THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2323, 8 September 1898, Page 33

THE WEEK.

" Nunquam aliud natura, aiiud snpientia dixit." — Juvenal, "Qooa nature and good sense must ci or join." — Popi.

A Minister and a hidebound parliamentary majority intent upon securTUrougli ing their own disgrace— go - the ing m full cry after their own Mire. dishonour, and as eager to achieve the contempt of their fellow-men as though that contempt were a priceless guerdon— is a spectacle not often afforded even in these days of ticketed "Government candidates." We are sorry not to be in a position to enjoy the unique performance, the honour and probity of New Zealand public men being still unfortunately dear to us : otherwise, from a merely party point of view, nothing could be more entirely satisfactory than the whole course of the Hansard incident, and especially its conclusion. After a whole week of canvassing, begging, and praying, but-ton-holing weak-minded partisans in the lobbies, promising this, and threatening that, cadging to Maoris, and, in fine, voluntarily undergoing the very extremity of political prostitution, the gratification of a miserable piece of spite has been arrived at by a bare majority, coupled with the deliberate announcement to the country that in future Hansard is to be edited en purely party lines, and in the interests o: a particular Ministerial combination, "Tliih is a great result, truly, to have been achieved through such a mire of humiliation ; and w e trust the besmirched politicians who have had to struggle through it and have come out (as we must assume they call it) " successful," are in a position to admire each other as they stand dripping on the opposite hank.

Certainly the admiration business will have to be of the -strictly mutual variety ; the universal verdict of the country upon the sorry spectacle presented by this band of unfortunates will be simply " Serves them right." As to their leader, who has led them into the slough, an English poet tells us why satisfaction, and not shame, should be his principal sentiment, and explains what otherwise must for ever remain a puzzle : — Could ho with reason murmur at his case, Himself solo author of his own disgrace? Cowper was not familiar with certain proceedings of the New Zealand Parliament, but he has shown by the above couplet that, in American parlance, he can occasionally "get there all the same." The incident of the map is in many ways a twopenny-h;ili-penny one, and the thing itself is, we believe, as worthless a-s might under the circumstances be effected ; but little, things occasionally bring about great lesuits, and probably the very biggest n.iil in the Ministerial coffin was driven lash week by the blundering hand of the Minister for Lands, and riveted by the dumb band of " Government candidates," whoso political motto is the exact reverse of " death befoie dishonour. "

As we understand the motion eventually carried on Saturday morning Hansard the " gridiron " map will be Illustrated. issued with _ Hansard, but will not be bound up with it, and will therefore not be included in the permanent records of Parliament. Though this is something to be thankful for, it is nevertheless the case that a deadly thrust has been made against the privileges of the House, as it will now be possible for any Minister backed up by a servile majority to manipulate Hansard in the interests of party. For this result the colony must thank the Speaker, with whose flight to Auckland and the incident a connection will undoubtedly be drawn. It will assuredly be alleged that the plea of influenza is " too thin." Persons suffering from influenza are not as a rule recommended to take a sea voyage, and the manner of the Speaker's departure has a clandestine appearance, and created a belief that while the Speaker could not for his reputation's sake permit so glaring a party use of Hansard, he had not the courage to stand lip against the dictum of an obstinate Minister. People will say these things, and will also say that the independence of the Speaker, once the brightest feature in New Zealand politics, no longer exists. Ministers cannot much longer strain the allegiance of their supporters in this way. Even with the help of three Maori votes they could command a majority o£ only four in a House nearly all accounted for. When such members as Messrs M'Nab and Tanner vote against the Government, it may be assumed that party fetters gall, and when Messrs Hutcheson and Thompson are absent from a division, although known to be against the Government, the conclusion is obvious. All through the tedious night, until 5 in the morning, the same figures, 25 to 21, appear, and party government was seen in its most deplorable aspect. The same majority, factitiously made up chiefly of the Maori members, excluded the maps of Bushy Park and Hororata from the records, although the former was issued by the authority of the department, in order to show the suitability of the estate for small settlement. -Instead of being cut up for small settlers, the estate is now in the possession of the sons of the Minister for Lands, and despite all asservations this fact, and the refusal to place the recriminating map on record, while a dead and gone incident has been exhumed, will be placed in significant juxtaposition.

A very important matter connected with the development of the A Sea colony comes up for discusExpress, sion under Government auspices this week. The committee who were entrusted with the task of inquiring into the possibility of an improved steam service between Wellington and Lyttelton have brought up a report making certain direct and business-like ecommendations, and the Premier intends making the report "Government business" so as to secure time for its full discussion. The evolution of this mater has evidently reached a crisis. The Union Company, which for some months past has provided a somewhat improved but by no means ideal service, has announced that it has done so at a loss. In the very, height of the discussion by a parliamentary committee the Rotomahana has been taken off and the Wainui put on. In this colony, where most people know what every ship is when her name is given, that is a sufficient description of the present position ; and it is certainly not a very satisfactory one. There will be a very general agreement with the conclusions of the committee that the travelling conditions which we all seem so ready to accept as normal and inevitable are really antiquated and absurd, and ought to be radically altered for the better without delay. The prime necessity in such an alteration is the reorganisation of the Welliiigton-Lyttel-tori service, which ought to be, and must be — first, a daily one ; and secondly, an 11 or 12 hour voyage. The remark of one member that " some people seem to think there are no ports in the colony but Lyttelton and Wellington" was a singularly short-sighted one. One can haidly conceive the improvement of the principal route between England and the Continent being grumbled at as nuneccssary in Ihe House of Commons became Calais and Dover are not the principal ports of their respective countries. When the North Island can be reached from t">e southern provinces in shorter time than a Lyttelton-Wellington steamer can effect it, and with equal facility, safety, and cheapness, it will be time to introduce local controversies ; at present, existing facts must be recognised. The committee pronounces a 52-hour service from Dunedin to Auckland practicable, and if so an approach io its realisation is a matter of extreme importance. The opinion is growing that the Railway department will have to maintain a service of connecting sreameis, as the railway companies do at Home, in order that time-tables may be adjusted absolutely without the possibility of clashing interests.

If for once the Premier will have everything fair and above board, a most interesting discussion ought to follow upon his motion in the matter.

When Captain Russell, at a banquet at Wairarapa or somewhere in the Tiie " Breeches north, expressed the opinion Pocket." that if the Constitutional party desired to make their contention effective it would be necessary to put their hands into their pockets, the cry was immediately raised that a policy of bribery and corruption was enunciated. The Premier himself did not disdain to employ the unworthy weapon, and craftily furthered the cry that wealth was to be employed in order to crush the " Liberal " aspirations of the people. Of course, what Captain Russell really intended to convey was that organisation was necessary and that organisation implied some expenditure. The colony has not yet seen printers patriotic enough to pay their workmen out of their own pockets in order to disseminate facts among the people, nor does the Postal department furnish stamps free of charge for such a purpose. Landlords hardheartedly demand rent for the use of their premises for offices and such like, owners of halls must be paid, and even the harmless necessary messenger and billposter expects his humble fee. It comes to this, in fine, that without money no movement can progress. We suppose that even Peter the Hermit found it necessary to provide himself with subsistence money. The Liberal Association now finds itself in an impecunious position, but when it makes an appeal for an enlarged subscription, it is not bribery, but patriotism that is inculcated. " Only give us some money," gasps the executive, " and in a short time New Zealand will be a happy and prosperous country." It is, therefore, admitted that eight years of Seddonism have not produced happiness and prosperity. If not, why not? It has been supported by a majority larger and more compact than any in the history of the New Zealand Parliament. It floated into power on the top of a wave of agitation that has not yet fully receded. With its subsidence the majority has slowly but surely diminished, and it is now recognised by those of the party who can see an inch beyond their own noses that the tide has turned" at last, and that the next appeal to the people will sweep away the shams of Ihe past eight years. Hence the despairing appeal for funds wherewith to make a last stand, hence the promise that the happiness and prosperity that have been postponed so long will at* length come "if you only give us another chance."-

The people of the colony do not fully recognise the extent to which the Customs working man's Government Taxation. bleeds them through the Custom House. It is in vain that the Premier strives to prove that the increase in import duties is derived chiefly from luxuries, and that the increased expenditure shows that the spending power of the people is greater. The same argument would hold good if the Governor of a Turkish province were to point to the increased revenue wrung from the unhappy people as a proof that they were more prosperous. There are some discijtles of Walton who have even contended that the worm wriggling on the hook enjoys his position, and enthusiasts of the chase have gravely argued that the fox enters into the spirit of the hunt himself, and enjoys the chase as keenly as the pursuers do. It will be admitted, we suppose, that the cold calculations of mercantile men are devoid of party colour. The Trade Review has compiled some xeturns which indicate as clearly as figures can indicate anything that the tariff manipulations of 1895 have increased the burden of taxation. Taking the last four years at periods ended June 30, the Review finds that the proportion of customs revenue to the total imports for the year was as follows : —

Now, the above figures seem to show that the burden of taxation has' been reduced, but even a casual knowledge of the circumstances reveals the fallacy of such an opinion. The year 1894-95 was one of special contraction. The imports fell off by 12£ per cent. The customs revenue fell off by only 4 per cent., because consumption went on at about the same rate, and, therefore? the customs revenue bore a high proportion to the imports. In the next place the heavy increase in the value of imports has arisen from the greater volume of goods which are either duty free or subject to the lower rates of duty. The imports for 1897 showed an increase of over £950,000, and the Review shows that this increase was made up as follows : —

Miscellaneous manufactures . . 328,000 Raw materials £>nd public works . . 176,000 Articles of food and soft goods bear the highest rates of duty, and in the other three classes the rated are lower. It must be further pointed out that among metals and metal goods- the chief increase was in machinery and machine?, on which the averago duty is only about 4 per cent., and that among miscellaneous manufactures there is a great increase in articles which are admitted duty free. The lower proportion of customs revenue to the total value of imports is theiefore fully accounted fnr, and il c incidence of the tariff has hierwnsed the valuo of stocks already in hand. Thai, is to W; , consumers have'been taxed more heavily en goods already imported. At the risk of being officially ticketed " despicable and impertinent " by The Mk tor his Worship the Mayor of aa<l the city, we must candidly Tlio Press. express Ihe view that his published address on the proceedings of the Ocean Beach Domain Board simply leaves matters precisely where they were/ We do not by this mean to imply that they were very bad before his Worship undertook to rectify them by an address to the ratepayers. The strong language used in that address with regard to the Mayor's relationship to the favoured candidate for the

board's good things is Mr Oargill's own language ; it certainly would not be ours. And the only matters now worth discussing in the address — we presume Mr Cargill's object in publishing it is to have it discussed — are those contained in the concluding paragraph. The whole of the matter that precedes it is nothing more than a repetition of the Mayor's speeches at the board table ; and Mr Cargill cannot reasonably expect that mere reiteration, without even the pretence of any new light on the matter, is an effective vindication of those speeches, supposingthat they needed vindication. It would not be difficult to show, indeed, that any fault that might legitimately be found with the original deliverances is not mitigated, but the reverse, by their renewed promulgation in the deliberate form of a written address with every original accompaniment df tone and temper. We do not propose to insist upon the point, however, but feel constrained to record our opinion that the mayor has no ground for complaint against the press — which, he says, has treated him badly, while what he with enviable optimism assumes to be public opinion is all on the other side. The press, so far as we remember, has alwaysassumed Mr Cargill's good faith as chairman of the Domain Board, but has expressed regrets in his own interests that his course of procedure should have been such as to tend to strain the assumption. We should notlike to suggest that in classifying, as between the public and the press, the opinions put forward on his action the mayor has inadvertently reversed mutually the positions actually taken up in the matter by press and public, but we can assure him that the possibility is worth his attention. On the whole, we cannot express admiration for the mayor's address. Nine-tenths of it, as we have said, is mere reiteration — even tone and spirit being reproduced as far as can be done in print — of the speeches that brought him under the criticism of which he complains ; while the rest depends for its acceptance on the willingness of the public to believe that what the press urged as its view was the existence of an aosolute obligation upon Mr Cargill to veto every offer of Mr Petre's because of the relationship subsisting between them. Neither of these lines of defence appears on the face of it particularly promising.

We have no ground for supposing that Mjf Stephenson, the alleged inAn Old ventor of a " hew " gas of Story. phenomenal, not to say impossible, cheapness, is a, swindler and a charlatan, and we therefore conclude for the present that he is singularly unfortunate in his choice of exponents in the public press. We have rarely read a. rigmarole of more arrant rubbish than that which has been put forward this week as the specification of an invention that is to " revolutionise modern systems of lighting '"' and to work which we are tojd. a- company is already accepting contracts in Melbourne, while the " inventor " is taking steps to push his manufacture in England. " One thousand feet for a shilling " seems to be the favourite heading of paragraphs heralding forth the arrival of new systems of gas-light-ing. We can remember several such (they are all de.ad and buried now), and we are far from asserting that the ideal is an impossible one. We are, however, fully prepared to state that if there is or ever will be any means of realising it, the process of Mr Stephenson, as lately published, is not what will do it. A claim to revolutionise modern systems of lighting is a public matter, and should be publicly dealt with to prevent irreparable mischief among the ignorant/ The process as published will make gas, just as currants and pastry, with the addition of chalk, sand, pieces of brown paper, and infinitesimal seasonings of salt and pepper, will make a currant tart. The currant tart, it is true, would be as good or better without these adventitious aids, but its composition would then be of so common an order that there would be no chance of its " revolutionising modern systems" of cooking. A single glance at the specifications of Mr Stephenson's gas (which seems, by the way, to be an excellent one for inflating the balloons of the penny-a-liner) is sufficient to inform the expert of the realities of the matter, which, it is needless to say, are very far removed from the claims made. Mr Stephenson may or may not have invented a new and revolutionary gas, but if so his press exponent has simply burlesqued it. The gas-making there described will give a product which is not new, -is not cheap, is not any freer* from explosive properties than other illuminating gases, and can be better made by leaving oufc three-fourths of the precious " ingredients." We advise great caution in accepting any statements to the contrary until demonstrated at the risk and cost of the patentees.

A lady's discovery has been chronicled in the Gentleman's Magazine. ShaUcspearo's Mary Bradford Whiting has Mothers. declared that in all the writings of the bard there is found no "ideal" mother. The discovery comes as an unpleasant shock, for we have belonged to that cult who imagined that Shakespeare had touched every note in the gamut of human feeling. The difficulty that occurs at the outset is to define what Mrs (or is it Miss?) Whiting terms an ideal mother. If it is lago's mother, whose mission it was to " suckle fools and chronicle small beer," then perhaps the lady is right, or it it is the modern up-to-date mother, who commits her baby to the feeding bottle or the tender mercies of a wet nurse so that she may participate in the pleasures of tho world, then perhaps the critical lady is right also. But to say that Shakespeare has deliberately omitted to depict what the lady teims "one of the great elemental forces ff the world " seems to us to argue an imperfect acquaintance with the works. It might be supposed that Volumnia alone would have redeemed Shakesjieare from the charge. Hermione the critic has thought it necessary to describe as being an ideal wife rathei than an ideal mother. And Constance is declared to be more solicitous of her son's welfare as a prince than as a man. But where the critic has missed her way is in ignoring the obvious maternal influence that must have been exercised on Shakespeare's noblest female characters.., Perdita's mother we havej and all her ma-<

.rticles of food and cousutupt io't g00d.3 letals and metal goods . . tion . £'. 2148,000 57,800 248,000

Year. 1897-98 . . 1896-97 . „ 1895-96 . . 1894-95 . . . . 24.09 per cent. . . 21.18 per cent. . . 25.83 per cent. . . 27.58 per cent.