PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1900, 3 July 1890, Page 23

PASSING NOTES.

The Federation of Labour— which Mr Twopeny (vide election address) thinks much more important than the Federation Df Australasia—goes ahead merrily. Every day the trades are organising, organising— voting themselves higher wages and shorter hours. By the Federation of Labour, observe, we are to understand that all Labour, and Labour everywhere, will be able to act as one man. When that happy time arrives— as soon as all trades shall have been organised and federated— then will Labour be able to enforce at the point of the bayonet — or of the boycott, which is the same thing — whatever demands Labour may choose to make. And thus is to end the age-long conflict between Labour and Capital— by the capitalist being brought to his marrow bones, where, of course, he ought to be. The lion and the lamb will lie down together— the lamb (meaning the capitalist, as being associated with mint sauce) inside. The day is evidently coming when Capital will not merely have to take directions from Labour as to how, when, where, and on what terms it is to be employed, but first will have to obtain Labour's permission to exist. I can imagine a Daily Times of no very distant date containing a paragraph something like the following :— Yesterday a deputation of unemployed capitalists obtained an interview with the Minister for Labour, the Hon. J. A. Millar. The object of the deputation, as explained by their spokesman, was to ascertain if the department for regulating Labour would allow them to engage, at their own risk, in certain specified industries. The Minister could at present hold out no hope that such permission would be grauted. The Labour party had already as much work as they were disposed to do, and did not want any more. If the members of the deputation opened new factories, or in any other way extended tbe imlu'stries of the colony, they woulil be attracting more people hero and causing untold tivils. One member of the deputation would like to atok, then, what they were to do ? Capital must <

live as well as Labour. Even a return of 4or 5 per cent, would be something, these times. The Minister understood that in times of 1 scarcity the camel was accustomed to live upon vs hump. The capitalist must learn to do the same. He had his capital— let him live upon that. A member of the deputation (excitedly): •• Then we should soon have no capital left ! " The Minister : " Exactly ! We should then all stand upon one level. You can hardly expect me, as representing the hopes and aspirations of the great Labour party now controlling the destinies of this country, to look upon that as an evil." After some further consideration the Minister said that he sympathised to a certain extent with the fast diminishing class represented by the deputation, who were evidently unable to adapt themselves to the new civilisation. They would hardly bd wise, however, in attracting attention to their grievance. There was a risk that the Labour Parliament might begin to inquire by what means they became possessed o£ their capital, and whether they ought to be allowed to retain it. He would recommend them to withdraw quietly to some other country where the old order of things still prevailed. The explorations of Stanley had opened up a very important region in the centre of Africa. — A member of the deputation said " Yes ! he supposed that that was what they would nave to come to ! " After thanking the Minister for his courtesy, the deputation then withdrew.

Pending our arrival at this desirable con« summation there is nothing to do but note the pace at which we are getting on. The railway servants, having conquered in the strife with the Commissioners, will be followed by the State school teachers. I understand that there is certain to be a Teachers' Union, which, under threat of boycott and strike, will be able, like the railway servants, to extract another £30,000 or £4.0,000 a year from the public funds. After them will come the civil servants generally. A Civil Service Union, compact and firm of front, backed by the Maritime Council and Mr J. A. Millar, ought to be able to bleed the country to the tune of another million, at least. There ia some talk of a strike of parsons against small collections and low stipends, but this may be a mere canard. The sympathy of the Maritime Council would be worse than doubtful, and congregations might possibly bear being locked out on Sundays with equanimity. They would get married by the Government registrar and buried by the corporation sexton,— where would be the minister's pull over them 1 Much more sane than this is the projected Domestic Servants' Union for regulating, I suppose, not merely wages, but the vastly more important questions of " followers," evenings out, and the temper of missuses. I note that a Mrs Todd, of New South Wales, has been appealing in the London Standard to the ladies of England to form themselves into committees to select and despatch a better class of servants to the colonies. Whereupon appeared the following advertisement in a Sydney newspaper: — An Australian Slavey.-— This is to remind Me and Mrs Todd to advocate the formation of a society in England to undertake the supply of a superior class of masters and mistresses to Australians there iB already enough atrocious nigger drivera and good servant spoilers.— Miss Clare. < I admire Miss Clark's spirit. If she could be imported into New Zealand the forthcoming Domestic Servants' Union might da worse than .elect her as their first head centre.

The beating of the Roman Catholic " dram ecclesiastic" is what we have learned to expect as inevitable at the meeting of every session of Parliament, a fortiori on the eve of every general election. Bishop Moran is not the man to nurse his education grievance as a " silent sorrow." He takes care to air it well, particularly at election times. Quite right and proper. Where is the comfort of a grievance unless you flap it in other people's faces, especially in the faces of the people whom you suppose responsible for that grievance ? It is curious, however, that what begins as a discussion of the Roman Catholic education grievance in New Zealand invariably ends as an angry wrangle about the prevalence of crime in Ireland, and the predominance of morality or immorality in the Irish national character. Where is the Bishop's reputed astuteness if he allows Orangemen, writing tothe newspapers under anonymous signatures, to lead him away from histrua subject on this false scent ? For my own part I find Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen equally bad and good. In the matter of original sin and cultivated viciousness there is not a pin to choose between them. But if there' were, what conceivable bearing could that fact have on Bishop Moran's education grievance ? Why should we be dosed just now by pulpit and press with discussions about the comparative morality of the three nationalities, the statistics of illegitimacy in Glasgow, and the exact degree of chastity practised by the maidens of Connaught? It is a ruse of the enemy, this introduction of the national morality question. The Bishop is being beguiled into quitting the solid ground of his grievance to lose himself in bogs and marshes. The surprising thing is that he should be so easily beguiled. I thought he was a better tactician.

A correspondent, hailing from Balclutha, writes me to say that any little weakness of Mr Thomas Mackenzie, M.H.R., upon which I have rested with a light, yet withal loving hand, may well be pardoned in consideration of the fact that that gentleman is such a thorough-going John Bull. In illustration my correspondent sends the following story, which he declares to be authentic, only he won't guarantee the French,— (neither will I.) It appears that when Mr Mackenzie and Dr Fitchett were in Paris, they visited the opera, where they were fortunate enough to secure good seats well to the front. At the first interval they strolled out to smoke, and returned to find their seats comfortably occupied by a pair of Frenchmen. Dr Fitchett accepted the situation and retired to an obscure corner where there was a vacant place. Not so Mr Thomas Mackenzie. He looked fiercely at the intruders ; reflected hopelessly upon his utter inahility to explain to them the nature of their often™, and then determined to stand where he was and got a good view of the opera. Presently he was tapped on the shoulder by a Frenchman,

who politely informed him that he was obstructing the view— " Pardon, Monsieur, nons ne voyonsjws la scene" "No savee," curtly replied Mr Thomas Mackenzie. This was the style in which the only foreigners who approached Balclutha were accustomed to be answered. What was intelligible to a Chinaman would doubtless be intelligible to a Frenchman also. Mr •Mackenzie devoted himself to the opera, when he was again tapped on the shoulder by another Frenchman with the same complaint : " Pardon, monsieur "—(I omit the French, but the drift of it, was, Will you sit cown, that we may see the stage ?). "No savee, I tell you," angrily retorted the New Zealander ; " confound it, can't you understand plain English." Later on there came a third tap on the shoulder from another aggrieved Frenchman, who found it impossible to see through Mr Mackenzie's bulky form: " Pardon, monsieur, but you are not transparent." (In French, of course.) As Mr Thomas Mackenzie, M.H.R., squared upon his tormentors it was easy to see that the British lion was roused. " Look here," he said, " we'd better come to an understanding at once. I've had my claim jumped — jumped, do you hear? Oh, you needn't shake your head, you can understand me well enough ; and if you think I came here to be bullied by a lot of foreigners, you never made a greater mistake in your life," after which he turned his attention to the opera again. The nice point to decide is who, in the opera house in the heart of Paris, is the foreigner— the Frenchman or the .Englishman? Like Mr Thomas Mackenzie, I say the former. ."What countryman is he?" one of the aggrieved Frenchmen was heard to whisper. The answer was but a shrug of the shoulder and one word — " Sauvatje I " (" He is a savage I "). The election-address of Mr Ernest Twopeny, which I read with interest in the Daily Times a day or two ago, is undoubtedly a model of its kind. It is a comprehensive document in quite an unusual degree. I trust that, without 'irreverence, I may pronounce Mr Twopeny to be, in the plain practical sense of the term, a " fisher of men." The man who escapes the ingenious net he has spread will indeed be a lively, not to say slippery, customer. He sweeps up Radicals of every hue, Protectionists, Unionists, Socialists, Nationalisers of land, bursters-up *of the same, Catholics, Bible-in- schools people, and the unemployed. If the votes of all these welded together won't put a man in, then the representative system must be pronounced a failure. But if one man is to be allowed to scoop the pool (there is a mixture of metaphors here, but it does not matter) in this wholesale fashion, what are the other candidates to do ? There will be nobody left for them. Clearly Messrs Fish and Allen must "go one better." Outside of. Mr Twopeny's net there is nothing left but banks, loan companies, and poor devils o£ journalists like myself. Here then is the chance for the other candidates. A journalists' union I have already hinted at, and now it becomes a necessity, otherwise we shall be practically disfranchised. Threepence per line instead of one penny, and no supervision — that is, no editors — is the programme. " There are two essential parties," says an ingenious writer of high authority* 11 to every periodical— the . writers and the public ; the editor and the printers' deyil are but the mechanical instruments for bringing them together." Our union will be formed before the general election. If Messrs Fish and Allen are desirous of outdoing Mr Twopeny, herein lies their only chance. I received by post .the other day a cardboard box, which I handled gingerly and proceeded to open with care, on the supposition that it might possibly contain an infernal machine. A thick layer of cotton wool beneath the lid, and then— what? My first thought was that I had come in for an votive offering of value,— a jewelled diadem, perhaps, for Mrs 01 The shape of the box and the nature of the packing favoured that rash supposition. Sad to say, what I found under the wool was a mere leather medal— not for vie I— l hasten to say that; not for Civis,— oh dear, no ! The inscription on the face set forth that the medal had been presented by the "Naseby Humane Society" to so-and-so — I needn't, give the name — for " bis gallant and timely rescue of Mitchell's dog." The recipient of this distinction had forwarded it to me with a request that I would favour him with a few "remarks" thereon. He had performed, it seems, " a noble and humane act in saving the life of a dog during the nocturnal conflagration at the residence of Mr Mitchell in this city "—the city, to wib, of Naseby ; for which cause his fellow citizens presented him with this medal, together with a lengthy document, a sentence from which I have just quoted. Looking at all the facts, I infer that life in the city of Naseby must be dull — deadly dull. The "nocturnal conflagration" at Mitchell's afforded the citizens a delirious excitement on which they might have subsisted for a whole winter if only it had been capped and climaxed by the incineration of Mitchell's dog. But, alas 1 one citizen, weakly yielding to a sentiment of humanity, rushed in and saved that dog, whereupon his fellow citizens, feeling that life was now going to be duller than sver and that they were ready to perish for want of something to talk about,- laid their heads together and evolved the brilliant idea of a leather medal. It is a bad business all round, and the only one who seems to have come out of it well is the dog. As for the medal itself, after reducing it to a palimpsest by scraping, I shall hand it over to be raffled at the Presbyterian bazaar next week, with a stipulation that the winner shall present it to a certain eminent member of the Presbytery, in recognition of his services to orthodoxy and true religion in the Gibb case. Apropos of some remark of mine last week, a correspondent sends me the following : — Dear Civis, You may wish to return to the pritiraval fijjleaf, &" , but all do not; fchi'ik alike, i', i he following incident will show you:— Two i ! 1 inaKli-n la<H'j« i.i Glasgow were vary loud of cat 'rl&HiU.jj the nrnirler of tlw.ii' kirk vi; tu-i, during wbich they generally received some religious instruction. On one occasion the sub-

ject of the " discoorse " was original sin. After some thought, one of the old ladies remarked : " Ah weel, meenister, for my pairt I never could understan' the doctrine of oreeginal sin. Sma' pleisure 'twould ha' been to me riunin aboot the gairdin a' the day nekked, eatin' green aiples." — Yours, &c , Olim Sooius. I find room ior this though I am not far from sure that there does not lurk in it some deadly heresy which, may bring me under the claws, of the Presbytery. Luckily the Gibb case blocks the way. I venture so far to agree with the old lady as to admit that a return to primeval innocence, and the costume of Phryne, would be highly inconvenient in the latitude of Glasgow, or, for the matter of that, in Dunedin. It is a painful and perplexing fact, when you think of it in this cold weather, that we should be indebted to Original Sin for the institution of clothes. I should like to hear on this point the Rev. Mr Finlayson or the Rev. Mr Ryley. Civis. The Legislative Council again {adjourned on Wednesday owing to the no-confidence motion in the. other House, but not btf ore a protest was made by the Hon. Sir G. S. Whitmore against such a waste of time, and he gave notice of a motion providing that in future the Council should not adjourn on such occasions. The no-confidence debate came to a sudden termination in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, when the amendment to Supply moved by the leader of the Opposition, was defeated by 38 votes to 32. It is claimed that i if the decision had not been a snatch oue the Government majority would have been 12 Once the amendment was disposed of, a debate on the financial policy of the Government was commenced by Mr Fish, who gave his reasons for deserting' the Government party. This new debate is expected to last several days. At Wednesday's meeting of the Land Board Mr W. D. Smith (Perpetual Trustees, Estate, end Agency Company) put a question to the board which has been a matter of much serious thought to settlers and others since the passing of the Selectors' Lands Revaluation Bill. Under this measure the board is empowered to grant relief to those persons whom they consider paid too high a rental for their areas some years ago when them was an excessive demani for land. Mr Smith's question took this form : Should a person holding 640 acres of first-class land, whose rental has been reduced below £1 per acre, consider his land, in consequence of such reduction, as only of second-class value, and, if so, was he at liberty ' to take up an additional section? In reply, the Actingchairman (Mr H. Clark) stated that this question was one which the Minister of Landa had not so far definitely settled, and that the Chief Commissioner (Mr J. P. Maitland), who was at present in Wellington, intended to interview Mr Richardson on the point. It is thought by some that an affirmative reply to a question such as that given above is not likely tn given. A block of land in tho Woodland district containing 2500 acres will shortly be thrown open for settlement. The land has been divided into 116 section's, the area of which range from 10 ,acres to 294 acres, and the price from 15s bo 40a. Fuller particulars are furnished in the report of the Land Board's proceedings. We recently published a list of lately proved, ', wills in which it was stated that the estate of .Donald Macrae, Palmerston, was pub down at £1264. We "now find that the estate referred to was not that of the late Mr Donald Macrae jof Palmerston. ' The output of coal from the Westport and Greymouth mines during the six months ended June 30 was as under : — Westport Coal OomIpany (Westport), 101,346 tons ; Grey Valley jOoal Company (Greymouth), 80,768 tons. A very large sale of mining shares is announced to . be held by J. A. Park and 00. on Saturday, 14th inst. They include dredging, quartz, and alluvial, the companies being both Otago and West Coast.