THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 1916, 30 October 1890, Page 21

THE WEEK.

" Xunquam nliud naturs,' aliud sapientl* dlxlt."— JuvlNAL. " (iooii nature and good seme mast eyor join." It may with a tolerable degree of confidence be taken for granted that The everyone who has really succession. thought of the subject, and who knows tbe truth as to Sir Harry Atkinson's unfortunate state of health, feels a conviction that another session cannot be conducted on the lines of the last. The nominal leadership of Mr Mitchelson was, no doubt, perfectly respecttable, and Mr Mitchelson himself is a highly respectable person ; but a little more than that is wanted in our somewhat truculent political world. The position may be sufficiently well described in the words used by a London paper with reference to the leadership ot the Honse of Commons by Mr W. H. Smith. "Mr Smith," says the journal in question, "is personally so much respected that no impartial politician wishes to judge harshly the manner in which he has led the House. It is certain, however, that if the place had been filled by the Prime Minister the record of the work accomplished would have been very different from what it actually is, The Prime Minister would have been able to exert an authority which it is hardly possible for anyone in a less prominent position to possess, and he would not have allowed the session to slip away without securing some valuable legislative results." It may be objected to the application of this toj our own recent experiences that Sir Harry Atkinson is "not the statesman that Lord Salisbury is ; but it would be a fair rejoinder to point out t iat neither is Mr Mitchelson quite on a level even with Mr W. H. Smith. Be that as it may, the happy-go-lucky, invertebrate Ministerialism of last session cannot be allowed to go on ; and if Mr Bryce, as his opponents declare, is speaking to his constituents in the tone of a politician who contemplates the possibility of being in power, it is probably only because the prominent members of the Government party have insisted that he shall contemplate it. It is an open secret that the Ministry was kept in power, not by .its own ability, but by the determination of some of the ablest members of the House that the colony should not be handed over to the tender mercies of the Ballarces, the Seddons, and the Fishes, so long as respectable mediocrity could be maintained upon the Treasury benches. The policy so ordered was in every way laudable under the then circumstances, where the best had to be made of somewhat inferior material, and where the

sadden avowal of the Premier's dangerous condition threatened to place the fortress at the mercy of an eager enemy. Now that there is time to review the position, and the choice of its best representatives is afforded to the people, the colony will — or should — demand from its rulers not only respectability but ability as well.

Early in last August, in a note dealing with the Hutchison charges, we poiiticM wrote as fol lows : — " The comPhotogr«i)iiy. mittee, which notoriously was

a purely party one and in balance of votes anti-Ministerial, reported that Mr Hutchison had not made * material ' alterations in his speech. Mr Hutchison himself, be it remembered, had previovsly implied, by his letter to the Premier above quoted, that he had made no alterations at all. It is now not denied that the original report is simply a mass of red ink re-editing by the gentleman who ' had not taken time to revise it.' The committee, in saying that the alterations are not material, asks too much of common sense people if it expects to be believed. Will Mr Hutchison allow the original report which he ' had not time to revise ' to be photo-lithographed exactly as it now appears with his emendations, and scattered broadcast through the country by the hundredweight aa his carefully revised edition was when finally set up ? Then people would see for themselves exactly how much Mr Hutchison did to the reporter's version before he ' hastened to forward ' the Hansard proof to Sir Harry Atkinson without ' taking time to revise it ; ' and everyone could also judge for himself how far the alterations were ' material.' We should like to see the House order that to be done by the Printing Office, under Mr Hutchison's own supervision. In the absence of it, there can be only one opinion on the whole affair." The above suggestion— or, perhaps, one independently made to the same effect — seems to have commended itself to the attention of the Government party. There has recently been issued — not, it is true, from the Government Printing Office, but from one which doubtless has done the work quite as faithfully — an immense broad sheet, containing an exact facsimile of the Hansard report as it appeared after Mr Hutchison's " first revise " on the 3rd of August, and his " second revise" on the 7th of the same month. It was on the Bth that he wrote to the Premier " hastening to forward " the Hansard report which he " had not taken time to revise," and at the top of the broad sheet in question his letter to that effect is printed verbatim in large letters. The combination forms an instructive comment on Parliamentary decency and ordinary veracity as interpreted by certain honourable members, and it has the further advantage of affording a pleasing occupation for an odd hour or two to those who will undertake to catalogue the varioas erasures, alterations, realterations, interlineations, eliminations, and what not in the report which the member for Waitotara " did not take time to revise 1 " We have attempted the task ourselves, but owing to the necessity of getting to pi ess towards the end of the week we have been compelled to relegate it to idler hands. We suggest a " word sweep " on the affair, similar in principle to the prize competitions commonly announced by enterprising shopkeepers for those who guess nearest to the true number of the peas or pins contained in a jar in the shop window. At present the report, as photo-lithographed, irresistibly suggests a dynamite explosion among the type cases.

The dignity of labour, of which we hear so much in these days, has rea Nest cently become regularly illusof Blackleg*. trated in the streets of Dun-

edin by an institution comparatively new to colonial towns, though an every-day affair in the Old Country. Our thoroughfares, in other words, are now commonly enriched by the presence of the sandwichman, or peripatetic bearer of placard announcements. The sandwichman's occupation has been generally looked upon with derision by the British workman, and the sandwichman himself is an object of never-failing pity (o tender-hearted females and of avowed contempt to the busy citizen. Under these circumstances it might perhaps be thought that in introducing this reference to the matter with tbe words " The dignity of labour " we have had recourse to a phrase somewhat too inflated to suit the circumstances. Not at all. On the contrary, the sandwiebmen have recently, like other trades, arisen in their might and formed a union ; a regular full-blown affair, with an executive, and a secretary, and a code of rules, all in regular form, and doubtless with the usual dream of affiliation with all other conceivable unions in their mind's eye. We are referring:, of course, to the sandwichmen of the Old Country at present. ; but no doubt Mr J. A. Millar has his eagle eye upon the half-dozen forlorn individuals who sadly patrol Princes street and George street between profusely coloured boards, to the wonder and admiration of our street Arabs, and hopes in due time to geb them out on strike for a lengthened period in the cause of the coffee roasters of the West Indies, or some equally deserving class of " industrialists " in still remoter parts. Mr Millar should direct the attention of the too-satisfied sandwichmen to the proportions of their boards, which are somewhat too square to be becoming, and to the inharmonic blending of the printed colours, which frequently betray a brutal disregard of the a^thetic cravings of labour on the part of the bloated capitalists who employ them. Substantial grievances of this kind are just the class of thing which the Maritime Council delights to " rectify " in the conspicuously successful manner we have all recently noted ; and a general levy of five shillings per man per week upon all affiliated trades, coupled with a healthy idleness o£ two or three months duration on the part of everybody concerned in nnions, would go far to bring about the desired result. The Sandwichmen's Union at Home has complained, as its principal grievance, of the fantastic costumes its members are occasionally compelled by their heartless employers to assume in order to attract extra attention to their instructive exteriors. This grievance does not, so far, exist " in our midst," but on the other hand patched trousers and wellventilated coats are of startlingly frequent occurrence among these hardy labourers in oar own streets, and the marine officers of

Queensland or the gum diggers of the WaU kato ought to be promptly (and permanently) deprived of their occupations by Mr Millar, in order that this shocking condition of things should be efficiently "rectified." In the meantime our sandwichmen, not being unionists, are of course blacklegs ; wherefore no respectable unionist ought to patronise any shop in either of the infested streets, or associate with any person using them as thoroughfares until these refractory sons of toil have yielded up such measure of personal liberty and independence as they may at present possess to the keeping of Mr J. A. Millar and his maritime associates. Mr Fraser shows to better advantage than before in the more recent iteocnt correspondence between Mr n«rimi na tion 8 . Millar and himself, and Mr Millar, it is almost needless to say, does not improve his already pitiable position. The main objections to Mr Fraser's line of action remain, however, much as we stated them a week or two ago. In the first place, Mr Fraser's anticipations, sagacious as they unquestionably were at the time of his first letter to Mr Millar, would have vindicated themselves at least equally well if they had been published before they were realised; while their author would have avoided rendering himself liable to the charge of having delayed their publication only while they were doubtful, as well as of having only begun to denounce Mr Millar's incapacity when that unfortunate " leader " had already become an object of pity to every body of common sense in the community. In the second place, Mr Fraaor's later letters still leave him in the position of having originally condemned the strike, not because it was wrong and foolish and tyrannical, but because it was undertaken without due precautions for ensurins; what the union leaders ( of whom Mr Fraser was one) would call its " success." In other words, Mr Fraser " distrusted " the power to boycott the life out of the community which the other union leaders claimed to possess, and feared that the community, instead of succumbing helplessly to Millarism, would find means to defend itself and maintain its liberty and its commercial existence. In his last letter Mr Fraser, it ib true, claims that " my sole object in interfering was to endeavour to avert from our colony a strike that I knew would be disastrous to all classes— employers and employed alike." But it can hardly be admitted that the terms of his original letter to Mr Millar bear out this description of its " sole object." Mr Fraser, we have abundant reason'for believing, is afar more capable man than Mr Millar (which is, however, not saying much for the former). But if Mr Fraser is seriously of opinion that the incapacity of the union leaders and the amazing folly of their management is only to be regretted because they did not make a success of the strike, he is probably alone in his opinion among this community. If we misunderstand him in attributing to him such an opinion, certainly .he has only his own letters to blame for the error. The city of Dunedin does not seem likely to be particularly well off for Town representatives in thejcoming nnd Parliament, and a strong country. effort has accordingly been made to entice Mr Scobie Mackenzie from the classic shades of Mount Ida to lead a ticket on the lines of moderate Liberalism. There is no doubt that the movement, from a Dunedin point of view, was a sound and wise one, the particular qualities now demanded in a town representative being those of absolute fearlessness, and the kind of sturdy common sense which despises alike the restraints suggested by personal expediency, and the more obvious menaces of those who know so well how to intimidate and coerce the ordinary Parliamentary candidate. We are free to confess, however, that we never hoped for Mr Mackenzie's compliance with the requests he has received. Neither, indeed, did we really experience any great disappointment at his refusal, however much we should have welcomed such an addition to the list of city candidates. There would have been a certain uncomfortable feeling about the announcement that Mr Scobie Mackenzie was going to leave the Mount Ida field to Mr Pyke, and set to work to convert himself into a city member. Such a feeling might, perhaps, have been unfair to Mr Mackenzie, who, after all, was free to please himself in the matter; still, there it would have been, and we are glad that Mr Mackenzie has sturdily declined to give any occasion for its manifestation. We are not sure, moreover, but that Mr Mackenzie has decided wisely for himself even from an election point of view. His chances for the city were, it is true, excellent ; but city elections are far more apt to be turned at the last moment by some phase of passing events than country ones, and in large towns it is emphatically true that you never can tell till the numbers are up. Mr Mackenzie's Parliamentary career has also been of a chaiacter to attract recognition from a rural rather than from an urban constituency. His uncompromising 1 hatred of Protection has probably harmed him in the towns, whilst it must have been a virtue to his credit in the country ; and the legislative achievements more particularly associated with his name, such as the Abolition of the Gold Duty, the Selectors' Land Revaluation Act, and others are of comparatively small interest to a cityconstituency. On the whole, though Dunedin is in a measure disappointed, things are perhaps best as they are. The general impression at Mount Ida seeme to be that that electorate will have the satisfaction of retaining Mr Mackenzie as its representative ; though, for our part, we question whether the opposition of so old a Parliamentarian and so genial an individual as Mr Vincent Pyke can be treated quite so lightly as the generality of Mount Ida people so confidently assume.

On Sunday, while conducting confirmation service »fc Palmer&ton North, Bishop Hadfield, Primate of New Zealand, was Midnenly attacked with » partial failure ot the heart/* action, «nd had to be p-moved to his hotel, whoru be lies very weak, though progressing favourably.

The body of a man, i.leul'fied aa th-fc of Donovan, drowned in the R'lngiiikri river on the 3rd instant, was discovered on M mdi.y at. the mouth of tho river by some children. Th<! body was much decomposed and identification difficult.