(THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1896.) THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2200, 30 April 1896, Page 29

(THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1896.) THE WEEK.

" Nunquam allud nUura, stliud itptentit dSxlt."— Jutxvu. " flood nature »nd good seme must erer join." — Vorx. We see no great reason to quarrel with the Minister for Lands over his The Palmerston speech except it Wrong End be on the score that it was a of deadly dull performance. The Stick. The mnch-*nffering journalist looks in dismay over the dreary expanse of space where the travelling ia all in monotonous ruts — where r o new idea is to be found, and no approach to fraehneis in the statement of old ideas. Mr M'Kenzie i likes to ring the changes upon words and | ahibboleths, and in the lack of matter to interest his bearers we are not sure but it is aR good a line as may be. It has i. certain effect upon tbe ears of the ignorant portion of bis audienoe, and perhaps in the present »f age of our existence tbe ignorant portion of a political audience is the. majority. We do not Mippose it trouble* many of Mr M'K*-nzie's constituents to inquire what meaning attaches to the words " Liberal " and " Conservative," and in the absence of any definition it is natural for them to be influenced by tbe constant and rather unintelligent harping of Mr M'Ket.zle on this old and favourite Btri«jg, and to believe th&t he himself represents all that is liberal and his opponents all that i» conservative. Tbe press to boot, and now even the careful and colourless Press Association comes in for a share of the puerile and ridiculous criticism. We do not know that the speech is worthy of much comment at our hands. Perhaps one specimen of the manner in which Mr M'K-Dzte trades upon the ignorance of bis audience will be eufucisnfc. At one time it was the boast of the Government that they were not borrowing at all ; tbaV they were carrying out a policy of " self-reliance " and oonttructing works out of revenue. Mr M'K>nzie sees dearly that the stuffing has been hopelessly knocked out of that cry. The rapid mounting of the public debt has i put an end to it for ever. He would there- ! fore have simple people believe that the ' borrowing of hie Government was a very ' different sort of borrowing from that of former Governments: — —

The purposes to which borrowed money had been applied by the prt-senb GoTernment were very diff-r-nt from thoe to which it had been previ u&ly applied. This Government had 1-om.wed to, buy land for settlement and to buy Dative land. . . . This was not borrowing under the old system ; it was borrowing for purposes which immediately yielded profits. In tim»s gone by money was borrowed to purchase the district railways, which had been niudc by private p* ople to open up their own lands, and relieving the proprietors of the responsibility in connection with them. % There is something really ludicrously audacious in all this. Tbere ruust »urely have been many among Mr MKeczle's audience who knew that the purchase of the district railways was not the polioy and the act of Mr M'Keczie's opponents, but. of bis friends —that he himself indeed was one of the purchasers. The act authorising the purchase waa passed by the Stout- Vogel Government in 1885, Mr M'KeDzle being himenlf at tbe time a leadicg supporter of the Government and rather a henchman of Sir Robert Stout. The Waimea Plains railway was purchased tbe following year by the same Government. It was in connection with a Canterbury district railway that Major Steward, another supporter, unenvfably distinguished himself. We are not now condemning the purchases. It wae rather hard on the unsettled districts to be thuß forestalled in railway communication, but sooner or later the district railways would have had to be purchased. Bat it shows how curiously small a sense of responsibility Mr M'Kenzie has when he would jump a whole period of years during whir his opponents honestly carried on the working of general railway construction with the means at their disposal, in order to fasten on them an act for which Mr M'Kenzie himself was responsible. And as for the " profits " of bis land-purchas-ing business — Pomabaka to wit, which is now more than half lying waste — we should like to know how the figures are made up, bnt shall have to wait awhile for the knowledge. Every one must feel a large amount of sympathy with the desire Arbitration which is being evinced in YersugWar. England and America jnst

now that all oauses of dlipnto tatiroa the two great English-

speaking nations should ba settled by arbitration instead of by w^r. There are certain moments in which every one feels that war is one of those methods of settling a dbpute which we have inherited from barbarity, and it seems very easy to argue that if individuals can settle their disputes by a civil process the masse 3of individuals we call nations could do the same. The cost, too,' of the continental and other atmaments of the present day is frightful, and it is easy to see that the enormous sums spent upon, say, the amelioration of the social condition of the various peoples would powerfully assist national well-being and the general progress of civilisation. But however deplorable the present condition of things may be it is difficult to see any hope, any remote prospect even, of a general resort to peaceful methods of settlement. Deputes between individuals are disputes between persons of the same blood, the same history, the same associations, and the same i«wa. If the blood is not common, at least the ideas and associations are. In disputes between nations all this is changed. - There is no confidence in fair dealing, no confidence in judges where race, history, and tradition are opposed. England is an unpopular nation, mainly because she in wealthy, powerful, and isolated -because, in other word», she oan afford to isolate herself. Hitherto she has certainly reoeived no encouragement in Submitting disputes to the arbitration of other nations, almost every case having gone against her, and with much solid ground for Buapicion that the fact was not due to the merits of the cases. As between England and America the facilities for arbitration would at the fiist glance seem more hopeful. But, after all, it is only minor causes of dispute ihat could be so settled, and minor causes, though they may give rise to much heated controversy, are not at all likely to give rise to war in these days. Obviously, however,'there are questions which neither nation could ever submit to arbitration. The Americans would never submit the Monroe doctrine. England oould never submit her rights over a large portion — the largest portion—of the American continent. The Transvaal is quite an unimportant portion of a far-off group of depandenoies, bnt she could never submit her right of snzerninty — now j dfeputed by the Germans— to any totm of arbitration. In all groat questions war must be arbiter Jn the last resort. The possibility of settlement by war has its use?, too. All the provocations to war would probably be much n ore readily indulged it every nation felt certain that war would not ensue. We are afraid that tbe proposal for Anglo-American arbitration will end as it Degan— in an amiable desire for such a mode [ x>l settlement, with no hope, of realising It | for many generations yet to corns. ■ We sometimes think it a great pity the mass of the people of this , Wher* the colony cannot see the parHoney Goes, liamentary returns from time to time. They are not lively reading, but they are often instructive enough. Two returns, issued in response to ' demands of inquisitive members of Parliament during last session, are of that character. The first is in oonneotion with Mr Valentine, the "dairy expert," who had a meteoric connection with thin colony not very long ago*. A good many of the items I makir>g up the expenses of this gentleman have been paraded before the public before, but there is perhaps a completeness about the " demnition total " that may be said to lend a fresh interest to the subject. Mr Valentine was engaged as a dairy expert for this colony, but served in it, as the return shows, only 152 days, when be went Home on the colony's business, and then dropped into something good on his own account. His expenses are divided into several head*, alter the approved manner of sermons. First of all, then, tbe cost of the passages of Mr Valentine and bis wife from London to New Zealand, and then, at the end of the celebrated 152 days, from New Zealand to London, amounted to £316 Bs. In addition to the passage money, the expenses of the pair In London, on the Continent, in America, Australia, and New Zealand amounted to £566 2« Id. The odd penny shows how very accurately. Mr Valentine kept bis accounts. His salary for the short period he was at work here, with some lectures said to have been delivered in London on behalf of tbe colony, amounted to £512 2s Id. The total expenditure on this gentleman was therefore £1454 12s 2A. What Mr Valentine gave the colony in consideration of this sum is not stated ; these items never are in returns. Mr Valentine was a comet who suddenly appeared within the confines of our little world, and enlarged his tail considerably before ho disappeared into' tbe vortex. '

The other return worthy of note is that which gives the travelling expenses of Muaisters, a return which was by no means easy Bf extraction if we may judge by the fact that it was asked for on July *, 1894, and furnished — in total merely — on July 23, 1895. For the year ending March 1891 the travelling tours of Ministers cost the oolony over £2000. Taken by itself it is not a great stun, but we dare say it would look large enough could we but compare it with the benefits received. It shows, however, a daring tendency to increase. The following year the amount came to £3129 18s 4d. Out of this a sum of £494 9s 6d was for a native tour of Messrs Seddon and Carroll. Later Sir Robert Stout asked for the particulars of the Uriwera tour of the same gentlemen. Tbe total for travelling expenses came to £680 3s 4d for this one tour, to say nothing of various small items out of a " contingencies " vote for the outfit of Mr Carroll, in the shape of valise, portfolio, and even saddle straps. These items appear in the Native Purposes section of the civil list ; and anyone who glances at that list will observe two items, one standing above tbe other, as thus : — Food and clothing for natives M . £688 3 8 Travelling expenses (Meagre Seddon and Carroll) for the Uriwera tour 680 3 10 So that this tour of these two Ministers came to about- as much as the charitable aid vote for the whole native population ! Messrs Seddon and Carroll are having a roaring time of it. Mr Carroll was not supposed to have any salary, but his travelling one way or another came to £600 last year. They will doubtless in time— » little time, let vi hops— lool^bftok upon fchoit poriod of

office as a strange and fascinating period of their lives. And tbe people of New Zealand, we feel assured, will look back upon it, too — as very strange indeed, The death of Sir Henry Parkes in Sydney removes a very old and a very well-known figure from the colonial scene.- Sir Henry Puikes was a good deal bigger man than most of bis contemporaries holding similar positions. He was a well-known man outside his own colony. Mr R&id, Mr Gillloa, Mr Turner, Mr Kingston, Mr Seddon,' and many others arc merely men who have managed to attain the Premiership in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and New Zealand. Outside their respective colonies they will never be much known, and as soon as they are superseded they are apt to be quite forgotten. Sir Henry Parkes was of a different stamp. He was an Australasian statesman. His individuality, like that of Sir George Grey, was strong enough to make a good big dent in colonial history. la that respect •• the two men stand alone. In all others, however, they were very different. Sir Gaorge Grey is a man of refinement and culture, with very JUfcle practical capacity for affairs. Sir Henry Parkes was a man of great practical capacity and only the rudest sort of self culture. He was one of the men — not an inconsiderable number — who j net mirs genius. He did too many things well to be able to do any one thing supremely well. He was something of a poet, something of an orator, something of a writer, and something of a statesman and man of business. Like Sir George, he was a man of great courage and strong physique. He was an octogenarian with the energy of a man of 40, and, like all men of oourage and energf, be did not know when to give in. He lingered too long upon the stage. A year ago he fought a desperate battle with the Premier for a Sydney constituency. A couple of months ago he made a last pathetic effort to re-enter Parlia- ! ment. There was a general tendency to laugh at him at tbe time ; there always is a tendency to laugh at those who fall and who lack dignity in their failure. That will all cow be changed to a sentiment cf respect for the memory of a manly spirit who spent a long and troublous time in the set vice of his fellow men. A good many people appear to be a little icandali&ed at the fact that some whisky was found to have been smuggled in to tbe temperance banquet recently given in honour of Mr Hall Jones in Timaru. We are ourselves neither scandalised nor astonished. Mr Jones himself is doubtless a perfectly honest advocate of prohibition, and for all we know to the contrary he may never taste anything stronger than tea. A good many prohibitionists, however, are by no means so scrupulous. They have learned the art of enjoying both worlds thoroughly; they enjoy the temperance vote and the forbidden liquor equally well. But it doss not follow that the supporters of Mr Jones are prohibitionists; if they were we do not suppose that gentleman would at the present moment be member for Timaru, unless he somehow slipped in by the aid of the much- despised minority vote. Thote who were not prohibitionist* could<not be expected to change their natures all of a sudden, and bad they taken the other alternative asd stayed away they would have spoiled the triumph of Mr Jones. No one iB to be despised because he finds that a teetotal banquet is a poor and cold affair. It is a faot in Nature which can't be altogether ignored that a little wine, or something stronger, makes^ the heart glow and the Intellect play without otherwise aff acting the head in the least degree. The lesson we should learn from tbe Incident is that prohibitionist* must not drive human nature too hardly. Morality is better maintained when a man drinks openly in moderation than when he »urreptitio«sly takes a pull at the bottle. If prohibitionists would strive earnestly in concert with all temperate people to devise a means by which the abuse of strong drink oould be abolished, We might then see them with perfect propriety and contentment enjoy their cup of tea oi their glass of ginger beer while their neighbour peacefully enjoyed his wine. There is no such thing as uniformity of taste in Nature, and we maj be sure there never will bo. These it something extremely characteristic and highly amusing in some of the remarks made by tbe Hon. W. J. M. Larnach at Lawrence and other places on the subject of the Pastoral Tenants Ralief Bill. Mr Lar- \ naoh extolled the Minister for Lands up to tbe skies for passing the bill, which he said was passed for a class who had always been the deadly opponent! of tbe Minister. This is by no means strictly accurate. Tbe act was passed for the benefit of pastoral tenants of the Orown who had suffered by the phenomenal severity of la»t winter. The act applied to all pastoral tenants, large or small, and a large number of small holders availed themselves of its provisions. It was a very good act and very necessary under the exceptional circumstances. The Minister did his part in passing the measure ; tbe various Waste Lands Boards administered the Act. The Orown itself, it must be remembered, was a gainer by the legislation, for had not something been done there can be no doubt whatever that a very large area of land would have been surrendered, and with tbe winter dangers of the holdings made so obvious, very small rents, by comparison, with the old, oould have been expected.' Where Mr Larnach is unconsciously amusing is in his sarcastic references to the persons benefited, of whom he declared probably "not 3 per oent." would vote for the Minister in consequence, nor for a supporter of the Government. This naive remark throws a gleam of light upon what is a little puzzling to many people in Mr Larnach's own political career. His notion evidently is that people should vote not in accordance with the political convictions they hold, but rather in relation to the benefits they receive. It would be curious to know whether Mr Larnaob applies the same code of morals to voting in the House, We confess to occasionally receiving a jar in reading the reports x/t synods and presbyteries, and we were very oonsoious of the feeling In going over the discussion in the Dunedin Presbytery on the subjeot of the 1 "oftU" from the Bluff church to the Rev. W.

H. Ash. It was the speech of Mr Ash bin)* self that jarred. That gentleman has bee» taken to task for remarking that Raven*, bourne was "cursed" with ■ too many churches. It was an unhappy expressions but it may be as a- slip ; &? Ash hiniß&lf has explained It away, and ttwus^ the, matter should end. What to n» «pw? offensive was the spirit of smug 86lf-s*tefSsss> tion with which Mr Ash expressed hk*t*s throughout. In explaining that he had not sought for the call, Mr Ash remarked rather unnecessarily that "b« had carefully refrained from letting bis voice bo heard in any vacant churches" since the time of his induction at Ravens, bourne. Batter churches than that of th« Bluff had been vacant and he had not gone near aiiy of them, " not even to preach fora day." The responsibility of leaving Raven*, bourne for the Bluff was so terrible that " b« dare not take it," but must throw the ouns oi deciding upon the Presbytery. When Mr, Ash | gets a little older asd gains a little more worldly wisdom, he will, we have no doubt, | discover that he may allow bin voice to be | heard in any vacant church with no great { consequences to speak of. He will aUo ,- I doubtless discover that the responsibility of ! shifting from one email churoh to another is I not so great bnt that he can safely take it on bis own shoulders without troubling the Presbytery over it, and giving undue publicity and^tmportance to so small a matter. We fully .believe that Mr Aeh ia doing good and useful work at Ravensbourne, and would do equally, good and ueeful w&rk at the _, Bluff ; but it would *arely be better for him '' to put a matter of this tort plainly and honestly, as laymen are wont to do in analogous circumstances, and say that the difference between tbe two places was not sufficiently great in favour of the Bluff to warrant him in leaving Raveneboarne. It is difficult not to feel that" had the call been to a churoh of greater importance Mr Ash would not have been so over-weighted with the sense of responsibility. A very good illustration of how dire events from simple oanies spring may be found now In the ourions oo&dition of the Adelaide Publio Hospital. That institution seems to be in a very parlous state. Apparently it has no medical staff, no nurses, and no patients except the unbappy ones who have no means of clearing oat of the institution. The row begun with the appoint* ment, or the reappointmeot, of a nurse at the hands of Mr Kingston, the Premier, who appears to ba a man who pays much attention to very imall matters indeed. When the nurse reappeared the honorary medical and surgical staff resigned in a body* Then the chairman of the Hospital Board resigned, and some other members with him. Whether on account of medioal etiquette or for some other reason, no medioal men conld be got to attend the hospital, and then the "patients began to take up, or rather to leave, their beds and walk. Finally the Premier appears to have cabled the Agent-general to get doctors for the hospital, but tbe British M' dical Journal, we are now told, refused te receive his advertisement, deolaricg the I circumstances would not warrant doctor! lin accepting the position A celebrated 1 Italian doctor of ' long ago, attached i to an army in the field, wae in great distress when be fonud there was no more oil among hia stores, - the application ' of boiling oil being then the cor root treatment for gun-shot wounds. In fear and trembling ne applied cold water bandages in lieu- of the oi), and wm astounded next morning to find hio patients doing much better .under tbe new treatment than the old. A oouple of hundred years ago, or even 100, perhaps, the patients in the Adelaide Hospital might have fared well in the absence of all the doctors, but in these days of scientific medicine one can hardly hop© for similar happy results. Two of the waggons attached to the usual stock train which leaves Dunedin for Pe-lmer-•ton at 9 p.m. on Tuesday left the raetkls aft Deep creek, on the Dunedin side of Seacliff, lturt evening. One of the waggons was badly smashed, while the other, whioh contained ■owe furniture,' was not much damaged. A number of men were at once got together to clear the line. Nothing is known as to what caused the waggons to leave the rails. The Hon. J. M'Keozie addressed a crowded meeting of hit constituents at Sts. Bathing on Tue*d*y night on the vaiious political qucßtions of the day, and gave an outline of the propoeed legislation nest eenion. Tbe address was very well received. At tbe conclusion), qa the motion of Mr Thomas Wilkinson', seconded by Mr M Fahey, he, was unanimously accorded ft vote of thinks for the address; confidence in him as a representative, and confidence in the Government. ' ■ ,^,

< The Hon. W. M. Bolt delivered an address in Naieby on Saturday evening 'entitled " The Rise of Modern Capitalism," the Mayor (Ms W. Gome) occupying the chair. The addrers, which was a particularly interesting one, dealt with tbe history of the increase of wealth sipet the invention of the steam engine and •piai.ing loom and its concentration into the hands ol the few to the detriment of the many. Mr Bolt handled hit subject in a manner which showed that h<* had given it careful consideration. Mr J. J. R»m*ay, president of the Parnwra' Club, proposed a vote of thanki, which was seconded by Mr John Law, and carried. Mr B. Gordon, in supporting the motion, criticised some portions of Mr Bolt's addresi, but declared it to be a very able one. A vote of thanks to the mayor for presiding brought the proceedings to a olof c. The Bruce Herald states that last week a little child named Ryan had a miraculous escape from death on the Lawrence line neat Waitahuca. It appears that tbe engine driver, noticiug the child on the line, whistled to get her off, 'but the child being too young apparently to understand, took no netice, and before the train could be stopped the cowcatcher caught the child up and threw her off the line. The train was Mapped, and tbe guard and driver went back and picked the child op. To thlir joy and aotonishment tbey found the girl WAS not harmed in any. way, except that her nose was bleeding •lightly, and next day, on inquiry, they found that the was running about none the worse fbr her acoideut. The News says that tbere are no lets than IS accident cases in the Southland Hospital at tbe present moment. For the last four or five month* there h*s beea »n Average of about ten patients receiving treatment for fractured limb* in the institution,