THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 1934, 19 March 1891, Page 21

THE WEEK.

11 Nunqnam allufl satnra, allnfl laplsntU dizlt,"— JuviHit. " Good natui* and good Kiue mint ever join." r iPop». A decided check to the eager partisans of both the Home Rule camps a Word or has been administered by the warning. Roman Catholic hierarchy of Australia, who have just issued a joint manifesto " emphatically condemning the proposed campaign of the Irish delegates." This seems a most sensible and salutary proceeding, and may be expected to produce a very wholesome effect at Home. According to the latest cablegrams the internecine strife between the M'Carthyites and the Pamellites— the parties of "Home Rule proper" and of " Home Rule improper," as the wits of the day dub them — continue as bitter and irreconcileable as ever. Mr Parnell has been delivering inflammatory speeches in which he called his opponents the enemies of Ireland, and swore he would expel them from the House of Commons and replace them with his own nominees ; while Mr M'Carthy has been presiding over the first meeting of the new National Fedeiation, at which Mr Parnell's behaviour was declared by Archbishop Walsh to be destructive to the Irish cause, and Mr Parnell himself was denounced by hi 3 ex-lieutenant, Mr Sexton, as a supporter of the Tories. All this excitement and recrimination must be honestly pronounced, iv ppite of the loud and persistent claims of each party to be the only true friend of Ireland, entirely bc-side the question of Home Rule at all. It is not that it is difficult to pass judgment on Mr Parnell, or that Mr M'Carthy's personal earnestness need be subjected to doubt; but what is abundantly clear is that the two camps are now so intensely and exclusively desirous of bringing about; the downfall of their opponents and the triumph of their respective chiefs, that that which ought to be a common causenamely, the achievement of Home Rule, has sunk into an altogether subordinate place in the r reckoning, if indeed it can any longer be called their common cause ab all The Catholic priesthood in Ireland has, as we all know, inclined principally towards the antiParnellite section ; while the peasantry 6CCUIS to be for the most parb enthusiastic for Mr Parnoll, and the late&t cables tell us that his universal success among the people has dismayed the M'Cnrchyites, who now believe that with the people's help he is going to win. In accoid with the current cuclebi.x&tical preferences at Home, Dean Mahouey seconded the motion formally establishing the scceders' organisation i while Archbishop Walsh delivered the

preliminary onslaught on the repudiated leader. It was doubtless hoped that the colonial ecclesiastics would humbly follow suit. But the watchfulness and sagacity of I these latter has proved equal to the occasion ; and they, as the natural advisers of their people, have instead taken up the admirable attitude now announced in their manifesto. They see before them the prospect of urgent appeals being made to the pockets of the Irish citizens and sympathisers ' in these colonies, not, as hitherto, by emissaries representing beyond question the majority of Irishmen, but by the excited partisans of at least two bitterly hostile sects, each striving with might and main to vilify the other and secure the control of the sinews of war. They see the prospect of the colonists' contributions being squandered wholesale upon competitive trips round the world and electioneering battles between the very men who have hitherto stood side by side as the representatives of Ireland. They see that an urgent attempt is imminent to produce among Irish sympathisers here precisely the same envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness as is rending the cause of Home Rule in pieces at Home, — the Ui ionists in sardonic satisfaction keeping the ring. And foreseeing all these things, they say to the two sets of Irish delegates now starting on collecting tours in Australia : " Settle your differences first, and ask for our money afterwards. We will help Home Rule then ; but we will not take sides in your quarrels now ; neither shall our money go to promote them." A wise word and timely spoken.

Every honest citizen ought to sympathise with Mr Justice Edwards in Judge the cruel position in which Edwnrdi. he has so long been placed. The bitterness with which his appointment to the Bench has been assailed by the members of the present Government, who, perhaps, cannot be expected to know any better, and by Sir Robert Stout, who certainly ought to, would be hard measure if dealt out to a man to whose name some black suspicion was popularly attached. As inflicted upon a person against whom no blame is alleged, and whose professional competence is not seriously called into question by any of the pack which has set itself howling at his heels, it is cruel indeed. But as applied to a member, whether blameworthy or blameless, competent or incompetent, of the Supreme Court Bench, it is infamous, and reflects undying shame upon those who have sought to degrade the sacred name of justice for the sake of a paltry party advantage. We ourselves know nothing of Mr Edwards, and must frankly admit that in common with most people in the South, we received the announcement of bis elevation with surprise and curiosity. The necessity for the appointment of a sixth judge ab all had not up to that time been demonstrated ; nor is it even* necessary for our present purpose to claim that ib has been demonstrated since, though we believe it might fairly enough be argued that it has. Mr Edwards, however, had nothing to do with deciding that He was requested by the Government of the day to undertake certain urgent work in connection with native litigation, the execution of which work appeared to require that the person performing it should have the full status of a judge. It is not alleged, and is indeed inconceivable, that Mr Edwards originated the policy oi the Government in this matter, or in fact had anything whatever to do with it, except to decide whether he would or would not accept a certain offer which was made to him. If there was any wrong or blunder it was on the part of the Government in inviting his acceptance of the post ; not on bis own part in deciding to respond affirmatively to the offer. We certainly think that Sir Harry Atkinson, though he gave fairly convincing reasons for the necessity of the appointment, gave wholly insufficient ones for its immediate urgency, and ought to have consulted Parliament beforehe made it. Bat again we say, Mr Edwards had nothing to do with that, A certain offer was made to him ; he said he would accept it on certain conditions ; the conditions were agreed to, and the appointment made. Tt was only then found out by Sir Harry Atkinson that though he had full power to appoint Mr Edwards he had no authority to pay his salary, which accordingly had to be provided, against the clearest provisions of our constitution, out of unauthorised expenditure, subject to the mere will and pleasure of the Ministry of the time. The then Opposition, to their endless discredit, pounced upon this technical blunder as a party prize, and utterly reckless of the discredit they brought upon the administration of justice and the cruel wrong done to Mr Edwards himself (who of course had meantime given up his practice as a barrister), they prevented the only dignified settlement of the matter, and have ever since used the most liberal vituperation in all their dealings with it. They probably know as well as possible that on the question of the legality of the appointment Mr Downie Stewart is right and Sir Robert Stout wrong ; and they piobably know equally well that they must one day, and that soon, validate the appointment and provide the salary. Their action in hedging and twisting as they do to avoid or postpone their clear duty is in the highest degree unworthy and contemptible.

No one, we feel sure, desires wantonly to pour cold water on all this Tho Federation business, in which Fciicmi the best men of Australia contention. have been solemnly engaged for the last week or two. On the contrary, it is in every way desirable that the interest taken in the matter in the various colonies — even in our own — should be far wider and deeper than we fear it is. It is useless, however, to pretend to think that the eyes of colonists are turned with hopefulness, much less with enthusiasm, upon the proceedings of the Federal Convention in Sydney. A leading English newspaper declared this week (and the declaration was immediately cabled with great complacency to the colonial press) that that assembly was "being watched with the keenest interest "in England. We imagine that the readers of that paper, or for that matter of any other English paper, would be very much surprised to learn that their interest was keenly bent on something of which the majority of. them have probably

never even heard, and about which those who have heard of it don't care. The position is really very peculiar ; for the way in which the man in the street dismisses the whole subject of Federation as a fad is not respectable or creditable. It is not common sense ; though the fact that it is so often accepted as an indication of common sense to pooh-pooh Federation altogether is of itself a significant e;auge of the depth to which the " keen interest" of the average citizen penetrates. Anyone who thinks out the subject will perforce arrive at the conclusion that the Federal Convention is an important event — important nationally, socially, and individually; important, we must add — to satisfy the requirements of the " common sense " critic — practically. The Convention may nob be an epoch-making affair ; it may not be a historic assembly like the Council' of Nice, or the Magna Charta meeting, or the Parnell-M'Carthy vwlee in No. 15 Committee Room ; but it represents the aspiration of millions of Englishmen for good government and for power in the councils of the world such as cannot be obtained by a set of semi-independent States with excisemen in uniform watching all the boundaries day and night, and searching the passengers who pass by train or steamer from one to the other. As such it is important — as we have said, nationally, socially, individually, and practically — and we all ought to be a little ashamed of the way in which we turn up our noses at it, though we need not be in the least ashamed of opposing federation or of refraining from accepting it ourselves, Our ideas of statesmanship ought to grow wider. If we have silly and snappy young Ministers whose highest ideas of Jtheir office is embodied in ordering a clerk to write impertinent letters to assemblies of earnest and responsible servants of the State, or in conducting the education of the people on lines dictated to him by an official of a trades union, or in cutting slips oub of his "exchanges " (if he happens to be a newspaper man himself), and putting the lion and unicorn on them as the whole duty of man, that is no reason why we should all conduct ourselves in this hobbledehoy fashion in relation to matters of State. The federation study, as a study, is already important : won't somebody try, as a novelty, to make it popular 1 Mining swindles, we suppose it must be admitted, are not unknown " cunning j n this country. If, indeed, ln some statistical person, drawMotais." ii n g a DOW a t a venture after the manner of his kind, were to suggest say 90 per cent, as about the true proportion of mining " enterprises " in New Zealand coming under the shorter title with which this note begins, it is questionable if he would be seriously taken to task. He might even go as high as 99 without dangerously exasperating the investing public. Of course we are referring to company " enterprises " only ; it is useless to say that of good honest mining, and good honest miners there is, fortunately, an inexhaustible supply in the land, and always has beea since the discovery of Gabriel's Gully. Mining swindling, however, is really only in its infancy in New Zealand. They do these things better in Victoria — so much better that we feel constrained to exhort our local " promoters " to increased activity and smartness in their profession, lest perchance New Zealanders should transfer their custom to the artists of the sister colony, and so incur the shocking economical disaster of failing to " keep the money in the country." Mining investois, it is true, seldom — in our experience at any rate — keep their money anywhere; on the contrary, indeed. But they ought to remember that the promoter keeps it for them, and lw keeps it in the country, whenever he has managed his professional affairs with sufficient artistic skill to enable him with a tolerable degree of safety to keep himself there. Of course if he has bungled, and has to flit, the country loses the money. Let us therefore, as good Protectionists, so encourage our local promoters and other swindlers to increased skilfulness in their honest labour as to obviate all necessity for levanting from inconvenient prosecutions, and so "keep the money in the country." But to return to their Victorian fellowworkers. As we remarked, they are ahead of us ; as for instance, when Mr Pounds, an enthusiastic and imaginative gentleman with a liability to sudden timely attacks of brain fever or Asiatic cholera or something — usually coincident with the dates of directors' meetings— conceived the idea of founding a platinum company for the purpose of extracting that metal from the Otway Ranges. (Why he chose the Otway Ranges in particular we are unable to suggest, as it would appear from the subsequent proceedings that any other ranges would have done just as well). Mr Pounds had a plan of operations as elegant as it was ingenious and simple. He was a metallurgist, as he called himself — or an artist in metals, as we might explanatorily call him, with a suggestion that it is the more comprehensive term. He seems to have concluded that the next best thing to the Creator having conveyed platinum to the Otway Ranges (which had been neglected in the hnrry before the Noachian flood) was to convey the Otway Ranges, or a portion of them, to the platinum. So treated, a portion of the Otway Ranges, not unnaturally, disgorged a lump of the desired metal, or something that was taken for such. Mr Pounds did not band over this treasure to the directors of his company, but offered instead to produce them some more. >o they went to his laboratory, where he did something wonderful with a pair ot belloivs and another portion of the Otway Ranges, and produced from the recesses of his furnace another lump. He then did a term of brain fever, during which his banker was supposed to hold the lumps, bub (doubtless owing to fever) Mr Pounds, it was afterwards found, omitted this little detail. He then made a meteoric appearance before some of the directors at a hotel, remarked ecstatically, " You are all millionaires," made an appointment for a certain evening to hand over the lumps — and then disappeared for good and all. He has not been found since ; neither have the directors' tempers or the shareholders' equanimity — in facr., the only ucdisfcuibed member of the association is the Olway Ranges, which stand r living witness, silent, stony, but alas ! platinumless, to as neat a set of tricks as ever graced a firstclass Stock Exchange,

The concourse of rowdy shearers who are making the Clermont diswarriom in trict of Queensland a sort of Moieikim. armed camp on a ragged and somewhat ludicrous scale a ppear to be greatly impressed with the imposing nature of their display. Strutting about with revolvers stuck in their belts and Winchester rifles over their shoulders, their souls fired with martial glory, and their pockets full of ball cartridge, is a new experience to these back-block larrikins and "old hands"; and what makes the thing still more gratifying is that the "peelers" are out in force "all along of us," and that the telegraph wires are clattering about the tawdry warfare all the live-long day. They have never made such a. stir in the world before, and the sensation is delightful. Very likely there are plenty of foolish, harmless youths in the camp whose only fault is that they fancy themselves red rovers and bold buccaneers, and all that sort of thing, and who if they saw a shot fired in anger would go sick with terror and crawl helplessly for the nearest gum-tree. Quite as likely there are men, too, whose thoughts of their wives and little I ones starving in the cities, while they themselves are picketing and guarding and drill- ! ing and the rest of it, instead of comfortably earning their pound a day and rations at the nearest shed, lead them to curse the hour they put their heads in the noose that holds them tight to the " leaders' " tentpoles. Some there may be, too, who in the midst of all the strutting and trumpeting remember with a qualm of shame that " the enemy" upon whom they propose to train their Winchesters consists of working men like themselves, doing honest labour for honest pay, no more and no less than is open to the unionists themselves to accept whenever and wherever they like. But however that may be, their masters — president, secretaries, and what not — hold them with an iron grip ; and so the miserable farce goes wretchedly on, the men boo-hooing when their president says boo-hoo, and "marching" as they call it when their secretary says march, and generally behaving like beings whose will has been utterly surrendered and to whom freedom is the most evil of earthly things. It is natural — indeed inevitable— that this sort of thing should develop with terrible rapidity into crime ; and so there is violence of language first, then cowardly attacks upon unarmed labourers in search of work, then threats of murder and the actual perpetration of arson. The spectacle o£ these misguided people is truly pitiable ; but they seem as plastic as clay in the hands of their leaders, and nothing, apparently, can be done to save them from the inevitable consequences of, their folly. The Queensland squatters appear so far to be quite satisfied with the supply of free labour and the quality of the labourers, and undisturbed by the anonymous threatening letters they are constantly receiving. The Government is acting as prudently and quietly as the circumstances will allow, and the collapse of the outbreak seems close at hand. But that all this strife and malice and crime should be spent by sane men in no nobler o'ject than depriving hundreds of their fellow-workmen of the right to live, and that thousands of pounds should be taken by union officials from the pockets of working men to support such proceedings as are disgracing the very name of unionism in Queensland, is a state o£ affairs over which the most rampant Socialist of us all — provided he is honest — can only grieve.