PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2116, 13 September 1894, Page 28

PASSING NOTES.

To most things there are tw» aides, and certainly there are two sides to the M'Kenzie Lasd for Settlements Bill. The Minister is going to sell land to desirable, though probably impecunious, settlers; that is one side. But he is first' going to buy that land from its v present proprietors ; that is the other "side. Looked at in on» way the bill is the Land for Settlements Bill ; looked at in the other it may be described as the Embarrassed Proprietors' Relief Bill. There is of bourse no necessity that the proprietor to benefit by tbe bill choold be actually embarrassed. All that is necessary is that he should be in want of a customer at a price he canBot get. This waa the position of tbe wealthy -. legatees of the Cheviot estate ; this also was the case of tbe owner of Pomahaka. Then there is Mr Moore, of Glenmark — another Cheviot for bigness, — he certainly cannot be an embarrassed proprietor ; yet Mr Moore — as the Minister blandly remarked tbe other day in Parliament — is " willing to sell to the Government." No doubt he is, and for the excellent reason that he cannot sell, or oannofc sell so well, to anybody else. If not exactly an Embarrassed Proprietors' Relief Bill, this is certainly a Bill for Facilitating the Sale of Unmarketable Estates. When nobody else will boy, enter John M'Kenzie with a million and a-quarter of taxpayers' money, and the transaction is arranged at I'once. All thiags considered, . one really see why the "social pest" should rlcok upon this Government as bis natural /enemy. Tar from it 1 f { The shearers' war, beginning in Qnaens*land about August 1, thence descending (southward with the lengthening days and { 'rising thermometer, is due in Victoria about ' September 1. It is an annual discipline, and one of the signs of spring 1 . The reason why the woolgrower more than other men lies open to extortion, intimidation, and arson is that he less than other men can dispense with human assistance and get his work done by passionless machines. But for the reaper and binder the grower of corn would be in precisely the same plight as the grower f*ef wool. Every producer whose perishable ' harvest must bo saved, if saved at_ all, by human bands and within a fleeting space of weeks, may be put into a tight place, and it lis the busineis of Labour — (the capital jjj is indispensable here) — to put him F.|nto a tight plaoe. Tbe farmer owes de[iiverance to bis reaper and binder, but no ' [efficient reaper and binder has yet been indented for the wool harvest. Tbe shearing fof sheep bas made little advance since the Relays of the Jewish patriarchs. No doubt there is the Wolseley shearing machine that "requires a man to work it and deals with one Isbeep at a time — one man, one machine, one 'sheep— there is ssant relief in that. What ,1s wanted to pnt the sbeepfarmer on a level ijwitb tbe grower of grain is a machine into h one end of which you drive a flock with the .wool on and at tbe other end receive them £horn. Some American genius may yet 'compass this, failing which there seems little hope of peaceful harvest homes for Australian pastoralists.

i. There ought, however, to be redress in the jpeace-compelling power or law. The Queensland Government, not being so strictly a 'creature of the Labour unions as-ours, has brought in a Peace Preservation Bill. It is curious to find at this time of day a British community in need of a new law for the purpose of preserving the public peace. There if no want of law ; the want is of administrators to enforce it. Sir Charles Lillej, at one time Chief Justice of Queensland, now . apparently an amiable dotard and mild form ! jot anarchist, objects to this new law as " usurp[3b g the liberties of the people." The liberty [ that is bfei»gucnrped is the liberty to make civil War — the liberty of an armed mob to stop the ranning of trains, destroy property, | piitol free labourers, and paralyse the chief I industry of the country. The makiDg of a [new law to usurp these liberties is a sign of v *weakneis,bnt the Queensland Ministers will hardly be so intolerably weak as to yield te jfcbe clamour of this titled demagogue. The persistence of the "free labourer " element ±in recent labour troubles in Queensland, as in "America and elsewhere, is a significant ..thing. How is it that the unionists have 'never succeeded in absorbing this free labourer element and so completing their iron oirole of compression around the unfortunate employer! The reason is, I Imagine, that the free labourer has his own motion about the "liberties of the people," find objects to surrender his share of them In exchange for the tyranny of the union ilfaossei. He deserves reßpect as being about "the last surviving representative of the principle that "Britons never shall be slaves,"

i Turning back to an unpleasant page in oar > social history, tbe Hon. George M'Lean meni.Jtioned the other day in the Council that at [Msbe time of the strike the Union Steam Ship h Vompany were helped to keep their boats running by yonng landsmen — farmer's sons, I many of them — who shipped as firemen and ideck hands. Whereupon arose one of the labour lords, the Hob. Mr Bigg, and characterised the said farmers' sons as " blackilegt," and "the scum of tbe country." Observe tbe advantages- of parliamentary privilege. Had this enlightened labour ;lord ottered the same words in the {hearing of any # of the persons they preferred to, he would probably have 'found occasion to regret it. Tbe maniliers of the scum of the country, when under could hardly be expected to i'eihibit the repose that stamps the caste of fVere de Vere, or even of Rigg de Rigg, j^ince the latter has become a labour lord, is .jktyled" tbe honourable," lolls on velvet fonsbions, and draws bis £20 a month, j^ireg'lar, from the State exchequer. Tbe fi»t» firemen are hard, and a " blackleg ' may -be as good a leg for kicking purposes j&s another. Undoubtedly the proper place ;"from which to offer insults to persons of imi>erfeot self-control and vigorous muscles is jche " coign of vantage " afforded by a seat in ■Parliament. .

\ The Outlook is disquieted.notwithout show <r'*>t reason, abpub Ithft manner in which w«

sure bringing up the rising generation." At the receut Supreme Court sittings no less than 11 juvenile offenders were convicted of offences against property. Probably the thought at tbe back of the Outlook's mind, though not expressed in his article, is that we want religious teaching in the public schools, or at anyrata Bible reading. Well, perhaps we do; but as we are not in the least likely to get what we want, were it not well to make tbe best of what we have 1 If reb'gion cannot be taught in the State school, morality can. There is no reason why the secular schoolmaster should not emphasise, by appliances quite within his command, the difference between "mine" and "thine," as much as the distinction bstweea a noun and a verb, and teach the elementary duties ef citizeaship as clearly as the rales of arithmetic. It can be done in the schoolroom ; it can be better doce in the playground. In the schoolroom there is a good deal of enforced bypecrisy ; in the playground all this falls away ; tbe bully and the cheat come out in their natural character. If I were Minister for Education I should put " morals" in the syllabus and time-table it for the play interval and the haif-hour before and after school. The teacher should turn out with his children — an embodied Public Opinion, Supreme Court, and Day of Judgment. I suppose there is not a teacher in the country ready to thank m* for this suggestion. There is nob one who is willing to enter into the life and thought of his young barbarians in the mimic world of the playground. When school is out, the teacher is Id, — calculating bis averages, I suppose. Well, be may be thankful that I am not the law and tbe Parliament, the Education Board and the Minister.

The latest item of news about tbe bulletproof coat is that Herr Dowe, its inventor, whilst demonstrating by experiment at the Strasburg Theatre its invulnerability, received -a dangerous gunshot wound, and was carried off to the hospital. It must be conceded to Herr Dowe that he had tbe courage of bis opinions. He allowed himself to be shot at, and would have stood tbe test that put to flight an earlier inventor, wboße interview witn F.M. tbe Duke of Wellington is still a tradition at the Horse Guards. " Have you got tbe thing with yen ? " asked tbe duke. " Put it on. Sergeant, send up a couple of men from the guardhouse, and let them load with ball cartridge." In a twinkling the inventor and his bullet-proof coat bad disappeared. There is a story resembling this in the " Englishman in Paris." Durirjg tbe siege a lecture on " Eogines of War " was delivered in one of the theatres. It began by an exhibition of bullet-proof pads, by means of whicH the soldier might fearlessly advance towards the enemy; " because they render that part of the body on which they are worn invulnerable." After a satirical question from the audience about protection for that part of the person exposed by retreating soldiers, tbe lecturer proceeded :

He placed bis pad against an upright board in the shape of a target and began firing at it with a revolver at the distance of four or five pacts. The material, though singed, was not pierced, but the spectators seemed by no means convinced. "You wear the pad, aud let ma have a shot at you," exclaim°d one ; at which offer the lecturer made a long face. " Haveyou ever tried the experiment on a livioganima' ?" ask* another. "Perfectly," repli.d the lectnrer ; "1 tried it on my clrrk." which admission was hailed with shouts of laughter. There were cries for the clerk, who did not appear. A corporal of the Natioual Guards proposed to try an experiment on the le turer and his pad with the bayonet fastened to a chv.ssepob ; thereupon lecturer and pad suddenly disappeared behind the wings.

When one has bsgun to quote from the " Englishman In Paris " it ii difficult to stop. On the Bams page with the bnllet- proof coat story is an account of some of tbe lunatic plans submitted to the War Minister for the instantaneous annihilation of the 300,000 Germans axound Paris. These plans were always respectfully liatened to "on the chance of there being something in them." One was to construct a sledgehammer, 15 miles in circumference, and weighing 10 millions of tons. It was to be lifted to a certain altitude by means of balloon*. A favourable wind had to be waited for, which would send the balloons in the direction of Versailles, where tbe ropes confining tbe hammer would be cut. In its fall it would crush and bury tbe headquarters and the bulk of the Germany army. Here is an interview between another inventor and Prince Bibesco, one of the officials of the War Office:

He was a little man about the height of M. Thiers. His opening speech w*s in proportion to his height ; it consisted of one line. " Monsieur, I annihilate the Germans with one blow," he said. I was thrown off my guard in spite of myself, for etiquette d-mmds that I should keep serious; and I replied : "Let me fill my pipe befo c you do it."

Meanwhile my visitor spread out a large roll of psper on the table. "I am not an inventor," he said ; " I merely adapt the lessons of ancient history to the present circumstances. I merely modify the trick of the horse of Troy. Here is Paris, with ite 96 bastions, its forts, &c. I dr»w three lines. Along the first I send 25,000 men, pretending to attack the northern posi-icn of the enemy ; along the second line I send a similar number, apparently beut on a similar attempt to the south ; m> 50.00Q troops are perfeotlj visible to the Germans, for they commence their march an hour or so before dusk. Meanwhile darkness sets in, and that is the moment I choose to despatch 150 000 troops, screened and entirely concexled by a movable wall ef sheet iron, blackened by smoke. My 150,000 men behind their wall ps-netrate unhindered as far as the Prussian lines, where 100,000 fall on their backs, taking aim over the wall ; wbile 56 GOO keep moving it forward slowly Twelveshofcs for every m>n make 1,200,000 shots— more than enough to cause a panic among the Germans, who do not know whence the firing proceeds, because my wall is as dark as night itsplf. Supposing, however, that 'h^se who hsve been left in .tbe camp defend themselves, tbeir proj-ctiles will glance off against the sheet iron oJ the wall, which, if necessary, can be thrown duwn finally by our own men, who will finish their buainess with the bayonet and the sword." In New Zealand we send crank* of this quality to Parliament, and occasionally even make them Ministers of the Crown. In tbe legislation now before the House there are projects hardly one whit lees mad. Guns,