PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2303, 21 April 1898, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's .Daily Times.)

Undbk the despairing signature of " Ichabod," a Scotchman, if Scotchman he can be, compliments his nation by asserting a similarity between the Scotch brain and the brain of the Chinese. As I make him out (Daily Times, April 11), Be says that the Scotch and the Chinese have this in common, that they possess an ounce or two more than the English. It is this extra ounce or two of brain, he suggests, that explains the peculiarities of the typical Scotch face. Obviously the same explanation will apply to the Chinese. Ths Mongol phiz, like the Scotch, means excess of brain. Poor Scotland 1- Well may she pray, " Save me from my friends 1 " Odder compliment than this comparison with the Chinese was never paid her ; if the author of it is indeed a Scotchman he may most truthfully aign himself "Ichabod." "The glory is departed 1" Scotch touchiness, bo frequently displayed of late — as in the wrangling about the names "English " and "British," for instance — is particularly unsuitable at a time when Scotch and English all the world over are falling into each other's arms by intermarriage. Absorption is the true goal of the Scotch. Numerically they are, according to " Ichabod," " only about 10 per cent, of the British." Then what more happy destiny than that they should lose themselves in the bosoms of the other 90 per cent., taking with them, for the benefit Df their common posterity, their extra ounce or. two of brain ? I. look upon every acrid North Briton who endeavours to perpetuate the divisions of the, past as the enemy of his country' and his race.

Nobody wants to see Spain and America vat war, las little as anyone. Bat these iC'vrindy preliminaries are getting tiresomeWhy so much hectoring andbullying, parleying and protocoling ? if there is no escape, and war we must have, let us get it over. With America the initiative lies. lam disposed to say with Hamlet in the play "Begiri, murderer: Jeave thy damnable faces and.

begin ! " The more delay in beginning the more mischief will be done when they do begin. Perhaps it is to Spain that we ought to look for first move. The dynasty in Spain would hardly survive a great military disaster ; but then neither would it be likely to survive an unresenbed affront to the national honour. At present America is prancing round with fist extended, inviting Spain to " smell that ! " The situation in this form can't last. Spaniards are not cowards. They did not show well in our Peninsular campaign, being disposed to let the Britisher do the larger part of the work if he would, and as, in such joint-stock enterprises, he generally does. Yet -no nation in Europe can point to a more heroic page in its history than the Spanish defence of Saragossa in that same war ; no race has produced more terrible soldiers than those of Oortez and Alva. That the breed has degenerated has yet to be proved.

\ The Export Trade, a paper ptinted at { Bunzteu, Germany, but printed in English, is apparently intended for the enlightenment of such Germans in the colonies as have renounced their mother tongue. Its English leaves mach to be desired. It describes itself as " for the New South WaleF, Queensland, and South Australia," &c, and states that it is "fowarded" monthly. It gives between turned commas the following sen- [ tence as a quotation from the London ! Times : We cannot be indifferent against such alterations, which in their effects on the Pekingj'Government, and by dint of altered destiibu- ; tion of the Marine Power ia the far East, have i very strong influence against our commercial supremacy in that part of the world. And it ascribes the following to the Saturday Review : Must we not fight for an annual commerce of Lstr. 250 Millions— ? Five thousands Millions of Marks of our yearly export is in danger to j be taken from us by force from jealous comi petitors, and England is the only pofceut power who without tri mendous risk and without doubt of success, can take up the fight with Germany. The German ships would be in a few days on the bottom of the Ocean, or be brought to the British harbours, Hamburg, BremeD, and the Can&l between the North and Baltic seas and the harbours on the Baltic would be under the Cannons of England, till the indemnification was fixed. After finishing this work we could -without consideration, and with the same right as Bismarck had when he spoke in * similar manner to F&rry *), say to France and Russia : " Look out for compensations ; take in Germany what you like. You can have it." And it adds in a footnote :—: — * The Saturday review has invented short before, that Bismarck had aaid to Farry, the latter could take outside of Europe what he liked to take.

I am reminded of the remark of Lord Chief Justice Chelmsford to the stranger who accested him as "Mr Smith, I believe." "If >you believe that," was the reply, " you will believe anything." So with the colonial German ; if able to believe that the sentences above were written by London editors he will not have any difficulty with the other remarkable things here told him. For example, about English history— that we beat off the Armada in the seventeenth century and vanquished the French in the eighteenth in the interest of Manchester soft goods and Birmingham hardware ; also that the reason the English destroyed the Danish fleet at Copenhagen " was only that the Danes in their colonies in the Western Islands were in the road for them to do their noble deeds " — a mysterions motive, which I abandon to the intelligence of colonial Germans.

As to our modern colonising, this is the way of it :

With one hand the new Testament is pushed underneath the door of the natives, and with the other hand they offer to him his wares under monopoly-like conditions, even if it is Brandy and Opium, whichheightepthe pleasures of culture. By all this they continue to speak and live like Englishmen, and force everyone to be the same in requirements, habits and ideas, language and custom. I confess the New Testament, and I don't deny the brandy and opium ; the other charge — that we convert Hindoos, Zulus, Fijians, and Maoris into Englishmen — is merely proof of the backwardness of G-arman primary education. In view oil our colonising methods generally, and the ways in which we push our commerce, the Bunzlau editor lifts up holy hands in horror ; he is consoled by the thought that the way is at last opening for Germany to do the same. Prince Henry has gone to China with his "mailed fist" and gospel oE Lhe Emperor's consecrated person ; from bis mission "to protect our. religion and, our gwnraorcial

interests " great things are hoped. "If it has to be, then use force, and if God will, crown your young head with laurels I "

We intend to do only the same thing now what the English Nation is doing every day, and this causes the rage, partly checked till now, and the unmeasurable jealousy of John Bull to come forth ! If Germany was destroyed tomorrow, there would not exist one Englishman who would not have profited by it the day after, and this is the war-song which has to kindle the flame. Yes! — and this is the very dickena of a German mixed metaphor — " the war-song which has to kindle the flame ! " I don't know what it means, except that the Baczlau editor is in a very belligerent mood, the mood of a costsrmonger slanging a toosuccessful rival. If the prospects of his commerce were as rosy as he pretends one would expect him to be in a better temper.

It is quite a mistake to imagine that crime, at least of the lighter sort, has not, like adversity, its " sweet uses." A proof of this fact has lately been brought under my notice. In an up-country township in Otago, where an airy and commodious gaol is one of the principal buildings, the inhabitants live in such a state of unsophisticated happiness that crime is virtually unknown. The policeman's lot in that neighbourhood is emphatically a happy one, as he exists in a perpetual state of enforced leisure. There ie, however, what Lord Beaconsiield called one "redeeming vice " in the shape of an old and dilapidated soldier who suffers from an unquenchable thirst. He is perfectly harmless to everybody but himself, and apparently passes the greater part of his time in a state of coma. Still he has his uses. When the weeds begin to grow rife in the garden attached to the bouse of the constable in charge, the village drunkard is promptly "run in" and the magistrate despatches him to gaol for a month. This is certainly a happy arrangement, for every person concerned is benefited t thereby. Thf» garden is put into proper' order and the man is provided with healtby work and good food, while he is rendered more like a human being by being well washed— an operation which he religiously shuns when left to his own devices. But the time arrives when one of the local policemen desires to see more of the busy world than is to be fouDd in an up-country village, and the willing victim is again brought before the court, and the magistrate sentences him to two months as an habitual drunkard. According to the prison regulations this necessitates his being brought down to Dunedin, and the accompanying constable is able to vary the monotony of bis existence by a visit to the city. I am not quite sure whether this pleasant arrangement was put into force during the recent Jubilee rejoicings, but it is difficult to conceive that persons alive to their own interests would neglect so golden an opportunity. One thing is certain — namely, that the township would not willingly be left without this particular inhabitant, who is naturally looked upon in the light of a special providence. The same state of things may exist in other parts of the colony, but on the whole it savours too much of Utopia to lead one to expect that it is at all common.

Whether the phonograph will ever be anything more than an entertaining scientific toy remains to be seen, but up to the present, so far as this colony is concerned, it has not been put to any practical purpose. At a Dunedia concert; the other evening the latest development of i.his wonderful invention, in the shape of a graphophone (I should like to know, by the way, who is the author of this extraordinary name), was exhibited, and the audience were treated to a reproduction of several speeches from gentlemen who met in Wellington to celebrate the Jubilee of Otago. The speeches themselves were not of much j account, but it is tolerably certain that Sir i Robert Stout would have failed to recognise j his own voice had he been present in the Garrison Hall. Anybody who has listened to these phonographic reproductions must have observed that there is a strong similarity noticeable in all of them, and that, moreover, the speaker invariably uses ths -nose as a vocal organ. I venture to think that I have discovered the psychological reason for this. The phonograph, being the invention of an American, can only reproduce what ia spoken into it in the language of its birthplace, and those "records" delivered in English undefiled will go down to futurity in the shape of caricatures. This is bad enough in all conscience, but we have the consolation of knowing that things might have been worse. For example, Edison might have been forestalled in his invention by a Chinese, a RHiswan. or even a Gaelic scientist, and it is

fearful to contemplate what would have been the result under any of these circumstances. The only way out of the difficulty that I can see ia to resolutely refuse to have any dealings whatever with the phonograph, and to resist all temptation to belong to another nation and to remain, so far as the voice is concerned, an Englishman — or should I Bay a Britisher ?

Whatever faults may be laid to the charge of the Premier, he cannot fairly be accused of meanness, especially when dealing with the money of the colony. His ideas on this subject are simply colossal, as witness his bill of expenses for his Diamond Jubilee jaunt and his Tasmanian trip. The latest exemplification of this contempt of petty economy was given by Mr Saddon on the occasion of his laying the foundation stone of the new Parliamentary Library buildings on Wednesday, when he informed his hearers that although only a rote of L7OOO had been passed last session, he intended to spend nearly L 40.000. Then he added, as a piece of airy persiflage, that money was no object, as they had sufficient for the purpose and it could not be put to a better use. Admitting that it is only right that the valuable collection of books should be safely boused, it is extremely doubtful if Parliament will sanction so large an expenditure, more especially when the manner in which it is intended to carry out the work is taken into consideration. It appears that on account of the tenders being too high it has been resolved to erect the building by co-opera-tive labour, and if Mr Seddon honestly believes that any saving can be effected by that course he is a great deal more simple than he has hitherto shown himself to be. It is nothing less than ridiculous to believe that the men under the Government control will do so much work as they would were they under the supervision of private contractors, and it may be safely anticipated that the colony will be called upon to pay a far heavier bill than they otherwise would have been. The truth is, probably, that, following the Seddonistic rule, this was an opportunity for dispensing patronage which the Ministry were not likely to forego. Everyone engaged on the buildings will be under an obligation to the Premier, and he is not the man to forget to remind them of the fact when the proper time arrives. Moreover, they will be Government servants and must follow out the creed of their order and perform what is known as the "Government stroke," which means doing the least possible amount of work for the largest possible amount of pay. Mr Seddon must, however, be beginning to realise by this time that the days of his autocracy are well nigh numbered, and he will probably learn that, with a strong Opposition in Parliament, he will no longer be allowed to squander the finances of the colony for the purpose of indulging in a fad of hi? own. Civis.