PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2299, 24 March 1898, Page 57

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

» — — . Otago's Jubilee. Now I don't intend to write much on this point, simply because I can't ; for who can improve on the special Times and Witness number t Besides, interesting as the subject is, simply as a passing event, apart from its great historical importance, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. However. I'll venture on a word of advice. Get the special number ; also this and nesb week's Witnesses, and if possible a week's file of the i Daily Time?, and put them away as a con- \ tribution to the early historical literature of the colony. They won't become quite as valuable as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, co much quoted in Green's and other standard histories, but still they will ba valuable by-acd-bye. It's p. long time to look ahead ; but supposing those who are old enough to realise the significance oE the event now being celebrated were to make cp their minds to possess the papers I have mentioned and keep them for tbe Centenary ? O£ course most present possessors will pay the debt of nature before 1948, but many will Burvive, and, all being well, will participate with pride in that distant evesit. The pioneers who landed in the first three or four ships have in some instances children not yet out of their taens, and these may live to see Ike Centenary ; and with what pleasure they will then re-tell the stories reoeived first hand from the first to make thsiv fixed habitatioas here. Danedin will perhaps then be a city of 100,000 people, and Oi.sg-> the home of a million or more ; and as the children of the present day, then grey haired j and threescore and tan or more, walk through j Danedhi streets, they wiJl point out the i wonderful advance that has been made since tha advent of their fathers. Here will be a magnificent building where formerly there was a wbare, and on & section worth perhaps tecs of thousands oil pounds, bufc formerly | purchasable for a ten-pound note. There a | magnificent pile of buildings on reclaimed land once undar the sea. They will tell how the land from Ofcago Heads to tbe. Nuggets was bought f rom th« natives for less than the present value of a section ia Prieees street, j and that ihe whole didn'c cost more than s .three halfpence per acre But I am not an Old Ictentity — I am what tbe Old Identities used to call oae of the New Iniquity, and so cannot be supposed to i know the little of ancient history we po2sess. I may som« day; though, before long pi6C3 together a few of the interesting j portions of Pr Hooken's boot on the Otago s Sattlßmeafc - \ (Germany. j I read tha othei day in a Home financial I paper what I thought a good article oa Germany anil her Emperor, and I'll give you the gist of it. Ths income tax is paid on all incomes above £45 a year, and returns show that 91 per cent, live oa less ; and there are only 100" with incornc3 over £25,000. Less than 4 per cent, have property worth £300, and leas than 2 per cent, over £1000; *=hile out of 32,000,000 persons cniy 11,000 have property worth £25,000, and 35 per cent, of j the land value is mortgaged. These figures j are given to show that the country 5s poverty- j stricken aad heavily taxed. j Politically and socially there is a spirit of j great unrest. Generally speaking the popu- » lation of the kingdom is divided into two j parts — the governing military class and the j governed commercial class — and between j these the greatest antipathy exist?. The Emperor has so opsnly shown his leaning to the army, and has go exalted the profession of arms, that military men assume a supe- j riority and exercise their authority so offensively as to bring them into almost open conflict with the rest ot the community. Commercially the. writer doubts whether Protection and the forcing of trade are the benefit to the empire- that the Germans think. The sugar bounty is a tax uf £5,000,000 a year, and causes German sugai j to be dearer in Garniany than outside of it | The balance of trade is £40,000,000 a year against Gsrmany. In the case of Britain a ' smaller export than import means the [ balance in favour of her, for the differeace | represents interest comiag in on foreign in- | vestments, but in Germany this is not so to i anything like the same extent. The income on j investments in Germany only amounts to i some £50,000,000, and it isn't likely that interest on German foreign investments amounts to half of that. This being so, she must be getting poorer year by year. Aad the German Emperor doesn't improve . matters when he preaches the Divine Right of Kings, tells soldiers only to consort with soldiers, and recruits to shoot down their fathers afc his word c£ command. When he says snob things he makes himself a laugh-ing-stock. Then he ie an uncertain element in the Council of Nations, for his repeated change of face and insane subservience when ha wishes to carry his point have made him S distrusted by all. He is now nearly 40, aiui S his character may be deemed to have reached j maturity, bufc his morbid restlessness acd übiquitous self-assertion doesn't show that settled unsettled character to be an enviable one. By the cynical Berliners he is called " The Travelliug Emperor," in rhyming contradistinction to William I, styled " The Grey-haired Emperor," and to Frederick, J " The Wise Emperor." Someone more pun- i gently inclined asked the riddle : " Wlaafc is j the difference between the Emperor and God 1 " and answered ib with : " God knows all things, but the Emperor knows all things better." Judging by the article I have referred to Germany's stupendous efforts to wiu territory and coaiEierce are not doiDg the country ar>.y good, and the antagonism between the military aud tha commercial classes aud

the fUghtiness of the Emperor are all com* biniag to do the nation very material harm. I did think I would give you a brfef out* line of the position in the East, but I'll leavs it stand over; besides, I do not think th« editor will be at all sorry to have an extr% inch or two for Jubilee " copy." At any rate I'll give myself the benefit of th« doubt. Before this appears in print most of .tha celebrations will be over. I hope that you will have had a real good time of it, and that most of my "boys" will live a prosperous 50 years from hence, and so form an attractive group in the Centenary Gathericg of 1948.