PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2087, 22 February 1894, Page 27

PASSING NOTES.

Mk Lee Smith must be a proud and happy man just now. The Government are sending him to Canada to represent the colony at the Trade Convention there, and the Dunedin papers are singing his piaiaes in chorus, and pronouncing him the very best man for the post. His selection by the Government has in itself little significance, for I do them no wrong in saying that with them, as with al. Governments, colour counts before capacity Mr Lee Smith is of the right colour, and has done and suffered as much for his masters as any man in the land. But that the local papers should cay all the kind things they have taid — this in deed and in truth is noteworthy, and must be a delightfully new experience to the late candidate for Bruce, who h3s no doubt a lively recollection to this day of the buffettings he endured at their hands in the course of that disastrous campaign. And to their congratulations I gladly add my own, for, politics apart, he is all that could be desired for such a purpose — shrewd, clear-headed, well-read, a commercial expert, and a commercial success. lam aware, of course, that in certain high quarters this last qualification tells against him, in that it imports tho reproach ot beiDg a capitalist. Under the present dispensation a capitalist is nearly as objectionable as a social pest. JLSut luckily the Ministry have overlooked this drawback, and Mr Lee Smith gees to Canada iribtead of his Tai - anaki namesake, or huch aa he. In wishing him bun voyage I venture to offer a few hints that may not be included in his official instructions. Let him eschew politics and perorations, beware of bimetallism, and j maintain a judicioua silence on the vexed question of " bagn." In such case his report will prove a valuable State paper which may peradventttre be worth a seat in the Upper House, if not a X.C.M G.-ship.

Like the road to a certain p!ace that shall be nameless the Otago Central line is paved with good resolutions, and one more was successfully added to the number on Monday last. It is a curious coincidence that no railway in the colony has been blessed with so many motions and resolutions, and cursed with bo many hindrances and v delays.

Ministers and members vie with one another in protesting their conviction that the works must go on ; but, somehow, go on they don't, and people are beginning to ask themselves if there has ever been any real intention that they should. Thanks to Mr Earnsbaw, the difference between Mr Seddon's professions and performances are distinctly visible to the naked eye of everybody except Mr Pinkerton, who, as a possible Minister for Labour, is for the moment slightly colour blind. In his Public Works Statement of IS9I Mr S. sets forth, "the urgent necessity of vigorously prosecuting the works." In that of 1892 he declares them to be " the most important in the Middle Island." These be brave words, bufc in 189 i what Co we learn 7 The line is become "an asylum for the unemployed," and "men are dismissed that farmers may find harvesticg hands!" Vigorous prosecution this with a vengeance, but what else is to be expected when our representatives can never by any chance meet over the matter without falling out 7 It's a strange thing, but a true, that the one unfailing effect of the Otago Central question is to set Otago members by the ears, and Ministers must contemplate it with Machiavellian satisfaction, for they possess quite enough Latin to understand the injunction, Divide et impera.

Mr Gresley Lukin's Land and Loan Policy is dazzling in its audacity. Millions of EDglish money to bo poured into the country at 5 per cent, interest, and the interest alone to repay the principal, nationalise the land, and leave us free from taxation and debt, all in the flight of a bicgle century 1 Talk of Aladdin's new lamps for old after that I The able editor of the Daily Times has provision* ally approved the scheme, wherefore it would savour of high treason for me to question it, even were I so disposed, which I am not. On the contrary, I am as anxious as anybody to assist the English capitalist to his own good — and mine. My only objection is that it doesn't go far enough. Who is the farmer that he alone should get cheap money from the State? However, that's a detail that may be dealt with later on. Everything must have a beginning, and the great thing is to bring the English capitalist Co a proper frame of mind. At present he gets 2£ per cent, from consols. We are ready and willing to give him 3£, but he can't be induced to take it — foolish man that he is. Pure prejudice, of course ; but there you are. His e9rs are deafened with the din of falling and reconstructing banks and companies, and he stolidly and stupidly buttons up his pocket?, to his own loss — and ourß. He sniffs suspiciously at colonial bond°, and can't be tempted to touch them at less than 4 per cent. But he believes in the Kothschilds and the governor of the Bank of England. Whatsoever these financial magnates bid him that will he do, and on this hint Mr Lukin speaks. Given their countenance and we may dispense with the specific mortgage and the State guarantee. But without it I fear me that all the mortgages and guarantees we could devise will not avail to get English money at a penny less than the current rate. And how Mr Lukin is to secure the co-operation of these gentlemen he has not as yet disclosed.

The telegrams are telling us that Mr Gladstone has developed cataract, and will presently be blind. They will probably deny it next week. Nobody really believes in the destructibility of Me Gladstone. At one time you occasionally heard it remarked that he must die some day, but people have ceased to make that remark. It had grown monotonous. You may still read it or its equivalent now and then in a newspaper article, editors being superior to prejudice ; and yet, considering the fact that in every leading newspaper office Mr Gladstone's obituaiy notice, several columns long, duly ordered and paid for, has been dead stock for the last 15 years, we may well believe that the subject is one upon which even the most impartial editors are a little sore. Some short time ago Mr Gladstone was tossed by a cow, bufc the cow it was that died. Later, he came into collision with a London street cab ; that cab became a total loss. If to-morrow he fell from the roof of a house nothing would be damaged but the pavement. lam talking somewhat in hyperboles, of course, and no irreverence is meant — personally I am a devout Gladstonian — but on the Eubject of Mr Gladstone's physical and mental indestructibility that is how we all feel. It is irrational, but we can't help it. As far back as any of us, even the oldest, can recollect, there has always been a Mr Gladstone, and we make the instinctive inference that there always will be. English politics without him are inconceivable. One of his foreign critics, quoted by Mr Stead in the Eeview of Review, maintains cot only that Mr Gladstone is the greatest of living men and one of the noblest figures in the whole history of the world, but that at this very moment, halfway through his ninth decade, " Gladstone is growing " — to which remark Mr Stead, himself a Gladstonian, appends an incredulous note cf exclamation — " (1)." He should pray for an increase of faith.

Women have many grievances, according to Mrs Hatton, but their fundamental grievance is that Providence has made them women. Understand at once, please, that this sentiment is not mine ; lam merely repeating Mrs Hatton, or rather, to speak by the card, I am extracting the spirit of Mrs Hatfcon's latest address to her depressed bufc insurgent sisterhood. Nobody but a woman would count her sex a grievance. My own fixed and immovable conviction is that women dominate the world. The first woman did it. And as it was in the beginning, so it is now, and so it ever shall be. To the end of time whenever a man goe.s wrong the maxim will hold good- " Clierchez la femme." And whenever at the cose of pain and effort he goes right, the probability is that he will have found his inspiration, or a large part of it, in the desire to please some woman —

Whose bright eyes llain influence, and judge the prize. Anyhow, these are my sentiments, and therein I differ from Mrs Hatlon, whose address from end to end reeks of pessimism and disparagement of the privileges of her own sex. Women have always been wronged, she says ; women everywhere are being wronged still. Ihey are wronged by

their husbands, wronged by society,, wronged by the laws. "If it is easier for a camel to go through a needle'seye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, how much more difficultmust it be for a poor married woman 1 " It' she get there at all ie will be as one l of those " who have come out of great tribulation.'" And yet there are more married women 1 there than, single women! Tho reason of this distinction appears to be the wickedness of human laws as made by men. " What a different value men put on the honour and vinue of our girls to what they put upon property, chattels, or money 1 " Tho remedy proposed by Mrs Hatton is legislation that would enable a girl who has lost her honour to blackmail men right and left. But this ia a detail that may be left to take care of itself. In the meantime cannot Mrs Hatton cheer up a bit 7 The case of womanhood cannot be quite bo bad as she makes out, now that sex in politics is abolished and every woman is politically as good aa any man, and morally, of course, a vast deal better.

A recruiting officer for the Commucistlc Settlement in Paraguay has been lecturing in tho Choral Hall. He is Mr Petet M 'Naught, deputy-chairmau of the New Australia 00-operativo Settlement Association, and he appeared under the congenial patronage of Messrs Pinkerton and Earnsbaw, M.H.ll.'s. (And, by the way, where* was Mr Hutchison 7 This must be looked to.) Discontented with civilisation — as Mr M'Naught explained — the Communists of Australia are Jleeing to the wilderness, there--to try something different. Joy be withthem! I commend their pluck, llesults at> present are nil, except, of course, the resultthat there are so many Communists the less' in Australia, and that is a result that tho Australian Governments will bo able to bear with equanimity. Sir Georga Dibbs, I fancy, won't shed many tears over this Communistic Hegira. In New Zealand we want population badly — that I persistently maintain ; yet we could spare Mr M'Naught a few recruits of the right sort. The Corn Law Rhymer's definition ol a Communist still, I suppose, holds good : "VVliftt is a Communist ? One who hath yearnings For equal division of unequal earnings ; Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing To fork out his sixpence and pockot your shilling. Anyhow this is the essence and substance of the Communism commended by Mr Wm. Hutchison, M.H.K., to the Knights of Labour — for which see last Saturday's Timed. I marvel again that Mr Hutchison contrived to be absent from the M'Naught kcture. Was he afraid of being swept oil — by sheer forco of his principles — to Paraguay 7 One wonders* by the way, what the Legislative honorarium ought to be on Communistic principles, andi whether payment of members obtains in New Australia. I cheerfully make Mr M'Naught the present of a few recruits, who never would be missed — beginnicg with the three city M.H.R.'s.

In New Australia there are to be no " unemployed." Mark this well, and observe with care how a consummation so much to be desired is brought about. A minimum, of population is to be fixed, — cay 10,000, since with lees there would be wanting the advantages of the subdivision and organisation of labour; — also a maximum, — say 20,000, because with more the commuuity would become unwieldy and the share of each tend to diminish. The maximum, therefore, must not be exceeded ; if the birth rate is lively, and the 20,000 become 21.000, there are 1000 " unemployed," who, I infer, are to be marched to the frontier and dismissed into space. And tbah is how the Communistic New Australia will never have any "unemployed"! Most admirable! Now under the civilisation which is our opprobrium we have never hit upon thi3 unselfish maximum-of-populalion idea. On the contrary, wo have permitted children to be born ad lib., have left our ports open to vagrants from every quarter of the globe, and then established charitable aid, labour bureaus, and co-operative railway works for the " unemployed " 1 Fools that we have been 1 On the beneficent principles of Communism we should have reeded simply to proclaim a maximum of population, including within it ail who were comfortably well to do, and then drive the rest into the sea. That, or the equivalent of ib, in what they are going to do in Paraguay— from which it will be seen that the difference between the Old Obadiah and the Young Obadiah is more considerable than at firft appeared. Needless to say, the Young Obadiah will not bother himself much with the principles of Christianity* They savour too strongly of the civilisation he repudiates. Care of Number One is, after all, the fir3t law of Communism — What's yours is mine, and what's mine's my own. CIVIS.