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WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (THURSDAY, A PHIL 14, 1898.) THE WEEK.

" Xunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia diiit." — Juvenal. "Gooa nature aad good sense must ever join."— >Por«. The great battle which has for some time been pending in tbe Soudan

The Anglo-Egyptian Victory.

has at length been fought and won. The Dervish leader M^hmud (a brother of the

ivLuiuiaj uas oeen capturea, and his principal Emirs killed. Osman Digna, the only Emir of any note left to the Khalifa — who must cow bitterly regret the many brave leaders he, from jealousy and other reasons, has put to death during the last half-dozen years — has escaped by taking time by the forelock. The complete and crashing victory obtained by Sir Herbert Kitcbeaer will not surprise those who have made themselves acquainted with the literature of the Socdan, which has been gathering since the priest Ocdhwalder escaped in 1893, after a 10 years' captivity. It is not only that the Fgyplian army has been thoroughly reorganised under the cool head of its distinguished Sirdar and is thoroughly officered by Englishmen, mostly young and active officers ; but the Dervishes were known to have become thoroughly disorganised, partly by the recognition of the religious fraud which had been practised on them by the Mahdi, and very greatly by the ignorant, cruel, and vicious rule of his euccessor tbe present Khalifa. Tbe movement initiated by the Mabdi in 1883 was purely a religious one. He prcclaimed himself the successor of the Propber, and was firmly believed to be so by the great bulk of ihe credulons inhabitants of the Soudan, who used to crowd in thousands about bis door, watch with awe his every movement, and esteem themselves happy if they cauld get a chance to drink the water in which be washed his hands. Their eyea were opened by his death.which occurred immediately after he had promised (under the inspiration of the Prophet) to overrun all Egypt and capture tiie hoiy city of Mecca. Since then the history of the Soudan has been a talo of unrelieved barbarity, cruelty, and confiscation, o£ which the inhabitants are well known to have become thoroughly weary. The road, or rather the river, is now open to the Dervish capital, OmdurmaD, which during the last 13 years has taken tbe plnco of Khartoum. This, too, is the season of high Nile, so that we may expect to hear before long of the advance of the Egyptian ariuy there. It is very questionable whether a single blow will be (struck by th& Khalifa at Omdnrmar. In the early days of tbe soigo of Khartoum, and while rumours of Lord Wol3eley's unhappily delcyed advance were current in the Soudan, the M<jhdi prudently announced that he had been instructed by the Prophet to retire to El Obsid, the capital of the remote province oE Kordcfan, near the scene o£ the annihilation of Hicks Pasha's army in 1884. El Obeid would scarcely be remote enough for the Kbalifa with the Anglo-Egyptians in Omdurmsm. But it should suiprise no one to find that by tba time General Kitchener raacb.es that city the

Khalifa, with his treasure and his Baggara tribe— if they stick to him, which is doubtful — had taken his departure for the Bahr el Ghazal, the largest, most southern, and least known province of the old Egyptian Soudan. A very short time now will tell.

Speaking at Clyds the Hon. Mr Larnach

took a sensible and common-

Mr Larnach at Clyde.

sense view of the old age pension scheme, and he deserves credit for his courage in coming out with it so

bluntly. Like everyone else Mr Larnach agrees with the principle of old age pensions, if only some scheme could be devised by which such pensions could be made to descend upon the right persons. Mr Seddon's scheme of last session Mr Larnach holds in undisguised contempt. It was calculated to destroy the independence of the youth of the colony, by teaching them that they could gfford to be thriftlass in their lives, sinca the State was there to provide for them when they reached the age o£ 65 years. Mr Larcach believes that an old age scheme to fulfil its object should be universally contributory, and that the State should largely supplement the contribution of the individual. Whether the pension should ba as universal as the contribution he does not say. " But he declared that rather than support such a crude and mischievous schema as Mr Seddon had propounded be would forfeit his teat in Parliament. It is courageous of him to say so, but in saying ifc he is only fulfilling his duty to the colony, and having regard to his own reputation as a sensible man. Throughout his long career i& Parliament Mr Seddon trover once displayed any interest in the question of old age pensions, until it presented itself to him as a catch-cry to prop up the fading popularity of his Government. That is no way to introduce a radical scheme which would permanently impose a heavy burden upon a colony which for generations to come will require all its resources for opening up and settling its territory. Tbere are some questions that can be fairly settled in the discussions of a day. There are others that present difficult problems to the world, and an old age pension scheme is one of them. Surely fulfillicg its object, the policy of old age pensions — pensions to the industrious, thrifty, and spent toiler — would be admirable. Nothing but irreparable mischief could be wrought by such a scheme as that; of Mr Seddcn.

Th 9 Hon. John M'Kenzie has received a considerable heckling on the

Department Tersus The Settlers.

rabbit question wherever he has gone in the country districts, and on the whole

he deserves the heckling. We may grant at once that the Minister has no other desire than to keep the rabbit nuisance down iv the interest of the colony. But he has placed himself altogether too blindly iv the hands of the Rabbit department, and the Rabbit department is — well, it is a department, fast-bonnd in the trammels of officialism. The official mind knows very well what is going on in the office; it never does know what is going on in the country until the country radely arouses it from the slumbers of routine. The Rabbit department started wiljh the idea that the only way to keep down the rabbit nuisauea was to multiply inspectors, give them irresponsible powers, and inetrucfc them to insist upon poisoning. Having started with such ideas the department would have gone on with the same ideas to the end. The evidence, notwithstanding the decided opinions to the contrary expressed by "Drover" in bis column in the agricultural pages of the Witness, is now overwhelming tbafc these ideas must be discarded, or at least very much modified. The fact that the rabbit has been discovered to be a/valuable article of export is calculated to revolutionise all our ideas on the subject of the best way of dealing with the rabbit question : ifc would be very odd if it didn't. If the method adopted for the past 15 years had baen a strikiagly or even decidedly succes&fnl method, there can be no doubt that any change would have to be accepted with great caution. But no one with eyes in his head can say it has been successful. It is very costly to the colony, it is extremely harassing to the settlers, and it has kept the rabbits just within control and no more. In all candour it must be admitted the record is not brilliant. Now, if trapping — carried on, it must be remembered, with great verve and spirit by persons to whom it is a profitable' occupation — can produce anything like the same results the advantages are quite overwhelming. It profitably employs a great number of persons ; it relieves the settlers of great cost;, worry, and a specie* of tyranny against which, they have always rebelled ; it provides the colony with a valuable article of exportable wealth, and it will sensibly reduce the cost of the Rabbit department. The demand that such a change should have a fair trial is the most reasonable thing in the world. It would be madness for the department to continue its dull and obstinate opposition. The Minister has "declared that so long as the rabbits are kept within due bounds he will not insist upon any particular method of destruction. Let him stick to that in spirit as well as in letter and all will go well. The settlers in their own interest will see to the rest. Wherever trapping cannot be effective resort can ba had to poisoning-. But tbs ■trapping, for export, has besn so puccessfnl in particular distiicts that it would be blind folly to allow the official mind to work destruction by meddliog with the cystem.

There was something almo/3!- pathetic abonb

the report- of the Wellington and Manuwatu Railway Company at its annual meeting.

4. Pe^mdiiitr Policy.

The directors had madegreafe imp'-ovemeats duric-g t,i ■■ year, they bad introduce! new compojad eDgines of a superior stamp, acd faaci introduced electriclighthg ia their carriages. The chairman truiy said that, the railway bad done more to increrso the ira^le and consolidate the pros- I perifcy of Wdlicgoon and the snrrcundinp districts thaa. all the legislation cf recent yearp. Bui owing to the competition of the Government, now that their own line was completed, ihe traffic receipts duriDg the year had Mien off by mote th< 4 \ £2000, they had to reduce tbe dividend fr ;na G to 5 per cent. ; and in order to pay \t they had lo draw upon % reserve of &IG.COO. which was

available for dividends, and which wbuid keep them going for two years more at the same rate. In order to understand the huckstering shabbiness of the Government competition it is necessary to remember that the Manawatu Company, under the deliberate policy of the law, undertook to build a railway to open up the back country of Wellington at a time when the Government were wholly unprepared to do ifc. The company not only opened up a large area of country around Wellington but gave through communication from the city to Napier and New Plymouth. The company's line ran for 12 or 14 years before the Government was in a position to complete a rival line. Having completed it, the first thing the Government does is to cut down fareß and freights below the normal in order to get the better of the Manawatu Comp&vy and render the line unprofitable. The Government has the legal right of purchase, too, so that by depreciating the line they could purchase i£ all tht cheaper. Perhaps ths posJticn be better understood if we conceived the company to have opened up the interior of Otago by railway communication. The proposition to open the country by means of private enterprise has often, as a matter of fact, been made. Let us suppose the Government acknowledging its inability to construct the railway, and passing a bill to enable private enterprise to do it. The work is done, and the railway runs successfully for years. Meanwhile, after long years of delay the Government complete another liDe, say, from Lawrence and Roxburgh to the Oiago Central. What should we think were the Government then deliberately to endeavour to ruin the private line by unjustifiable and huckstering competition? For, of course, the Government can run any of their lines at a loss, while the owners of a solitary linn cannot. We are supposed to encourage the investment of capital in other forms— in factories, mines, and so forth. What form of private investmant can be better for a new country than railway construction ? Yet the conduct of the Government towards the Wellington-Hanawatu Company is not only discouraging ; it is prohibitive. The tricks of the petty tradesmen may be all right in their proper place, but they are odiously out of place in the administration of public affair*.

The dangtr of having all one's eggs in one basket ia Droverbial. The

Industrial Diversity.

State that depends upon a single industry is in that

position, which unhappily is the portion of the Wesb Indian Colonies. These Crown colonies depend almost entirely upon the production of cane sugar, and that commodity has fallen in the markets so persistently and so disastrously oE lata years that the colonies are on the very brink of absolute ruin. A British Commission was recently appointed to inquire into the subject of tbe production of cane sugar in British Guiana and the aajacent islands, and the report is lugubrious ro.iding. The output of raw sugar has doubled since ISB2, and the pries has fallen by more than one-half, with small prospect of any recovery. Only in small part is this due to natural cause?, such as tbe extension of the field of production in

India. Egjpfc, Queensland, the Argentine Republic, and other countries. The main factor is the pernicious system oil bounties nn the production of beet sugar in European countries. Beet j sugar, as everyone knows, is infinitely inferior to cane sugar, bat the better article cannot compete against its bounty-fed rival. Tbe ' result in the West Indian colonies is deplorable. The settlers are hopelessly ruined, the revenue in some of the islands is unequal to the absolutely necessary expenditure, roads cannot be made or repaired, and even black labourers, engaged under contract, cannot "be returned to their homes. The removal of the bounties would largely tend to restore the sugar industry again, but protective bounties, like protective duties, onca imposed are not easily removed even when the evils of the system are very clearly recognised. Thus a distinguished French economist estimates that for the current year the direct cost of the bounty system to France exceeds four and a-half millions of money. Germany and Austria suffer proportionately in a direct way, while the protection so forces up the price of sugar by prohibiting import that it enormously increases the burden on the countries which adopt the bounty system. The continental consumer has to pay 4d and 5d a pound for sugar which the Englishman can buy at l£d. The consequence is that jam, biscuit, and other factories depending upon sugar have found their only profitable home in England, from which the continental nations have to buy the product. England thus gains enormously ; but in the meantime some of her colonies are brought to the verge of ruin, and the problem is what can be done for them under the circumstances. The commission suggests two different kinds of remedy. The first is for England to impose countervailing duties on bounty-fed sugar, or even a direct bounty on the cane sugar of the Wett Indian colonies. The direct bounty is suggested but not recommended ; part of the commission favoured the countervailing duties and part was against them. The other main remedy suggested was a grant in aid of the colonies, with a view of establishing or assisting other industries to gradually take tbe place of sugar. This is the remedy favoured by tbe English Government; the danger of entering on a protective system, the burden it would lay on the English people, and the impossibility of foreseeing its results being all clearly recognised. Bat what form the direct assistance is to take remains yet to be seen. In the light of the disasters which have befallen the West Indies, we in New Zealand may feel thankful for our temperate and diversified climate. We once relied npon wool almost as much as tbe West Indies does upon sugar. Wool, too, within 20 years has fallen in price by one half or more. It ia still by far cur largest and most important j

product, bub as the price fell it was our happjj fate to be able to discover other thing 3, sucri as frozen mutton and dairy produce, cal« culated to fill the gap.

The position of China in relation to tha European Powers is so feliV

The Eagles and The Carcase.

citously described by tfis Spectator in a couple of ser& teuces that it is almost un«

necessary to add anything to them. "It is almost sickening," says thafi journal, "to read the news from China. The beast is so huge that it cannot die, but it receives a new wound every moment, and groans in helpless anguish." This exactly describes the position. First of all the Russians get a friendly use ol Port Arthur for their ships. Then the Germans forcibly obtaia a "lease" of Kaio-Chau, Then the Russians transmute their understanding over Port Arthur into a lease of that place and Taliei-wan. Tba British follow enifc by extori?Dg a lease of Wai-hei-wai. Then the French demand concessions in Southern China ; and finally — for the . present— the Japanese want a footing on tha mainland opposite their new possession of Formosa. If Italy had not recently received a severe check in her colonising ambition in Abyssinia, and Greece in her lust for territory in Orete, these also would no donbt have been in the scramble. Evidently tha law of modern civilisation which disposes nations to protect the weak applies only to the individual. Weakness is the unpardonable sin of a nation. To be weak is not only to b8 miserable ; it is to be in extreme porii. It is rather odd that while every effort of modern legislation, puny though trie results may bs, is to equalise and distribute wealth, the world ie fast being parcelled cut among tbe half-dozen dominant Powers. Daring the past two centuries Russia has enormously increased her territory by the steady process of expansion all round. She has abi sorbed the greater portion of Poland, a larga slice of Sweden, all Finland, and Turkestan ; and now she has practically annexed Manchuria. The very city of St. Petersbarg was founded in the early portion of the 18th century out of Swedish territory. Within a dozen years Germany has multiplied her territory perhap3 10 times over in Africa and New Guinea, to say nothis:g of her absorption of part of Poland, SchleswJgHolstein, and Alsace-Lorraine. Britain has painted the map red in huge splatches all over the world. France proper is in area a mere insignificant corner of her immense possessions in Africa and Indo-China. Evan the deliberate efforts of all the powers for their own purposes to create new States or eofc tip old ones seem of vtry doubtful Buccese. Italy was wrested from Austria and set up as an independent kingdom, but she shows all the signs of premature decay. Greece had the good wishes of all the world, especially of the historical world, but she seems on the verge of collapse. Egypt practically escaped from Turkey only to fall into the hands of England. Ssrvia and R.umania may possibly live as independent States, but it will obviously take them all their time. The concert of Europe is as powerless to create a State as it is to wips out an effete one. As in individuals, some thrive and I others go to tha wall in spite of everything that can be done for them, so is it arnorsg States. But; as certain savage tribes kill off their sick, so do the powerful nations swoop down on those whose vitality is running low. How long they may take to get at the vitals of China it is impossible to say ; but a ptudent of a quarter of a century heece might easily look upon a map whereir Ohir.a was not.

The death of Arthur Orton, the Tichborna

worthy of notice. Orton was the greatest impostor of his century, and indeed he takes

Cunningand Credulity.

respectable rank among tho impostors of all ages, though, unlike most of them, his frauds were of a purely secular character. The astonishing thing ia how little there waß in Ortou to qualify him for such excensive imposition. His main qualities were a large degree of low canning combined with unbounded audacity ; humaD credulity — always a reliable quantity — did the rest. How hia cunning assisted him may be gathered from an incident related by himself in his confessions of some years back. When he lived in Wagga, and had first announced his " claim," he heard that a black man (his name was given) resided iv Sydney who had been, when a yonng fellow, a servant in the Tichborne family in the time of young Roger -'Tichborne. Making his way to Sydney to push his claim, Orton put up at a leading hotel, the fact of, his residence there having been made known to the public. Returning from a ride cue day he saw a black man sitting in front of the stable door apparently waiting for somebody — and instinctively comiog to the conclußion that this was the Tichborne retainer o£ old he marched up to him without a moment's hesitatior, calling tbe man by his name, while he cordially shock hands with him. The man was astounded at thia strange, huge, and butcher-like development of his yonng master, but what could he do but believe 1 Tbe fates had worked against both his eye&ight and his common sense. The honest adhesion of the black man was a grand preliminary stroke for Orton. He extracted all sorta of information from his dupe, while he himself appeared to b© chatting easily about old times. In th& same fashion information poured in upon him in England, with which he was enabled to impoes upon dullheaded military men who had been brother officers of Tichborne in his youth. Old Lady Tichborne had all her life cherished the idea that her son had not perished in th» Bella ; tbe idea became a craze as she grew older, and she accepted the big butcher a» the fulfilment of her hopes and the answer o£ her prayers. Thus the imposture sailed merrily on until the claimant struck upon rocks there was no avoiding. But it was, on the whole, a wonderful piece of work, and the man deserves his niche in the gallery of imposters.

Cne-quarfcer of nil, the people born die befora six years, and one-half before they are 16. "Moonshine's" advice to Rus»ia &nd Germany : Keep your hands from Pekine and steak

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW18980414.2.90

Bibliographic details

Otago Witness, Issue 2302, 14 April 1898, Page 29

Word Count
3,726

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (THURSDAY, A PHIL 14, 1898.) THE WEEK. Otago Witness, Issue 2302, 14 April 1898, Page 29

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (THURSDAY, A PHIL 14, 1898.) THE WEEK. Otago Witness, Issue 2302, 14 April 1898, Page 29

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