. The fact that Blackie is a member and an office-bearer should not weigh at all either for or against. The question is, has he, or has he not, relied upon the strength of the Union and his position in it in order to palm off inferior work ? If he has, then assuiedly he should leceive no countenance trom the Union. It must be conceded that the manager or his proper officer is the person who is to say whether the work is properly done or not. If the nature of the mine is such that the coal cannot be procured without a certain admixture of stone, then it is rather a case for modifying the conditions of procuring it than one for quarrelling about the amount of deductions. As we began by

saying, the question is largely one of fact as to what really took place, and we shall watch with interest the manner in which judgment is made. The judges themselves must answer for their action at the bar of public opinion, and this the Maritime Council appear to very properly realise.