THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 33

THE WEEK.

" Nunquim aliud natnra, aliud saplentia dixit."— Juvsnau "Good n*ture and uood sense must ever join." — Poy*. Both Sir Harry Atkinson, who was a convinced enthusiast, and Mr Pensions. Seddon, who is one of our ablest students of opportunism, are entitled to credit for insisting on the attention of the country being given to the subject of old-age pensions. We have previously expressed the opinion that an unusual degree of earnestness (it may very •well be unusual without even then amounting to much) characterises Mr Seddon's urgent championing of his measure. But we cannot recognise any great merit in the kind of earnestness which, combining itself -with political astuteness, seeks to place on the Statute Book a measure involving a good principle of social economy at the cost of violating every reasonable axiom of political prudence. We should like to be able to think that the reason why Mr Seddon persistently declines to go into the question of where the £100,000 a year is to come from is that his ability is not equal to suggesting one, or even that ilia aclmywlod^od fodufitrjr fcgg for ou^e

failed him, and that he simply shirks the trouble. There are, however, significant indications that his failure in this first duty of a reforming statesman is due to other and more characteristic reasons. We have only to compare the two most notable schemes submitted in our time on this matter to detect in the present methods of procedure the trail of the Government. Sir Harry Atkinson, an enthusiast as we have said, stumped the country in the interests of a scheme by which everybody requiring aid after the ordinary age of work would receive, not the miserable dole Mr Seddon proposes, but a really decent income sufficient for food and raiment, and he was received from end to end of the colony with chilling coldness. The present Premier, on the other hand, proposes a much less adequate provision, backed by only the shadow of any scheme at all, and it becomes straightway fashionable with his satellites to hail him as the saviour of his race. Why? Simply because Sir Harry proposed that those who were to receive the funds when old should help to create them while they were young — whereas Mr Seddon says next to nothing at all upon the matter. There is a considerable difference between the reformer and the reforming politician. The first is bent on the establishment of principles, and will fling himself, political sword in hand, upon an indifferent or hostile people and compel them to listen to his burning words. The only armour the other cares to take into the fray is composed of the electoral rolls of the various districts of his country.

As regards the merits of the present measure, we readily agree with The BeLnte. the admission frankly made by its opponents that it is a better one than the contemptibly crude proposals of last session — proposals which were ileaberately designed to delay themselves until a year or two nearer the next general election, while pretending a colourable fulfilment of promises made at the last one. Tho one hopeless blot, however, remains practically unimproved. For a new expenditure every year of a sum which, if spent in interest, would provide the colony with at least three millions of money the Colonial Treasurer absolutely declines <o indicate any definite 'revenue provision. The sincerity of the proposals is inevitably smirched by such an omission, and all Mr Seddon's pretended explanations are totally unworthy of him. It suits him for the moment to pretend to be a fool, which is, the very last thing that anyone would call him. On the other hand we cannot agree with Mr Scobie Mackenzie and others who see in the bill a wholesale encouragement of idleness and dissipation through the virtual removal of their natural penalties. No doubt there will be some such effect in a small way, but it will be a very small one ; and these minor effects of the establishment of advanced principles must not be made much of. Even .the present systems of charity are in a lesser degree open to -he same comment, and so they always will te. The difference will be that personal inquiries about applicants for pensions cannot be made in the same way as they are made about those who come up for charitable relief, nor can an unsatisfactory report I.c so peremptorily acted upon ; and that is about all it comes to. The debate showed an earnest desire to duly consider the whole j matter, but we think few will be found to dispute that the really valuable elements in the discussion were almost entirely confined to the Opposition side of the House. Government members were doubly lnußzled in dealing with such a measure, and they showed it most unmistakably. There is something pathetically grotesque in the complaint of poor Mr Graham that the Opposition (almost every man of whom spoke, and spoke so that the country could hear) were not largely present when he himself was orating. We have not heard before that the admitted tendency to evaporate^ silently and surreptitiously into Bellamy's when the honourable member ior Nelson gets on his feet was confined to one side of the House. The real reason" for the state of the benches was, of course, known to everyone except the unfortunate orator himself, and perhaps he will never learn. They rarely do.

The debate on the Police Commission's report brings vs — this journal, Minister!- we mean — once more into ettes. contact with a difficulty which has several times assailed us when we have had occasion to criticise the actions of individual members of the present Cabinet. Courtesy and custom impel us to refer to every such member as a "Minister," and yet when we read such speeches as those of the "Minister" for Justice and the "Minister" for Public Works upon the outcome of a great and costly public undertaking like the Police Commission, we feel that a mistake has been made in not providing some better description of the official position of these gentlemen than one which misleads the reader into mixing them up with the really responsible members of the Government. Here the public suffers , from the poverty of the English language in those dexterously-conceived variants which make the parent Teutonic tongue fo admirably flexible. The Minister for Justice is the Minister of the Cabinet who is labelled by Mr Seddon (the label, originally of the faintest, now badly wants renewing, by the way) as responsible to Parliament and the country for the matters dealt with by I the Police Commission, and for the use to be made of their report. When the report oomes in he gets on his legs apparently ■ suffering from political vertigo, flounders j through a few meaningless banalities, looks helplessly round a bored and disgusted House, and sits down. Mr Hall-Jones, when his turn comes, says it is quite time to get to " serious business " — an utterance, on such a subject, even more puerile if possible than his colleague's ; and the upshot is that both "Ministers," having said their little " piece " with their hands meekly clasped behind their backs and their innocent faces turned ever and anon anxiously upon their master's, are contemptuously elbowed out of the way by the same master and their own harmless little prescription superseded by another repressptiiiK jtUe very; acme of .weakness and

cowardice. Messrs Thomson and HallJones badly want a new title. "The Little Minister" is copyrighted already, and therefore out of reach. " Ministeriette " is perhaps about as near the right thing as can be suggested under the circumstances. It involves the required diminutive, and it has the further advantage of containing a perceptible though not offensive suggestion of "marionette," of the application of which no explanation is required. The delivery of the speeches of these politicians in the Police debate would be a fitting occasion from which to start the new title, and we hope that, for the sake of clearness in the records of the various proceedings of the Government, the gentlemen entitled to it will consent to accept the honour.

We have been exceptionally fortunate in the enterprise of a special corA Darling; respondent who has interofthe viewed on our behalf Mrs Notion. Parker, of Waimate, a sister of that famous Englishman, the Sirdar of the Egyptian army. We have been at least as fortunate in finding that lady so amply endowed with the family capacity for making herself interesting. And lastly, we have had the quite unlooked-for additional good luck, which our readers have been enabled to share with us, of discovering that Mrs Parker not only shares in that evidently hereditary quality, but possesses also the originality, the daring, and the love of adventure which we all so admire in the brilliant soldier who is now bearing the flag of England with grim resolution towards the lonely post of Pashoda. We have hardly any comment to make upon the fascinating story so modestly yet so humorously unfolded by General Kitchener's sister to our correspondent in Wellington. The interview is certainly one quite out of the ordinary run of such things, and its effect, which we are sure our readers have fully appreciated, is hardly one to be improved by the editorial emphasising of its salient points. General Kitchener, who will be known we hope to the literature of the immediate future as Viscount Khartoum, has writ-ten his record as a soldier indelibly upon the annals of his country, and he may yet be about to write ! its most brilliant chapter upon the banks of the farther Nile in the name of the British Empire. It has been our privilege to supplement this noble record by a few of those small-print side-notes with which the public, at any rate, likes to have its biographies filled out, whatever stern and "grumpy" soldiers, such as the Sirdar seems to me, would themselves choose if they had their way. It is evident from Mrs Parker's story of the casualty at Suakim that England came very near indeed to losing one of her best and boldest leaders by that Arab bullet, 77 The doctors said he would not live, but he said he objected to die "" — and that to which Sir Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Sirdar of the- Egyptian army once objects is a thing that may safely be looked upon as exceedingly unlikely to come off. It did not come off, and one probable result is that the fall of Khartoum did. Even that, or rather the military operation which immediately led to it, was nearly being achieved at a similar cost. The Sirdar, impetuously dashing up to the citadel of Omdurman accompanied by his staff, neglected to take into account, the trifling circumstance that he had prpjvriously trained a battery of artillery upoD that identical sp~t, and that the gunners -were at that moment industriously poundinr.- away according to orders and apparently Snaking excellent practice. We can Easily forgive the British commander for 10-sing his head in the first instance in the manner described, but if as a result he had I'ost it in another seftSe his country would Vave been hard put to it to extend due ppjdon to his memory. He is one^ of the fevy men for whose loss the Empire would bp, distinctly poorer should his reckless valour ever lead to his finding a soldi&r's gCave on the field of glory.

The choice of the word "profound" by the authority who cabled the X Peace, Peace," sensational effects in Europe nhen ? of the Czar's disarmament proposals was not a happy one. The sensation was not "profound" — it was merely violent. A profound sensation would not have died out of the cablegrams in about 48 hours, and been relegated to become the sport of philanthropical associations and the theme of ecstatic (but by ro means " profound ") resolutions. We see the difference between the true and false use of the word when we consider the effect; upon Europe of, for instance, the British victories on the Nile, or the tragic death of the Empress of Austria. Upon these things the minds of men seize instinctively as the turning of the leaves of the Book of Pate. What however, was the instinct first excited by the proposal of the most aggressive and most i faithless Power in Europe for a general disarmament? We need not answer the question. The instinct may have been wrong, but we have a shrewd idea that it was all ' but universal. Of course this view of t things is cynical, detestable, everything that is bad ; it imputes motives (whereas nobody not even members of the House of Represenj tatives or Russian statesmen, ever entertained any motives except the highest and holiest), and, generally, no doubt we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. So, however, we can comfortably reflect, ought a good many other people besides ourselves. A contributor writing in this issue says he knows of one man in this country who is enthusiastic over the Petersburg proposals. We can only at present think of one in England who is likely to follow suit. Mr W. T. Stead, who sincerely believes that he converted the late and all future Czars to the principle of righteousness and humanity when he called at the palace one day in the capacity of an interviewer (Special Commissioner in his phrase) from a London evening paper and was not kicked out, will deliver himself up to frenzies of ecstasy over the news, and write six paragraphs in his next Review proving conclusively how infinitely better Russia is governed than England is. As an up-to-date journalist, however, he will be compelled to chronicle in the same issue the departure of the latest consignments of men and guns for Port Arthur, the sullen persistence of the attempt to flout England in the council room of ihe Tsunfi-li-YameA, and possibly, a rg-

newal of the notification to England that anyattempt to save the miserable relics of theArmenian nation by armed demonstration, will be regarded by this most peace-loving-Power as a casus belli. Under such circum--stances Mr- Stead will be welcome to his rapturous transports.

It will be seeu that we take the admittedly cheap and easy- " There is view that the Russian prono Peace." posals are not quite what the Peace Society takes them to be. Possibly those who take that; view ought to be ready to meet the indignant philanthropist's demand for an alternate theory of fcheir or jgi n . Obviously, however, we here enter the region of surmise, to which we are hardly disposed to admit that the merely negative view already enunciated belongs. But it is not difficult to present a plausible choice of motives which may have actuated the Czar, or his advisers, or— possibly, but by no means necessarily— both. Taking the Czar himself first, what little is known of him is not very favourable as regards his intellectual capacity, and he is moreover said to be peculiarly susceptible to family influences. A very little power of seeing behind the glory of kings and imagining human nature even in a palace will suffice to construct from such data a series of steps culminating as is now known. On such an assumption Russian statesmen may be taken as being about as much impressed with the realities of the thing as are ordinary pe~-le among the nations to whom the invitation is addressed. But these data are insufficient, and it will be safer to assume that the Russian Ministers are "in it " also —not quite necessarily for the reasons the circular alleges, but that is a detail. There is much significance in the timing of the apneal. In April, or thereabouts, the English naval construction programme for the coming year was announced in the House of Commons. In May the Russians sent out to the world a gigantic scheme of their own for multiplying their lists of battleships (which, by the way, proves how very sudden their recent conversion to disarmament principles must have been). In July without assigning any reasons— which,' however, everybody perfectly well understood—Mr Goschen quietly announced that a trifle of seven millions sterling would be required by the construction branch of the Admiralty in addition to the credits demanded three months before. The first effect of this was the sudden disappearance from the boards of the Russian naval scheme ; the second was — or was" it? the disarmament proposal. Theory No. 2 concerns France. Having at last wheedled the. Czar of Russia into uttering the magic word "alliance," which he had succeeded in avoiding for nearly two years, Franco has proceeded with feverish haste to nag the Eastern autocrat (who doesn't like republics, though compelled to acknowledge that they may have their uses) into compromising himself with Germany over Al-sace-Lorraine. Now, no Russian statesman cares a permy 1 piece whether the Franco-Ger-man frontier follows the exact line of *lne Rhine or not ; and it became a question with Russia how to break most gently to" her dear ally that sbe did not propose to play the part of the monkey and procurethe chestnuts for France out of the fire of the Krupps. The fury of the Parisians over the Czar's " pacific " announcement does seem to show a connection here. Then there is another and still more likely explanation. Russia may have got tired of hearing herself girded at throughout Europe as being the one wicked cause of the huge collection of armed camps which the nations have become. It would be quite the act of the traditional Russian diplomatist to turn the tables by suddenly saying to her accusers, "Very well, then, let us all disarm," and so compelling the astonished Powers to acknowledge to each other and to the world that other difficulties do crop up even when the Colossus of the North is out of the way. So far, they have hardly recovered sufficiently to gasp out, " Supposing you begin?" as their first obvious reply. Our own opinion is (philanthropic Britons must here prepare to be shocked) that the real difficulty is England herself. She is not armed as the others are, and consequently has no disarming to dp to be on equal terms — at least, so her representatives at the conference will say. Is there any chance of that "going down" with the others, for all it is true? Russia, in short, knows all the points of the game. It is the Devil reproving sin — or, if one should use an illustration nearer home, the political saint who so neatly " landed " Bushy Park when almost in the very grasp of the people virtuously denouncing " illegitimate" methods of land acquisition 25 years ago.

Mr Marshall-Hall, Ormond Profe&sor of Music in the University of A Votary Melbourne, has become tired of the of setting other people's Muses. rhymes to music, and has

accordingly provided a supply of his own. He teaches young ladies the piano in the morning and afternoon, and in the evening composes verses — hymns, he calls them, by the way — about other young ladies with whose peculiar characteristics a lively imagination (he says), makes him somewhat startlingly familiar. One of these heroines of his verse is described, apparently under the ecstatic approval of the poet, as making for the apartments of a friend (not another young lady) in the middle of the night, and the reader is not debarred from following her footsteps till she gets there — nor, indeed, even then. As a variant upon this department of the poetic art we have that which the author calls merely satirical. An example of the latter — a "hymn," like the other — depicts the Supreme Deity is lolling in an easy chair, and proposing to a subordinate to arrange the date of the Last Day according to the whims of some apparently insatiable smoker. When Harmony and Poetiy combine their charms in one and the same gifted individual the result ought theoretically to be something resembling the music of the spheres, "instead of which," as the famous judge said, we have a book of alleged verse in which the gems are mob. examples as we have

just supplied. This, it appears, is Professor Marshall-Hall's third book of poetry; its predecessors, we gather, were much the same, only less so. The University Council sat uneasily under the preliminary performances*- but has drawn the line at "Hymns, Ancient and Modern,' and lias asked the professor for an "explanation. Human nature being as wicked as it is, we fear little "explanation" of such passages as we have quoted is required by ordinary people, and the professor gave none. Dealing, for instance, with the nocturnal incident above briefly indicated, Mr Marshall-Hall merely assured the council "on his honour as a gentleman" that he did not mean what they mean. The council, strange to say, did not forthwith apologise to the professor for its cruel misreading of his " teachings " ; and the upshot is that the Ormond Chair of Music is vacant to-day in much the same sense as the presidential chair of the Bank of New Zealand is vacant over here, and on terms Similar in kind. The poetical musician who occupied it has appropriately closed Ihe incident by going downhill at a fearful rate — but it was on a bicycle, and the result was not moral but physical disaster.

Shakespeare has, for once, been found out. We must not, of course, To tlie pretend to pronounce dogBescne! matically upon the accuracy or otherwise of the latest critical discovery, to the effect that no I' ideal mother" finds a place in his pages, put it is obvious that once the critic has pointed out an actually vacant place it devolves upon the other side to show that that place is in reality effectively 'occupied. Had the commentatress who has so suddenly become famous affirmed on the other hand as her discovery that there is such a thing os an ideal mother in Shakespeare's plays, it would have of course have rested with herself to proceed to make that pronouncejnerf good by producing' her examples. She would have had no difficulty, say the defenders who have rushed in. We have read what they have to say, and we must confess that in our opinion the next move still appertains to them. The original critic can still safely maintain her attitude of alert and we hope, unprejudiced expectancy. The answers, so far, appear to be dictated' rather by an uneasy sensation —than which nothing could be more absurd — that Shakespeare is done for if a serious lapse can be proved against him than by a belief in the specific sufficiency of those answers themselves. It is no doubt satisfactory that when the reputation of Shakespeare is understood to be .threatened with extinction there should be a Mr W. A. W. Wathen to arise in his might and avert the imminent calamity, but then to duly appreciate the rescue one has to be first satisfied that the danger existed. We do not wish to be frivolous, but it seems to us that one thing not yet noted on the side we favour is. that Shakeispeare, besides being the" greatest of poets, ,was also a 1 dramatist and an actor. Further, it has long appeared from such records as are available that -while he knew he was an actor and a playwright, and wrote as such, he never nad any actual suspicion that he was a poet of all future ages. The lact, or what we rather think is the fact, that witn all her beauty and attractiveness an " ideal mother " is very apt to be a "bit of a bore on the actual stage may have" been very present to the mind of the shrewd writer of' plays, and may well have " repressed the noble rage " of the poet in Him. Can any of the unnecessarily uncomfortable champions of the all-in-all theory of Shakespeare's writings remind us of a successful stage play by any other author in which an "ideal mother" is not either 'dangerously like a " walking lady " or*%,n impossible ranter whose endless miseries ■would draw tears from a stone? r We are perfectly willing to be convinced that there is such a play ; but to the eager crowd who, to this nibdest appeal, will of course respond with 'a unanimous chorus of " East Xiynne," we must sorrowfully announce that *we have thought of that, and that they must -please try again. "Problem" enthusiast's are also respectfully notified that jire- fairly well know our Ibsen.

A cable message reached us shortly before "E a.m. oh Wednesday announcing the death, jbf the Right Hon. Sir George Grey. The pews appears to have reached Wellington' tearlier, but the Hon. T. Thompson, who was an charge, declined to adjourn the House, bepause he had not received official intimation. S The death is announced this week of Mrs (Alison Ross Kilgonr, a very old colonist. The deceased lady came to the colony with her Jiusband, Mr James Kilgour, on the 15th February, 1854-, in the brigantine .Clutha, which had been specially built for her brother, Mr George Ross, who came to Otago in the Philip £Laing and had returned to Scotland to get the .vessel built. The vessel was of only about EOO tons burthen, but she proved too large for the trade. Mr Kilgour joined Mr Ross, his brother-in-law, and they opened their store at the corner of Princes and Rattray streets, 4he latter at the time being a swamp. For 'some years the deceased lady, who was greatly jesteemed by all who knew her, has resided with ther husband at Goodwood. She is survived foy her husband, and leaves a family of one Bon and three daughters. I The Southland News says: — "An unusual' fcourse has been adopted by eight Invercargill [Justices 6f the peace in regard to the sentence t)f three months' imprisonment passed by Mr 'J. W. Poynton, S.M., on Richard' Matthews, feolicitor, for failure to comply with anorder of Jfche' court to maintain two of his children. /They have wired the Minister for Justice ask.jingthat execution be suspended until a formal '/petition can be forwarded. Meantime Matthews has been lodged in gaol." \ Mr Mestayer, M. Inst. C.E., who has carried out the drainage works in Wellington, arrived in Dunedin last week in response jfco a request from the City Council lo report Upon the beifc method of draining the City of fDunedin and surrounding districts. It is understood that Mr Mestayer will at once be furnished with the necessary data to enable him to commence his duties, and it is hoped jthat within the next few 'weeks the City Council will be in possession of the opinion of this eminent expert to guide them in coming to a decision in the all-important matter of a drain. lEUZe scheme.