THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2010, 1 September 1892, Page 25

THE WEEK.

" Kunquam allud n&tura, allud a&plentUdlxlt."— Juviiui, " Good nature and good lenso must over join."— For*.

The Land and Income Assessment Act as introduced last year was, as The Taxing we had frequent occasion to Act. point out, bad in two way$ — first in principle, and nexb'in the manner in which the principle ' was carried out. The principle having, however, been carried by large majorities, and the voice of the constituencies having ,very shortly before been given against the retention of the property tax, it only remained to accept the new system, to hope tor tbe least disastrous result possible upon 'the welfare ot the country' and the employment available for the working classes, and tq endeavour to render the execrable workmanship of the act itself a little Icbs anomalous and a good deal less ridiculous. In - tbis undertaking the Government party were simply nowhere, while the Ministers themselves (only two or three of whom— namely, Mr Ballance, Sir, P. Buckley, and perhaps Mr W. P. Reeves— had any real knowledge of the act at all) confined their functions to protesting that the thing was so perfect that it required no alteration- whatever. The' Opposition, though had they been less generous they might well have left the Government to Sounder in the slough they badl. created, came patriotically to the front, and. before the act emerged from the House last year it had been considerably trimmed of some of its more pronounced absurdities, though the strength of the Government majorities prevented any wholesale amendment.

• The experiences of the recess, and more especially the able and temperate criticisms of the Opposition press have convinced Mr Ballance that much of what the Opposition were unable to effect last year owing to their numerical weakness must after all be carried out if tbe measure is not to become a monument of Ministerial iniquity and incapacity. The result of all this is the Amending- Act of this year, which, while of course it cannot restore the confidence which has been shattered by avowed confiscation, nor .unlock tbe safes which hold tbe deposits that would be used for developing ,the country but for the act., remedies most, if not all, of the blots upon its construction, and renders it possibb to reassure in some degree those who might, if any kind of finality in tbis kind of thing were guaranteed, yet venture to back our splendid resources against the effect of the mischievous fads in which we permit our Government to indulge.

A -good many people are still dissatisfied with the administration of Two the railways by the commisKailmiys. sionerp, but there are decidedly fewer such people than there were a year or two ago. Despite a somewhat unreasoning irritation in some quarters about the tariff for conveyance of goods and stock, there has been a steadily growing feeling that the commissioners, in their capacity of managers for the people of the colony, have controlled the great busi-

ness of which they are the chiefs, not merely with comcientiotlsness, but with capacity. To these recommendations they add the valuable quality of firmness ; and their fearless yet Courteous attitude in the face of what amounts to little less than Ministerial bullying has earned them genuine respect from the country generally. Moreover, it cannot be denied, even by those who have been most ready to find fault with them, that for along time past, if not altogether from the first, they have manifested a patient and earnest desire to examine every proposed change brought before them upon its merits ; and in very many instances, especially of late, they have made material concessions and improvemeots -in response to applications made to them. On the whole, there is no doubt that they have steadily improved their hold upon the public confidence.

The Hon. Mr Seddon'a bill, which few people will believe to be the outcome of anything more respectable than pique and revenge, proposes in plain words to supersede them, and to make once more a political machine of the wholo railway organisation. Political railway management has proved so hopeless, a failure in every colony of the Australasian group, and has been abandoned with such entire unanimity by the Governments of all the colonies, that it seems scarcely credible that a Minister should deliberately propose to revert to it. But the strength of the Government lies in the ignorance and infatuation of a large section of their party; and it is this deplorable fact alone which gives Mr Seddon hope of being able to crush by his bill the only officers in the ser* vice who are in a position to resist a blind and ignorant tyranny. That in doing so he will substitute for capable management bis own colossal incapacity, supplemented only by his equally colossal self-importance, and that the finances of the railways are as certain under such circumstances to go utterly to pieties as the discipline of the service is to bedome wholly given over to insubordination, matter nothing" to the Government so long as they can use the railways to bring them votes and power. If Mr Seddon carries bis bill there need be no more talk of a " surplus" to devote to public works or anything else. The surplus will be spent by the people of the colony in paying for the " management " of the railways by the Hon. R. J. Seddon.

It the Opposition did not gain what they wanted by. raising a debate Tlio on " the constitutional quesSwamiiiug tioc," they gained as much Debate. as was good for them. It is not quite clear what they did want ; but whatever it was it might not, had they attained it, have pleased them so much as the spectacle of pert and fiippaut Mr W. P. Reeves driving another nail into the coffin of the Ministry by the vulgar insolence of his sneers at Lord Glasgow.

There was a good deal of unreality about the indignation which was got up on the matter of the reference to the Secretary of State, due partly no doubt to tbe supposition that Sir George Grey was at last going to work off some of his secret detestation of Mr Ballance by denouncing the limpet-like adhesion of Ministers to office. Sir George Grey, however, regarded as a party man, is in the last degree unsatisfactory. He does that which he ought not, or at any rate is not expected, to do, and he leaves undone that which it has been confidently prophesied he will do, and there is no (politioal) health in him. We cannot recall a single occasion during this session on whioh he has done any downright, unmistakable talking, or been of any use to either party ; indeed, it is painful to see a man of his eminence cutting so insignificant a figure in a House of which three-fourths of the members at least are his inferiors.. However, the Opposition at any rate got nothing by raising the debate, which ended in a resolution of the House bearing about as closely on the question at issue as the remarks of "Mr F.'b aunt " in Dickens "David Copperfield" used to bear 1 upon the subjects which were being discussed around her.

No doubt the Government should have resigned when their advice was rejected, but it cannot be pretended that anyone ever seriously expected them to do so, and it is certainly better in many ways that they did not. The claim they make that any Government which happens to have a party majority in the House of Representatives may put a whole swarm of their friends into the Council is not only ridiculously inconsistent with their former clamours when in Opposition (which remark applies to a good many things they have done in office), but it is a precious prospect for the New Zealand taxpayer. It is just' as well that the Home Government should tell us whether the people are really liable' to be called upon at every change of Government to add a new bunch of political nobodies to the pay roll and free list of the colony. If so, we shall know whom to thank for getting such a monstrous rule put in force at the people's expense.

The Daily Times has made a suggestion with " regard to the extension of Telephone telephone accomodation in Facilities, the country districts which we hope will not be lost sight of. The suggestion is that on payment of a fee any person may be permitted to hold a conversation by telephone with a doctor or police officer either during telegraph hours, or after the offices close for ordinary business at night — the wire or wires being for the latter purpose switched on every eveningattheusual closing hour to a telephone either at the police station or the doctor's residence, whichever may be found most convenient.

It hardly needs any elaborate argument to show that the' enforced silence of the telephones connecting distant . places for 16 hours out of the 24 is not only unnecessary but a foolish waste. That it leads not merely to further waste on the part of the public both of time and of money, but also to much needless inconvenience, suffering, and even danger, is equally apparent. In the case of telegraph circuits, there is some tangible excuse for their disuse at night. There is, in the first place, a certain amount of expense required to provide electric current sufficient to work the heavy instruments of the telegraph — the requirements of the telephone in this respect being comparatively infinitesimal. This, however, is a minor

reason. A more serious one is found in the necessity of skilled attendance at both ends of the wire for the transmission and receipt of the messages so sent — a requirement which to a great extent puts night attendance out of the question in small country place 3. The use of the telephone, on the other hand, requires no skill, and its call to the person at the other end is no mysteriou3 combination of clicks, but simply the loud tinging of a bell. Hence it can be fixed anywhere and worked by any one. Under these circumstances, it does seem very regrettable that its facilities should be absolutely denied to the public, even in urgent need, for twothirds of the day.

If a regular system were instituted by which communication could be established with a medical man, either directly or through the resident constable, or with the police office itself, both inside and outside of working hours— the doctor or constable coming to the telephone and talking direct — an immense boon would be conferred upon the country districts, and a large unnecessary expenditure in medical fees and travelling expenses saved to people who can ill afford either. In cases where the doctor's attendance is indispensable, much might be done by a few simple instructions for the relief of pain, method of conveying a sufferer home, or temporary measures of precaution, repeated through the telephone until the listener thoroughly understands what is meant. la short, it is difficult to set down the full advantages whioh might be secured by suoh a system. They will, wo feel sore, present themselves in ample detail to hundreds of our country readers;

the (Government regard confiscation as being

bo completely in the ordinary Minors rind way of their business that Fawiiors; they probably fail to understand the astonishment and indignation with which clause 3 of the Mining Act Amendment Bill has been received by the miners and by all interested in our goldfields. Mr Seddon, in fact, is treating the miners in the fashion he affects to apply to the Railway Commissioners — namely, with lordly contempt. He is too busy with his so-called "co-operative" system to care about the rights of mere mining people! who have the cardinal fault (from a Ministerial point ot view) of being as a class independent, in the best sense of the word.

The retrospective element in Clause 3 is giving rise to a great outcry, and very justly and naturally bo. The only wonder is thai anybody should ba surprised at it. The punitive clauses of the Land and Income Tax Act are retrospective in exactly the same way — that is, they are designed to punish, by the passing of a new law, people who have engaged in a business which under the old one was not merely lawful but praiseworthy and beneficial. If' it is odd that a good many who are engaged in mining pursuits did not sec the evils of retrospective attainder where applied to land owners, yet recognise them easily and indignantly when applied to themselves, it is also doubtless true that a good many land owners who ought to know better are refraining from joining in the condemnation pronounced upon the notorious clause 3. It is by thus skilfully and cunningly placing the classes they wish to oppress at a disadvantage singly one after the other, instead of all together, that the Government manages to despoil for the benefit of the one section of the community, for whose behests they exist, the interests of all the others. It is this which helps them in their work more than anything else — except perhaps the perfectly honest, yet withal hardly enviable blindness to everything not flaringly and flauntingly displayed in the foreground which characterises an esteemed farming correspondent who wrote us a long letter last week about the Government policy as he sees it — i.e., in other words, the Government policy as the Government describe it, and hence as far as possible from the Goverment policy as it really is. Farmers who take them at their own valuation are exactly the class of farmers the Government want— and the only class the Government mean to have, if they can manage it. If our friend applies for a* special settlement, we should not be surprised, after^is letter, if he is granted an entire one " to his own cheek."

One of the troubles connected with the spread of civilisation is that Cholera. the spread of less desirable things is apt to accompany it. For instance, there is the cholera. Owing to the facilities of modern communication this dreaded disease is no sooner reported from Russia than it is heard of also from Berlin and Hamburg, whence in a day "or two more it goes to Antwerp, Havre, shortly afterwards appears in Great Britain, and who knows where else. Unhappily, the present outbreak is of a severe type. Cholera epidemics vary greatly in point of danger to the sufferers. Sometimes only 15 per cent, succumb, in other cases the mortality reaches the terrible rate of nine deaths out of ten attacked. The record* in Spain during the visitation of six or seven years ago was 82,000 deaths out of 233,000 cases ; while as j regards the present outbreak, the figures cabled from Hamburg the other day dentfted 300 fatal cases out of 340, equal almost to the maximum rate on record.

It is characteristic of cholera epidemics that the disease attacks the greater number of its victims immediately upon its first arrival in a new locality. The. general effect of the cable records of the present epidemic is to indicate that tbis is taking place now in the manner formerly noticed. One day the cable tells us that the malady has broken out at some new stage of its westward progress ; the next, that hundreds of victims have already fallen. Another characteristic of cholera is that, contrary to the course of many epidemic diseases, immunity is not conferred by one attack. The sufferer may be struck again at any time after recovery. A third and still graver feature of those epidemics is that they do not tend to disappear for many months, or even years, after they are first manifested. The first great outbreak of cholera recorded in this century lasted bi'x years ; the second lasted 11 years ; the third, 17 yeara (during the couree of which 53,000 persons died in England in one year alone, and 20,000 in another); the fourth, 10 years;

and the last outbreak, whioh was in 1884, did not disappear for several months. As regards the efforts of science to combat the dreaded plague, lit'le to the credit of science can be said. Koch's discovery of the " comesa " bacillus which oause3 the disease is known to everybody; but unfortunately, as in the case of the baoillus o£ tubercle, the devastating microbe remains as insolently master of the position under the searching eye of the micfoscopa as when h9 pursued his ghastly work seoure in the protection of his infinite littleness. There is no reliable cure but prevention to-day, any more than there was a century ago.