The Otago Witness

Otago Witness, Issue 2170, 26 September 1895, Page 27

The Otago Witness

WITH WHICH IS INCORPOKATHD THH SOUTIOtBK MBBCOBY. (THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 86, 1895.) THE WEEK.

" NDDQuam uliaU natarn, uliod gapieotia dixit."— JvrtNtl, " Good nature and good sense must crer jolu."— Por».

The records of the past fortnight have shown a growiag distaste on <* wizardry » the part of some of the lessserof vile Government followers for Sorts. tho3e party restraints which necessarily limit the expression of the real feeling evoked by the inoredible blunders of the Ministry. What we described a few weeks ago as tbe collapse of the bubble reputation of Mr Ward was no doubt the bsginning of this notable feature of recent Parliamentary history. It would require the exeroiso of a considerable amount of imagination to pretend that subsequent events have tended to reinstate the Treasurer in the favourable position which for a too brief period he held in the estimation of the members of his party ; while as for his place in the regard of the people generally, it is hardly too much to say that has received a severe shock indeed. We firmly believe that it is thie, rather than any falling off in the great personal inflaecce of Mr Seddon, that has led to that flat blasphemy against their leaders which has been so distinguishing a feature of recent speeches by pronounced supporters of the Government. Some of these speeches far transcend in bitter severity anything that has ever appeared in the columns of the Opposition press, and can reflect on the part of the speakers nothing but exasperation due to an unpleasant awakening as to the real character o£ much of the financial huggermugger which in their days of darkness they unfortunately lauded as the "wizardry of finance." They are being unpleasantly reminded now that to call a man a wizard in money matters may be very true without being particularly complimentary, However, as Government supporters have apparently learnt the occasional The use of their tongues if not Ministry's y«t of their votes, we re- « Littio Bill." commend to their notice as a fit subject lor disrespectful language the Ministerial Salaries and Allowances Bill. In the first place, tbej might venture to Inquire what is the use of a bill to regulate the "aUommW'oi fchd pre&fttjt SttslgtaA w)to

I in that as in many other things have shown for years a lofty disregard of any Parliamentary regulation whatever. Pnrliamont has settled that Government allowances in excess of palaries shall ba limited to £1000 a year ; ihe present Ministers coolly divide a handsome pool of £3000 odd, to which, it must not be forgotten, are added free railway passes, tho free use of the Government steamer Hinemoa, and, in addition, a " freedom " in the use for their personal purposes of other branohos of tbe public service which has never been even distantly approaohed by any Ministry before them. In this freedom, moreover, they are materially assisted by the handy assortment of particular friends with which they have thoughtfully stocked oertain departments of the Oivil Service, the whole forming a most desirable and salubrious arrangement, to little outer details of which tbo public occasionally finds its way by some accident which even what Sir Robert Stout oalli the present " terrorism" over tbe Bervioa cannot entirely circumvent. What, in the faoe of reoent ravelations in this way, can be the earthly use of passing an Allowances Bill, the immediate ignoring of which in any convenient way a servile majority is certain to condone ? With the question of the actual salaries of Ministers we shall not for tbe moment deal. We recognise that it is a fairly debatable one ; but among other points bearing upon it, we may suggest is obviously tbe question what has been the average rate of net pay per working day drawn by the preoent Ministers sincfl their accession to ofllca? By working day we of course mean time spent at the work the country pays them fco do, reasouable holidays being also taken into account ; and we venture to say that if the reply were an honest one (of which there is of coarse no chancs, witness previous attempts at soliciting information of the kind) tho pleasing fiction that Ministers are paid merely £1000 a year would spsedily vanish into thin air. It may be that even at the rate of pay they actually draw they are not overpaid ; if so, we could still wish that they would draw their fair pay in a fair way, and not eke it out in the scandalous fashion by which they periodically shock every conscience but the party one. There is, however, an even more important principle dealt with in the Mr Soddon bill to which we have as drawn attention. It is now OHyci- Twist, pretended (by a Ministry whioh inoludes at least one member who, when ho was not in himself, stubbornly contended that five Ministers were ample) that an eighth Cabinet appointment has become necessary. (It is an odd coincidence, by the way, that the same Government is contending that while Ministers, who are half the time junketing about the country and have heaps of secretaries, are overworked, tbe judges of the Supreme Court, who have only'one secretary, and rarely if ever get a holiday at all, have all the time been over-manned and ought to be reduced by a fifth.) The bill for appointing an eighth Minister has been, it is needless to Bay, kept low on the Order Paper, so that it should always be under the noses of those whom it might (usefully) concern. But this is a detail. The real question is whether another Minister id wanted at all ; and if this question were relegated to the public, who see for thoinselves how much work the seven existing ones do, there would be very little hesitation in disposing of the matter. To say nothing of the constant holiday trips we bear about, surely the action of Messrs Ward and M'Kenzie at least (the Premier is really a havd-working man) verges upon the impudent, seeing that as one result of the former's trip to England these two Worthy members have been awarded a couple of lucrative directorships which will require a large sbare of their time. Is it proposed to make the colony pay for an additional Minister every time that the existing ones violate the principle of one-man-one-billet (a bad one, we admit) to ' whioh they once pretended to bow down? Or is another Cabinet recruit wanted every time the Minister for Labour gets off one of his urgently unimportant little bills, or goes to Australia to boast of being a straight-out Socialist, and comes back to New Zealand to deny it ? One need not, however, waste words in pointing out that the whole thing is a pretence, and, in point of fact, a bribe. It marks the fact that allegiance is strained in many quarters, and requires that skilled attention which the Premier so well knows how to give. The public, as we have said, would dispose of the matter in a very concise way if the public had any means of pronouncing upon it. Unfortunately it has to be pronounced upon, not by the public (for whom Ministerial billets are not), bnt by a majority which, almost to a man, is willing to " save the country " by filling up the blank in the bill. If the bill proposed straight out that the honourable member for (name in full) should bo appointed Minister, it would .be vetoed with an alacrity and unanimity whioh would leave that honourable member (who would naturally vote the other way) dependent on the Ministry for a teller. It doesn't, ft proposes that a Minister shall be appointed ; and that, as we shall presently see from the division list, is a very widely different thing indeed. Members of the majority will, on this occasion, be very oareful not to lay themselves open to the imputation of " dosing the avenues to employment." In an article in the Daily Times our contemporary places before its Legislation by readers some considerations Evasion. affecting the Fair Bent Bill which may be new to many, and which all will at leatt admit to be of a I kind which cannot reasonably be overlooked. These considerations apply more or less to any proposal involving the forcible intervention of tho State between lessor and lessee: but they particularly relate to the Fair Rent Bill introduced, wish doubtless the most excellent intentioi:s,\.y the Minister for Laccls. Nothing has bean more characteristic of the present Government from first to last than the incapacity ita members so constantly exhibit for envisaging or appreciating the most obvious mattere of detail. A popular cry of any kind sets them to work in banting haste to prepare a " popular " bill ; and this bill, when ifc lees tbe light, rarely contra much mit (tun tbe aotaaj pro-

posals of the unthinking street ranter who first started the new idea, whatever it may bp. . The biotory of tbe Government bristles with instanoes of the kind, and in the race for the absurd snprom«cy the Minister for L^nds only yiolds by a short nock to hifl colleogno tbo Minister for Labour, who will probably hold the world's record for this kind of thing until an irritated and exasperated country shelves him and his endless pecking, twaddling bills for ever. We have said, and we believe, that the Minister for Lands is actuated by the best intentions in introducing thin measure for the fixing of fair rents. But surely a Minister should aim a little higher than to earn so doubtful a popular approval as ia expressed in the phrase " He means well, but he don't know," even if he cannot always avoid exemplifying the newer aphorism, " 'E dhnno where 'c are." There is, we admit, a strong feeling in the country that rents should be subjected to regulation by the State. If it ia to be further admitted that such a principle will stand examination and must be elevated into law, it is nevertheless exceedingly unlikely that the bare enactment of the principlo in that crude and ohr-otic form will satisfy the requirements of reasonable statesmanship. Yet the Minister for Lands seerny incapable, like the Minister for Labour and in a lemer degree the other Ministers, of doiog more than bowing before a popular demand and telling a Parliamentary draughtsman to provide a bill for it. Here we have a bill which, for all that its provisions show of thought or prudence, might have been dr*wn up by any one of a dozen extempore speakers at a selectors' meeting, instead of by a Minifiter whose responsibility is to the country and not to the audience of an evening. This manner of dealing with the subject may be glib and easy, and may earn momentary applause from a class ; but considered as a dlsoharge of a public duty it is simply not respectable. The interforenca of the State in private leaaiug arrangements may or may not be the lesser of two evils ; we believe it to be on the whole tbe greater, Bab in any case, to leave the inevitable anomalies simply withont recognition, and therefore withont the merest attempt at remedy, is to reduce the Fair Rent Bill in all but the better motives of its author to the oontemptible level of last session's Undesirable Immigrants and Libel Limitation.

The faot that the pay for men and of women for tbe snme work (or thereA Question abontß)',iis unequal ia treated 88 of a new discovery iv the recent Equality. correspondence columns off he Otago Daily Times, and a good many people who have presumably not been asleep for the last few years announced themselves as befog genuinely sbooksd by it. The circumstance recalls the profane I story of the American who, dealing somewhat violently with a very important •vent of ancient times in the world's history, explained apologetically that he "only, heard of it last night." By all means let us begin to look into the question if necessary, and remedy injustice if there ia any, but to do so it is not necessary to pretend that a shocking ncandal has been suddenly brought to light. And we wonld venture, as respectfully and delioately as we may, to hint to tho participators in the debate that a hysterical method of treatment is about the least hopeful system of therapeutics to apply to the malady alleged to have been diagnosed in the present instance. Why are women paid leaa than men in oertain departments of work? That question is perbapß best answered by asking another — namely, Who are most injured by such a state of affairs— the women or the men 1 And people who glibly dispose of this question in a few excited sentences about oppression, •• the cause," and the intolerable wrongs that only univerually-united Woman can ooerce tyrant man into redressing, should ponder this well before they speak, and be sure that those whose welfare they have at heart will in the end bave cause to be grateful for their advocaoy. Is it quite certain, to begin with, that it is quite fair to pay women who are not (as a rale, with of course many exceptions) the family breadwinners, and whose wages can be dene without, as muoh as men who are either married or are severely counselled by women about the duty of marrying and maintaining a family 7 Wo admit, while we contend, that it is arguable. But if it is to be in future recognised that an employer who takes n woman intohia service instead of a man, where the woman will do the werk as well* mast pay her the wages he wonld pay the man, we shall fiud women in a very shert time employing every possible art to circumvent what they will coma to regard as an arbitrary law. They will want back their lost privilege of coming and saying, 11 Give me that work ; lam badly in want of it, and I will do it for a good living wage and no more." Women know quite well that there are many departments of work now open to them in which, for certain reasons quite plain to themselves, employers will persistently give the preference to men if they cannot save money by employing women. The labour unions will support the cry for equal wages to women for reasons not quite so disinterested as may at first appear. We bave no desire to dogmatise on the subject or to pretend that we, any more than the disputants, have said the last word on an 1 exceedingly intricate question. But we detect certain hysterical symptoms among some worthy people whioh induce u« to presage that a word of warning to women will not be altogether superfluous.

The Spectator, which retains its reputation aaone of thomoet thoughtful Off the journals in England, has been Track. doing the subject of boy nature. Its tact is taken from the records of a gruesome murder— a matricide— committed the other day at Plaiatow by two boys of 11 and 13, the details of which are almost too horrible for record here. As the Spectator foroibly cays, a \% thas had worried tho poor viotim to death* ooald not hate shown less understanding that wrong had be«n done khan ttwae boys evinced; and the writer proceeds to argue that what was wnmg with their mental and moral equipment is wrong in only a lesser degree wita those of the avetaga boy hj«a«ej& Tfatß is rather a startling proposition,

bat we mast admit that tbe article is on th« whole written in a spirit of appreciative sympathy with boy nature, whife insieticg that that nature in ita tvplcul form inoludes a " lfiok of sensibility and sympathy, and a hardness of feeling," which is a sufficient "solution of the mystery of boyish wickedness." "It never occurs to him that the boys whose heads he ponohes in the streets, the wayfarers whom he pelts and otherwise insults and injnreß on the Queen's highway, or, again, the j farmers whose orohards he robe, or whoae cattle he teases into madnesj, or the maids whom ho frightena into hysteric* by boobytraps and sheeted ghoatß possess any righto that need be respected. It is almost impossible to get him to sco that it la unkind to frighten a timid girl who has to go home on winter evenings through the ohorchyard," and so on ; wherefrom the writer would apparently argue that it is only a greater degree of "unklndnesa" that impels an" infant of 13 to lethal ferocity againoc its own mother. We think all this is very unjust and abfuard. Apart from the very doabtful qae«tion whether it is possible to pronounce, even as an approximate generalisation, that; the nature of a boy it ao-and-so — any more than we can similarly generalise tws to th* nature of middle-aged men or old women-" this contention that kindliness is normally ' absent from the nature of manly boys is agunst our experience, and we hope against that of our readers. What the Spectator calls "the temporary and partial patrlfacfcion of the feelings and the moral Eense during boyhood,'' and attempts to account for by the ak>sorptk>n of mental energy due to rapid physical growth (ia whloh oase what about the girls, who surely grow as fast about the same time ?), need not be so accounted for, for It does not normally exist. That there are plenty of ornel and brutal boys no one of course denies ; but the matter ends there. To*duoe an essay upon boy nature from s. hideous and almost unprecedented caso ofi infantile crime requires surely a lot of justifying. It cannot be justified in an adeqaato degree by the terms of the essay itself. I Neither ia it sufficiently condoned by tbe fall justice which the writer does to the good qualities of tbe average' boy iv other respeotf. Wo probably all recognise that thoogbtlesiaese, and the impulsive, action which revolt* from it, are very generally obsracteritftio of boys; bnt if that is all the Speotatot writer meant, it is very much lews than fas baa said, as will be recognised from the; brief exfcraots we have given.