PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2055, 13 July 1893, Page 28

PASSING NOTES.

Tub speeoh of the Minister for Labour when introducing bis Shipping and Seamen Bi 1 was remarkable chiefly fcr what it did not say. ■ What j't did not say, and what you certainly will not read in Hansard, is this : Mb Speaker,— This is a bill for suppressing the Union Steam ShiD Company, and for encouraging maritime strikes. It may be said of the U.S.S. Company, as Sir Robert Stout has so admirablj said of thebpard for managing our railways on business principles, that its existence is inconsistent with the principles of democracy. Ttie fleet of the company— a fleet which has .increased, is increasing, and ought'to be diminished— employs afloat upwards of 1700 men. whote wages exceed £15,000 a month. Make this gigantic monopoly a Government department, as in a democracy it ought to be, and there will ba 1700 sure votes for a people's Ministry and £15,000 a month for distribution amongst captains, chief mates, pursers, and engineers of the right colour.— (Cheers from the Labour members.) Jn the late strike— of happy memory, s:nce to it the country owes the Labour party and the present Ministry— the U.S.S. Company, in spite of the well-meant effortß of Mr J. A. Millar, managed to keep goiDg.— (Hear, hear from Mr Mills.) The hon. member who gave utterance to that indecent ejaculation will obseive that "should similar circumsta'nees present themselves in the future the provisions of this bill will make it impossible for the Union Company to keep going.— (Ministerial cheers.) Under the provisions of this bill it will not take more than a week to k« DSD S tne . non> member and the bloated capitalists associated with him to their marrow bones. By this Mil we make it possible for a crew td walk ashore at whatever time they may think most inconvenient to the company, and we make it impossible for the - company to engage another crew to replace them. That is what" will happen in the next strike. Meanwhile we harass the company by vexatious restrictions and cripple it all we can by costly and unnecessary requirements. In short, this bill, when it passes, will be a triumph of democratic legislation. It may be said, Sir, that we do not expect to pass it. Well, perhaps we don't, bub that is' not the point. The point is, Sir, that we are on the eve of a general election— ('ere, 'ere ! 'ere, 'ere ! from Mr Earnshaw)— that the labour unions have to be kept sweet, that there are 1700 seamen's votes in the fleet of the Union Company —and all bound to be polled, since seamen may vote by letter— and that it is our duty to secure those votes ;— in short, Sir, this bill is an election bid, and we are confident that our opponents will find it difficult to "go one better." " See what we are prepared to do for you, if they would only let us ! " — that is what we are saying, Sir, in every line of this bill, and though the bill itself should be emasculated in committee, or should descend bodily to the wastepaper basket— and I'm not denying that it may— it will be not one bit the less in--flueutial at the polls In that conviction, Sir, I have the greatest satisfaction in moviDg its second readiDg. This is what the Minister did not say. And yet, paradoxically, this is the most essential part of his speech. The nse of language, as somebody has remarked, is to conceal thought. Under the genial influences of office, and opportunity, Mr Siddon bas sprouted and expanded in a way that is wonderful to behold. Not 60 long ago he was known and endured as the robustious Dick Seddon who talked on anything and everything with the muddy monotony of a sludge channel. But with office, 10, a change k His torque is as active as tvet-vUiat's pa9t praying tor,— but who could have expected such a backboneand such a wrist ? He bearded the unemployed at Christoburcb, to the consternation of Mr Reeves." He put his foot— a heavy one— right through the platform of the National Liberal Association at Anckland, to the horror of -<~its builders Sir Robert, and Mr Bjlt.^ "And now be has openly snubbed the Governor and defied the great Middle Party, Me George Fisher to wit I I am not an alarmjist, but let the Liberals look to it' or we shall have a revolution in the land. In the pride pf i his new Premiership his vaunting ambition may lead him anywhere, \ an d who knq'ws I—we1 — we may wake some fine morning to find; "that bauble" gone, the 'Governor packpd/ eff to England, Mr Rolleston and the t#o Macketzies in Mount Cook prison, Mr Geoig« Fisher hanged, and his Excellency Hl r 'ffliobard Seddon gazetted Dictator of NiWiZealand. -* i; (^ . The financial debate will burst in a day or two— and tbeu, the deluge. Meanwhile the time of hon. members i 3 pleasantly and profitably passed in baiting Ministers, exchangiog amenities,'and movlug adjournments. In this connection a correspondent reminds me that in commenting as I did list week on the seemingly trivial questions asked of MitiUters" I overlooked their purpose.' I bad weakly imagined that when a member, put a question he wanted an answer. Bat it appears I was wrong. When Mr George Fisher» asks the price paid for advertisements in the Government paper, h he seeking information or smiling the enemy ? Smiting the enemy of course, and ' with effect, as the MlLi=tciial squirming shows. When the People's William inquires whether the attention of the Minister for

Justice has been drawn to the conduct of Judge Ward in reprimanding a bankrupt who preferred to remain idle rather than work for 8* a day, does he wish to enlighten the Mnister on the point or to remind the trades unionists of the zealous champion they possess in Parliament 1 Veri'y he has his reward, or looks to have it on polling day, and I am constrained to admit that there is much more in Parliamentary questions than meets the eye. Tha suspension of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company is a calamity, but it is not going to create any alarm. In Australia it has become almost fashionable fcr banks and finanoial companies to "temporarily suspend with a view to an immediate reconstruction." And no wonder ; for as the reconstruction is effected chiefly out of depositors' money.it is a very profitable operation — for the shareholders ; so profitable indeed, that some of the banks over there, it is whispered, have actually ridden for a fall — suspended for the sheer aike of reconstructing. But happily the fashion is not lik- ly to extend to New Zealand. The collapse of the Loan Company is due to spe Jial causes. It launched out in Melbourne some years ago and got swept into the maelstrom of the boom — with the usual consequences. Oar otber New Zealand institutions were less ambitious, and stayed quietly at .home, where not having boomed we are not going to bust. As for the company, itself, its stoppage will cause much inconvenience, but there is no likdihood of ultimate loss to either depositors or shareholders. The Japanese hari Mri, or " happy despatch," is, f believe^ compulsory suicide by disembowelling. It is a privi'ege of the official classes. Thu?, for example, suppose New Zealand were Japan, and Mr Cadman Japanese ' Native Minister. Suppose the Native Minister accused of corruption and awarded 20 sbilliDgs damages in a subsequent'libel action to clear his character. What then ? Why, by this time the Japanese Native Minister, otherwise Mr Cadman, would have performed the hari kiri. His colleagues would have laid the duty upon him, tenderly Lut firmly, and tbey would have seen that be attended to it. 8 sated on the ground in some convenient public place — the front lawn at Government House, perhaps, or the reclaimed land opposite Taupo f Q ua y — MrCadman.armed with a largecurved sword, raz -r edged, would have purged his dishonour by making two sufficient gishes, crosswise, in his own abdomen, and so an end. Had New Zealand been Japan, the Cadman-Rees affair would have eventuated thus— with one slight variation. The accused official is permitted to challerg j his accuser to a hari-Uri duel. The parties sit face to face, and each carves out not the other man's bowels, but his own 1 This vaiiation Mr Oadmanwoull undoubtedly have adopted, for he has adopted the nearest approach to it that the softness df colonial manners permits — a challenge to simultaneous resignation. And so, Eees accepting promptly, they have jointly and severally committed Parliamentary suicide, in the hope of a joyful resurrection for one of them. In the meantime both of these eminent Seddonites are out of the House, which is well. Perhaps neither may bs able to get back — which will be better! Best of all would be— though of course that is impossible — that for the purposes of this dispute New Zealand had been Japan. According to Professor Mihaffy, there is nowadays little genuine education anywhere, and in the primary schools of Great Britain next to none at ali. For genuine education the primary school has substituted cram. This, at any rate, as he sets forth with due detail in the-Nineteenth Century, is the professor's opinion, and he bas been, he says, an inspector of primary schools for 30 years. Pity he cannot be brought to New Zealand and commissioned to report on the results of our patent high-pressure system. We should get a lively Blue Book, doubtless— a document in the style of Colonel Fox on the i volunteers. Here i 3 a sketch— pot altogether ill-conceived — of the state, contents, and operations of the average schoolboy mind as prepared for the examiner : " The Geography I did well, I think. Trace the course of the Rhine. I know that. The Rhine rises on Mount S. Gotthard, and sets in the North Sea. And how do we know the earth is round ? Because it goes round the bun, of course. I was quite clear over the Geography, but I don't know about Grammar. lam afraid I" made some mistakes there. Paree: 'Full many a gem of purest ray serene, the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.' lam not sure if I did that rightocean bear— ocean bear. I hope I called bear a common noun, and remembered that ocean was an adjective. But what is an ocean bear ? I don't think ib can be a very common noun ; I never heard of one before. Then what was the feminine of, monk ?- — Monk ? Monkey, I suppose. Ob, dear, I can't remember anything else about anything. Define Syntax ? I can't. Syntax— l kiow you have to divide it, and say what each means separately. What is Syntax, though ? Sin means wickedness, and tax money charged by Government, and a sm tax is perhaps a tax-on the necessities of life, because it is a sin to make people pay far i things they can't do without." Very welMmagined, indeed- -nothing extenuated and nought set down in malice,— ask any New Zealand examiner. Here is a letter which might have been more fitly addressed to the erudite Baeyertz: Timaru, July 8, 1893. "Civis": Dear Sir,— lf nob beyond the••rays" of that chair on which you sit, will you kindly give yours truly an BDglish solution— or literal translation— of the following lines from Ovid'B "Metamorphoses" (lib. XV, 408 to 410) ? I may mention several versions are embraced here, but your^dictum will stand. Si tamen cbt aliquid mime novitatis in istis, Alternate vices, ctquae modo femina tergo Patsa marevi cst, nunc esse marem miremur hyaenam. The desire of "yours truly" for a "literal translation," bumorou3 though the suggestion ie, caanofc bs gratified. Does he want t-> get me into trouble with Mrs Aldis? Toankp, no 1 I have too lively a recollection of that lady's hysterics over the indelicacy of reading the Heautontimerumenos in University classes. At the same time lam always willing to help a lame dog over a stile. And this Timaru inquirer must be a very lame dog. Id the passage that Bticks

him up Ovid is saying, " If you think what I have been telling you [about the pbccaix] a crammer, what shall we say of the hyjona'-s changing its sex?" For the construction, take " hyaenam altemare vices " and " quae modo femina," &c, as object clauses under " miremur," and what more do you want ? Difficulty or shadow of difficulty there is none. If these directions are insufficient, apply to the janitor of one of the high schools, or to Mr-Baeyertz.

We (Tuapeka Times) understand that a small party of working miners at Waipori have resolved to give the O.P.Q. reef another trial. Towards that end they have arranged to put in a drive at a low level, and will set about the work at once. This ground at one time paid handsomely ; but the reef pinched out, and after some fruitless attempts to recover it, the claim was finally abandoned. We hope the pluck of the miners in once more facing so tryiDg an undertaking will meet with the large measure of reward it deserves.

Mrs Longshore - Potts M.D., and Mr J. C. Harrison M D , are soon "to leave New Zealand for Australia. They have made many friends in this colony, and we are glad to learn that their lectures have been very successful everywhere. Their work hero will be taken up by Dr John L. Nicholson who has been associated with them as consulting physician and surgeon. Dr Nicholson comes from one of the leading English universities and is a gentleman of ability and integrity. Dr Nicholson has purchased a duplicate of the very excellent etereoptican views and other illustrative material used by our American cousi'ds, and will lecture in the smaller towns which they have been unable to visit. Joseph Edwards, who has recently been figuring south as the "Great American Salesman," and the victim of a certain horsewhipping adventure in Dunedin, was on Monda^ fined £10 or two months for abu&ivo language to the station-master at Ashburton. He said he would* appeal. The Hutt County Council have confirmed their decision to adopt the toll-gate system, and, in view of tlvs last attempt to erect gates having failed— the structure being demolished, — have instructed the chairman to wait "on the Government to ask for protection for the new gates. The twelfth annual concert and ball of the Gaelic Society is to be held in the Garrison Hall, Dunedin, on Friday 21st inst. Dr Stuart, chief of the society, will occupy the chair. Particulars will be found in page 25 of this issue, Experiments have recently been made at Brest on a plan for makiDg torpedo boats invisible by enveloping them in a cloud of artificially produced smoke. An invention with that object has been patented by M. Oriolle, of Nantes, and a trial carried out by a French squadron.of torpedo boats is said to have given encouraging results.