THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2104, 21 June 1894, Page 27

THE WEEK.

■■ Hanqatm illud naton, »Uud lapiontUdlxH."— Jovm^ 11 Soodantuie >n& good ush rait or«r Jain." — Po?a.

Very unenviable indeed is the position of a licensing committeeman in a

place like Dunedin after a popular vote for reduction

The " Surylval of the Fittest."

has been carried — a vote, that

is, that enforces redaction, not merely permits ir. Tne remarks made last week by our contributor " Oivis " will probably have found a half- confessed echo in many a breast which yet heaves with the uncompromising virtue of the Prohibitionist It is one thing to admit that the number of publichouses in Dunedin badly needs reducing by one-fourth; we all admit that — admitted and insisted upon it before the vote, and admit it and iußibt upon it (our insistence meanwhile fortified by the operation of law) now. But it is quite another thing to select the victims — so many, no more and no less ; quite another thing, indeed, even to select those who are to stay, knowing that in many cases there is not a pin to choose between them and some who are to go. Let us assume the exercise of the utmost discrimination by those entrusted with the duty of selection, and it yet must stand to reason that glorious haphazard must govern the choice in many a secretly decided case. Not inapt would most of us deem an address from the unconvinced victims to their judges in a paraphrase of the national poet, as an authority Wha as it pleaseth best thysel' Sends three to heaven and ane to hell A' for thy glory, And no for any quid or ill They've done afore ye. The statement would not be true, for there is every reason to believe that the members of the committee do wish to discriminate as far as they can. But if the final award as between paradise and sheol had to b3 made on the tnree-quarter principle, we can well imagine that even superhuman wisdom might fail to get itself humbly recognised among the judged, and that some such sentiment as Barns has voiced would be widely prevalent on the last day.

To sweep away the present means of livelihood of all the publicans ia DarjeQin at a stroke would be in some respects a lighter undertaking ; indeed, following up on a de* termined prohibition vote, it would be a mere routine executive act, like the sentencing and incarcerating of a criminal whom an already dispersed jury have found guilty. The jury ia the present case have said, " Three-fourths "of these men are innocent and one-fourth isn't, but we don't know which is which ; you pick your fourth and sentence them — it isn't our business any more." Then come the appeals from all quarters of "Please, sir, not me, sir; the other boy, sir" — piteous and genuine, in general, from the applicants; artificial bat uncommonly forcible from their able counsel. One is a widow, whose only support is the rent that depends on the license; another has grown grey in the business, and knows no other craft ; another, a keeper, perhaps, of some hateful drinking den, makes a more eloquent^ and perhaps even a more in-

geniously efficient appeal than either. We sympathise sincerely with the bench in bo invidious a task. The one comfott is that good— great and substantial good — will probably come of it.

Murmurs against the inexorable theory of selection, by the aid of which "Unselected." Charles Darwin detnon-

strated the true order and dibpotition of the organic world, there have been of course since the world began. In the struggle for existence, which is perpetual, it is impossible for all to survive ; the weak, the defective — whether from any fault of their own or not matters no whit; to " Nature, red in tooth and claw " — go to the wall ; the fittest, whether from virtue, vice, or mere chance, survive. If there is any comfort to the " unselected " publicans in these reflections — which- is doubtful — it may be enhanced by remembering that there is no instance of any perception or admission of their unfitness by the •• unfit " in Nature. Panch parodied this fact in the lament of the forlorn old maid — Nature must win— yes, that's to be expected ; But, oh 1 it's hard to linger Unselected 1

There is another analogy, too, from natural history which cannot but be borne in mind in relation to the committee's labours. Naturalists tell us that as we observe beings lower and lower down in tho scale of life, gradually we approach a condition of things where it is hard to tell whether the creature we are looking at is an animal or a vegetable. All tests that can be applied to discriminate between tbe claims of tbe two great kingdoms to possess the tiny organism ultimately fail, and it comes at last to a toss-up whether it is classed in the one or the other. One of the scientific worthies, it is said, proposed in consequence of thia difficulty to create a sort ot no man's land in which to place these doubtful creatures, and for a time the idea seemed to work fairly well. But

Naturam expellas f urea, tamen usque recurret and there very soon arose doubts as to whether certain little beings ought to belong to the scientific no-man's-land, or to the animal kingdom on the one hand, or the vegetable on the other. So the original difficulty was seep to be virtually doubled, and the intermediate kingdom was despairingly dropped out of the text- books.

We may assume that the committee, in secret conclave, may have taken temporary refage in this futile scientific dodge, and created a middle kingdom wherein for a brief space to put the names which they could not for the moment allocate to their final restiDgplace. If so, the laws of lioeneicg, like the laws of Nature, would sooner or later bring them face to face with the inevitable, and the duty of distributing the doubtfals would yet have to be done. As we bave said, the duty is a scientific puzzle of hopeless complexity, and we must all fasten on to the undeniable truth that substantial reduction was necessajy, in order to repress any riairg qualms of regret that may arise within u=i as we view the process in actual operation.

We obseive that one of the great steam

companies has ordered another vessel of 8000 tons burden, with capacity for

A Sea Puzzle.

" 80,000 frozen sheep, for the New Zealand trade. Tbe gigantic development of this business brings with it its own special expenses and its own necessities. Possibly the companies are not aware that questions are beginning to be asked as to whether it does not bring also its own dangers. Nothing is more certain than that shipowners are finding bigger and bigger vessels absolutely necessary to commercial success, and thiß seems to be especially the case in connection with the comparatively new business of frczen meat transportation. Yet in that business there neem to exist speoial conditions which tend to produce some degree of uneasiness among those who watch the rapid progressive increase in tbe capacity of the oarrying boats.

What would happen on a steamer carrying, for instance, 80,000 oarcases of sheep if the delicate refrigerating machinery utterly broke down 1 Such an occurrence, it may be at once replied (and admitted), is in the last degrea unlikely. Tempoiary breakdowns in this as in the other parts of a ship's engines can nearly always be put right in a day or two bp tbe artificers on board. But it can hardly be denied that there may be exceptions. The mci chant service, and still more the Royal Navy, offer numerous examples of tbe total breakdown of various departments of the machinery— buc^, for instance, as tbe steering gear or the turret motors. Assuming that such an accident to the refrigerator were to happen at sea, what provision exists for promptly throwing 80,000 carcases — say, 2000 tons — of m-=at into the water? and if it can be done at al<, how soon can it be done, with the crew that these ships carry — insisted, if necessary, by the able-bodied passengers, in tbe case of passenger ships 1 If the stuff — say, for instance, in the tropic, and starting after a day or two's vain endeavours to repair the engines and Favo the cargo — cannot be thrown overboard in a certain number of hours, the consequence to the ship's living freight might obviously be serious : especially as work would sootier cr later become impossible in the atmostphsre of tbe refrigerating chamber, thereby )erjderlngtheprobU-m of efftQtlva promptnoso a si ill more- urgent one.

We may possibly in rhe«e suggestions be deaUog ia mere landsman Fiiahion with a difficulty already well provided against. The fact that the siae of ships is increasing out of all proportion to the numbers of their crews does, howfaver, lend a rather pr-s^ing intereht— especially from a passenger's point of view — to questions like these. We would suggest that some public notice might sensibly be taken ot the point by the companies concerned. It may be that a few words will allay all reasonable fear by showing that the possible danger we have indicated has already been considered and provided for. On the other hand it may be found that, if that is not the oase, the means of meeting the danger if it arises may be made more satisfactory than thay already are ; or, lastly, it may even ba shown, to the satisfaction of tervous people and ourselves, that as a matter of faot no such danger can arise at all. We don't, however, expect this latter demonstration,

Mr Ward's speech at Oamaro was uot inn proved by his lame attempt Tho Treasurer to iropeso upon his hearers at Oamaru. the identically same explana-

ticn with regard to tbe £476,000 of Treasury bills as that which was virtually laughed out of Parliament last yrar. Otherwise, he ppoke as he always does — pleasantly, takingly, and occasionally with earnestness and force. We are afraid, however, that he will not have been successful in the main purpose of his speech, which was evidently to impress the people with tho conviction that, after all, with tho exception of a trifling falling off during the last two months, the colony is in a delightfully buoyant and prosperous condition. That may very well be the opinion of a gentleman in a position of power in Wellington, presiding over a Treasury over-filled with the over-taxation of a heavily burdened people ; but is it, in spite cf the Treasurer'^ honeyed word's, the rea), honest opinion of any business man ? of any farmer ? of any artisan, any labourer, any of the distressingly numerous unemployed, any of the hundreds of people who, in despair of makirg a living here, are acfually beginning to create a "second exodus " to neighbouring colonies whistfe tho chances of employment or betterment never were so desperate as they are now 1 These are the questions that. the Oamaru audience are sure to havo asked themselves a few hours afcer Mr Ward had received hia due meed of applause and mad-? bis last — is it bis hundredth ? — migration to his private business at the Bluff in the Government [ steam yacht. We do not believe in croakers; but the glorifications in which Ministers habitually indulge by way of recommendiDg their policy and, its results have already filled New Zaalund with Australian unemployed, and it is surely time that even Ministers began to pee that there is a point at which people will begin to grow restive under a baseless optimism at which hitherto they have merely smiled.

An odd change has come over Mr Ward's method of reference to the conversion operations. At the beginning of Lia term of office, when it was pointed out that the Government had come iv for Bonne hundreds t.f thousands of pounds of released sinkiDg 1 funds, Ministers used to loudly proclaim that at any rate that was none of their own work — that it was Sir Harry Atkinson's (which it was*, and that there could be no reflection on them in the matter. Now that they have found out that conversion is universally approved and that no one wants or ever did want to cast any reflections, so loDg as it was not persistently pr< - tended that the^e windfalls cxme out of ordinary revenue, the whole tone is charged, 'and Mr Ward treat-j conversion in his spoecb as if he were its sole inventor and patentee. There is not a solitary word in the Oamara ppeech to indicate that it iB a heritage, like so many other good things, from his predecessors.

Considerable interest centres in the cheap money scheme, and it must be meantime hoped that the Government has something practical and useful to reveal. We have already dealt with this subject, but it is only fair to be ready to cons Her it once again now that we are told tha (something practical and generally available is forthcoming. We can hardly feel the same confidence a» Mr Ward professes in tbe information he gets from bis colleague the Minister for Lands, who has repeatedly been found dealing with paper facts as if they were actual, especially as regards the monetary results of land schemes.

The news that Mr Justice Vaughan Williams has directed the Official Re-

A Thunderbolt.

ceiver to institute proceedings for the recovery of im-

properly-paid dividends, from the ex-directors of the Loan and Mercantile ia decidedly startling. Notwithstanding the many previous mutterings to the effect that this step would be taken, few can have really believed that it was actually going to be done. Tbe ex directors themselves can hardly, it must be supposed, havo imagined that, in addition to the severe public ordeal through which they bave recently passed, so tremendous a danger would presently overtake them.

The position is a little puzzling. It has been authoritatively announcd that the company is now reinstated in active business; the calls have been met, the consequent cash is available, and the " shops " are once more supposed to be running under their proper name. As the shareholders are the same, the debtors the same, the creditors the same, and the company the same, it is not very clear what the Official Receiver has to do with the matter. The new directors of tbe reconstructed company are not in tbe power of the court akd cannot be ordered to institute tho proceediogs which Judge Vaughan Williams requires at the hands of the Receiver. The new directors, acting for the oompany, are averse to entering on the proposed litigation. It ia not easy to see why, at the demand of the Official Receiver, the unfortunate shareholders of the company should be compelled to enter at their own expense upon a costly, invidious, and risky lawsuit, in which the beet legal talent in England will infallibly be ranged againt-t them. They, at lea-t, n would seem, ought to beallowed a voice in tbe question wh^thergood money can in this case bs profitably thrown after bad. It is probably the view cf Mr Justioo Will : ams, however, that '.he shareholders have in f ffect (through their new director.-) had thia voice, that they have decided against the litigation io question, and that it therefore becomes his paramount duty iv tbe public interests, and wit.h a view to the piotec'ion not onlr r f the Lmn and Merc-nfcile shareholders but of all present and futute shareholders iv existing and future companies, to insist upon a great object lesson being impressed upon the world as to the grave responsibilities incurred by directors who pay shareholder*' dividends out of capital and call it " profits."

The grave significance of the announcement

is immensely increased by Its the fact that the proposed Significance, action is to be taken at the

direct imtance of the eminent judge who has presided at the public examination of tho directors, officers, and auditors cf the la*«iy insolvent company. It would be impossible to exaggerate the extent <,£ t'ae QjQudeuasa which, after thq

events of the last months, the whole English" speaking public instinctively feels in tbe ability, impartiality, and absolute fearlessness of th s model English judge. To any man not guided by the sternest rectitude, and we may add not fortified by exceptional gifts o£ understanding, it would bave been impossible not to have betrayed significant weaknesses during these protracted proceeditg*, in the coarse of which British and colonial Cabinet Ministeis and ex-Miniiters, an ex-Governor, and some of the beßt known financiers and accountants in London passed in file before tbe judge, each in his turn coming far more under the latter's personal ken than witnesses or even the accused at an ordinary trial ever do. That Judge Williams in these difficuit circumstances established an overwhelming claim to the highest confidence of tbe public is now a mere truism. While, therefore, a comparatively languid >ntere3t attached to tbe question whether the new directors would of their own motion, and as a business affair, demand from the old ones the amount of dividends paid out of capital, it becomes a very different thing when Mr Justice Vaugban Wiltiamp, of 7tis own motion, and very prc^bably not altogether as a business affair, peremptorily directs that the thing shall be done. The enormous responsibility assume! by the judge in making such a direction needs no lntisiing upon. Ho certainly among other thirgs — to the lay mind, at any rate — indicates by the very fact of his diiection that he believes that; the law will enforce the repayment. He cannot mean lightly to compel the shareholders, already well-nigh drained by past losses, to start on a wildgo ase chase of so expensive a kind — to say nothing of the fact that a demonstration of the illegality of the demand would seiiously injure his own prestige as being virtually tbe person who, after the fullest deliberation, insisted upon making it at other people's expense. He is not the man, moreover, to subject tbe unfortunats ex-directors to proceedings of so harassing a kind in the mere wantonness of arbitrary authority. It appears that the judge must certaiDly believe that the law justifies and compels tbe demand, and is likely to enforce its compliance.

What the amount of dividends paid out of capital in the " wretched past " (one of the ex-directors of the Loan and Mercantile was the iaventor of that ominous phrase) may have been we can at present form no idea. The accounts of that time were Bhamefully cooked in tbe office, and infamously audited out of it. Bat enough is known to make is clear that the penalty now apparently hanging over the beads of the ex-directors is a tremendous, if not indeed an absolutely ruinous, one.

At the office of the Otago Central R rilway League there is to be seen a

Tlio J^tago Central.

map which is not w'tbout public interest. It has been prepared by the Govern-

ment Survey department in Weliiogton for the purpose of showing the area of lands "within 15 miles of tbe Otago Central railway." When the Hon. John M'Kenzie, Minister for Lands, epoke at Hyde on the Ist of last month he made some such extraordinary statements relative to tbe area and value of lands available for settlement that would be affected by the construction of the railway as to cause tjs to dispute their accuracy. In order to recall the matter more clearly we will repeat the words of the Minister to which exception was taken : — " I venture to say now here before you, and I am saying it in the presenc9 of gentlemen who know Central Otago as well as I do, that we bave not €0,000 acres of land in the whole of Central Otago suitable for small settlements." Mr William Babron, who was present as representirg the league, very properly took exception to tbe Minister's statement as" being not only unfairly prejudicial to the interests of the line, but «ot in accordance with facts Ret out in authorised official report?. Mr M'Kenzie, in reply, said : "Mr Barron has challenged my statement here to-day in connection with the area of land. I have here an official map which shows the land disposed of, and you will see that the Otigo Central railway passes through private property and small grazing runs till it reaches Alexandra, and 1 challenge Mr Barron, tbe league, or anyone — I will make him a present of tbe map —to show that there are 50,000 acres fit for settlement." The map, although claimed at the time, was not then handed over, but a copy of it has now been sent to Mr Barron from Wellington, and it is that to which we refer, and to which Mr Leary, the secretary of tbe league, has drawn our attention. It will be observed by those wbo inspect the map that it draws a strict line to include only lands within 15 mile 3o£ the railway, or, rather, to exclude all lands beyond that distance. Wby the immense area outside of that line which mast be more or less beneficially affected by the makiog of the railway should be excluded from consideration in tbe estimate has not been «hown, and to leave it out. of consideration 5s hardly fair. • Certainly Mr M'Kenzie, ia the words we have ' quoted, gave no vindication that he based bis figures on .any snch limit. It will also be noticed ■that Ms statement about private property •is not strictly accurate. But even with suth limitations and misinterpretations conceded, the map shows that the Minister must have strangely .misread it. It shows that there are even within 15 miles of the Otago Central railway 1,862,800 acres in pastoral runs, and 409,800 acres in small grazing runs, and that the arable land in these pastoral rues amounts to 449,000 acres. There is a very curious note at the corner of tbe map, about which there is much margin for differences of opinion, and it would be interesting to know how it came there. It savours more of Ministerial manipulation than official accuracy. It is to tLe effect that the arable land " available for small settlement " amounts to only about 50,000 acres, because the 449,000 acres of arable land consist of the valleys within tbe pastoral country " and it would be impossible to sever the whole of it from the pastoral runs without makiDg them unfit for pastoral occupation." Surely if a fifth of tbe total urea of nearly 2.000,000 acres of land in pastoral mns within tbe 15mile limit is arable land, as the Government map says it is, the Minister who had that map in hU band at tbe $"\e should bays

I disclosed the fact when he cpoke instead of suppressing it ; and surely there should be no difficulty in so arranging both pastoral and agricultural holdings when that large area comes to be again dealt with as to render available for small settlement a much larger proportion of nearly half a million acres of arable land than 50,000 acres. Let ns again quote Mr M'Kenzie's speech : — " When we meet with statements like the one referred to, made by public men who profess to know what they are talking of, which are likely to delude and deceive other people, it is onl\ right, since I am here in a responsible position, that I should take the opportunity of correcting tbe statement." We leave the application to himself.