The Otago Witness. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2356, 20 April 1899, Page 33

The Otago Witness. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY.

(THURSDAY, APRIL,2O, 1859.) THE WEEK.

" Nunqaam aliud naiura, auud mpicnUa dixit." — Jutiwal. "Good n*ture »nd goo-i sease muse crer join.**— Pors. The Hon. John JfKenzie is away to the , New World, en route for the Side Old, with a private secreLigUts. tary, £1100 in pocket. £500 of State subsidj r in prospect, an«l a salary of £1000 a 33 T eaf running on to add to the* rest. Those are not bad terms upon which to take a holiday and have c ne's health attended to, and the question oi the extent to which the Minister's public services have earned such lavish munificence at the expense -of the Treasury and of his admirers must be in the minds of many whose deliberate estimate of- Mr M'Kenzie is (like our own) that he is in some respects the best, and in many more the very worst, of the present Ministry. The pretence of attention by Mr M'Kenzie to public business at Home wo have from the first utterly discarded, while at the same time urging that a spirit of- generous concurrence in the provision of the expenses of his journey should be the* altitude of all parties, in view of the fact that the hard work of office has undoubtedly had much to do with the doubtful condition of the Minister's health. It was a mistake from Mr M'Kenzio'sown point of view ever to have introduced at all the obviously hollow fiction of an intention to earn the cost of his trip by promoting the public interest fn the mother country. Tin? adhesion of his political opponents in Parliament and t-ie press had been secured, through their own generous spontaniety, , without tint plea, and its unfortunate promulgation had the doubtless uniooked-for effect of decidedly weakening a previously strong position. With regard to the so-called public testimonial, it is the present Ministry's own fault that Uie" public decline to believe in the disinterestedness of a considerable number of the large subscriptions — some of .which, indeed, when con; trasted with the ' customary donations of their providers to other and far more deserving objects than providing a -reward in money for a well-paid public man, rhav well cause astonishment to persons unaware of the secret springs of such unwonted liberality. This movement also, moreover, like the other, could not be' kept clear of trickery, hypocrisy, and pretence. With a perfectly workable gold mine to draw upon in the shape of party adherents and expectants, the promoters must needs resort for the swelling of their purse to the false pretence that the movement was a national and not a party one. The .appeal for sub-scriptions-was to all classes, with an assurance of the freedom- of the whole thing froui, party objects ; but the actual address, which' it was no doubt confidently reckoned wculd be read by very few subscribers, was couched in terms lhat went to the very extreme of party prejudice and of partisan invention. All this, was highly discreditable when the object was hard cash. It may seem to the promoters to be clever business, but it hardly presents that aspect to the unprejudiced onlooker. When, however, a dozen prizes for party zeal in the shape of Legislative Council vacancies are dangled before the eyes ot Ministerial hangers on by fortunate gentlemen who are a lifinj; .example of what Ministerial favour can do in cases whei'e private merit is inDcnspicuoiis and public service invisible to the unaiaed eye, things appear excusable which, ordinarily, would be repudiated as Jbeneath the dignity of those who have unVei taken them.

The Samoan news, as we predicted it would, gets more and more disturbThe Struggle ing as time goes on. Up to in the latest du.te& — let us be Samoa. frank — the war made upon

Mat«afti by_ the local force.-, of Great Britain and the United States has been a failure. The '.white caps" have been driven wit of stronghold utter stronghold by the shells and by gallantly-per-formed expeditions , into the* bush ; the viliages of -Mataafa -chiefs have been burnt, if one, gathers rightly, in dozens, and the lwats of the unfortunate inhabitants scuttled in scores : lives have been freely. yielded up on both sides ; yet, up to the latest reports j to hand, not only is Mataafa not over- j whelmed, but his cause win hardly, be said j even to have been injured. It seems hard upon the sorely-tried naval officers who have, as they believe, been forced into" this deplorable business, and upon the fine fel^ ; lows under them, that, looking at the whole i affair from a distance, its aspect should have j to be declared to be so utterly unsatisfactory. The war, at best, was a hateful necessity, even if it had been attended with the prompt and overwhelming success which we nave been accustomed to expect from any serious enterprise of 'the British arms. As it is, the effect of the news -which our correspondent has supplied •to the world from the scene of action is to induce not j enly the most disquieting doubts as to the ! original necessity for all this blood and pillage, but a disheartening recognition of, so far at any rate, its uselessnes*. Mataafa's ca?e is not, it must be admitted, a weak j one. Absurd as a >Samoan " throne " "may j seem to us, it is to a Samoan chief of kingly antecedents the highest- of earthly reward*. To. lo^e it by the legal award of a foreign lawyer, and thereupon to '(elibuately crush the hopes and still the rirgings of half a people, who were eager to risk their lives in retaining it by force, miy well have tried a stronger fibre than the old I chief's. But to resist the clamours of his j wairiors when one of the Great Powers was on their, side and urging him, through its j local representatives, to rely on the Emperor j at Berlin and boldly face the English and their puppet King was under the circumstances a well nig superhuman virtue to< expect from an ambitious savage. Having once, with such formidable support, crossed tli-j Rubicon and struck for his crown, who can blame Mataafa for persisting, eyen •though $he bush weie bhelied, villages

bi.rnt, and plucky dashes made by bluejackets and marines into the thickets where his men lay hi 3? There can hardly, one would think, be anything in the plan of operations against them to convince the guerilla bands of, the bush that their hour of ddfem had come. No doubt, of course, can be for a moment entertained that the armies of England and America will prevail in the end if the finishing of the gruesome game is left to them. But "it is practically certain that it will not be left to them, at any rate in the present sense. The business will be finished up in another way that will leave us all deploring a woful waste of blood and a stirring up of the fiercest island passions that years of a new monarchy nTay not allay.

The attitude of the local German officials resolves itself into a refusal Whose to abide by the decision of Fault I the Chief Justice (who is^an

American) as to the legal aspect of the question of succession to the' I throne. Here at once is manifest one of two things — either a gross violation of instruc- i tions by the German Consul, or an almost j incredible carelessness on the part of all three Powers in preparing for the impending decision of the Supreme Court. With z'egard-to the first explanation, we can hardly believe that Mr Rose was induced by the Germans of Apia to deliberately contravene the express instructions of his Government, and we conclude, .consequently, that lie hiid no express instructions at all that would cover the actual event. If thhs be correct, the further conclusion is inevitable that the Powers have been worse than careless in realising their Samoan responsibilities. Before Mr Chambers was ever allowed to deliver his judgment in Apia at all, there should have been a complete 'md unmistakable agreement between England, , Gf'.rmany, and the Cnkeil State? as to what was to follow such delivery. Then, and not after i the judgment, was the time for Germany to i say, " We, at any rate, won't have Malietoa, and you two others must reckon with th?t." It ( is quite certain that neither England nor America would have refused to discuss the point with Germany beforehand ; nnd we might even say with tolerable certainty that if the German objections to Malietoa had been piessed in London or Washington to any pronounced extent, tht chances are greatly that the Cabinets of th« Queen and of President M'Kinley would have yielded rather than have a'ruptur6 on the matter. • But instead of settling beforehand upon "a clear and united lino of action when so vif-al a point as that of the Kingship — already, as the Powers well knew, a fruitful, historic source of hloodshed — was about to be formally determined in the Island, to which no cable communication exists, and three foreign offices choose to leave the whole thing to the chances of the moment, with the lesult that of the. two countries represented on the spot ay' armed forces when the judgment 1 was given, one immediately took one side and one the other. Rebellion was thus, in- : e\ itably fostered, and the deplorable series of events into which we have been led sincewas gradually 'but irrevocably entered upon. .The bloodshed and confusion at Samoa ive hold, to. bfe not entirely the fault of the Germans" oh the spot, bud enough though t/lie" action of these has been. The contributory negligence on the part of all three foreign offices in allowing the Kingship' to "go to trial without a clear, mutual understanding of the action to be taken on the judgment, and unmistakable instructions to their local representatives accordingly, must be bracketed with German malevolence and truculence as the direct cause of this unhappy affair.

It is to be hoped that the new Joint Com- . mission (which comes less The Xew aptly us an afterthought than departure. •it would have as' a precaution) has started with a definite plan and clear instructions, and- has not merely been formed on friendly term* in Washington only to squabble in Apia after the consular fashion.. But it is not easy to be confident of the result, even if i this . clear necessity has been* "duly recogn ised. Before the shelling and the blood.shed, it would no doubt have been fairly certain that the mandates of a Joint Commission . with the warships of the three Powers at' "its back would have "governed ! the situation." Anyone can judge, how much lehs likely that is' now. Supposing, even Chat Germany abandons Mataafa (which she ltrur officially 'denied her irltention of doing); ;md isends him word to .come in. and behave ! himself, things .have already gone so far that he may decline the invitation. Up to ! the latest dates, his warriors were inclined to conclude that the bush was big enough foi* themselves and the shells of two warships ; they may think that a third joining in would still leave that .comfortable formula unaffected. In short, Mataafa, us the ! result of recent events, may " fancy himself" more than ever, or he may, have j meantime, by some horrible barbarity, or other, have put himself outside the pale of forgiveness, or he may be unwilling to trust to promises of Cafe-conduct, ,or his warriors may not let him give in if he wants [ to. This, too, is all on the- favourable as- ! m mption that Germany abandons him at all, which is it&elf, as we have said, against picscnt evidence of her intentions. It is obvious, therefore, that over-weening confidence in the immediate success of the new Commission would not be justified.. In the meantime we have the death of many good men to mourn, and can only by an effort of the mind find any compensating gratification in the fict that many more Samoans ! have bitten the dust. We must .seek relief to the 'mind in approving the stern resolution .of the naval commanders when once the war had been entered upon, in rejoicing at the amity of -English and Americins" throughout, and in praising the bravery | of the troops ashore- t -with the one inevitable ; inertal reservation (soon, we must hope, to | be finally removed) that explanation is imperative why a wounded American officer | was left in the bush by a retreating force, ■ and why the one man who nobly stuck by I him >was f- imficed without an effort because 'hf did B. Tlie most probable explanation lies ii 3 the unUmelv d«ath of poor Fieeiiuui at the critical moment of the letrcaU

The Salvation Army— or at any rate Gen»^ raUJßooth — is going a little A Conflict too fast. The General, no of doubt, does not know Mr Testimony. Seddon as well as we do . over here, and his statement in Sydney about his arrangements with the Government was virtually to the effect that the Premier had surrendered at discretion. This, to be sure, is *an election year, and Mr Seddon no doubt feels that he has not yet made quite so sure of the Army as he has of the Catholics and "the trade"; still, we do not believe he was quite so subservient to General Booth's behests as that astute old soldier claims, lhat General Booth believes his own state- < ment to be true is clear enough, but, as we have remarked, he does not know Mr beddon. Ir, however, the impression of the General that he is to have the control of reformatory schools for the future (under Government subsidy) is a little too extravagant to be accurate, clearly the counter-statement put forward by the Premier strains belief quite as much on the other side. It must" be remembered that Mr Seddon and the Salvation Army leader had long conferences (" than which" the General told an interviewer, <r I could- not wish for anything .more cordial")-, and the Cabinet afterwards took the unusual cdurse of sitting in special: Conference -with" Hie "younger Mr Booth. As the result of these very elaborate and special negotiations, it is officially announced by the 'Salvation Army that" it •has secured' what (in Ctiina) is called a "concession." giving it' the? exclusive supervision of our reformatory schools for the future, with a satisfactorygrant out of the public Treasury to secure the necessary finance. The Premier scouts this version of the arrangements, and we fully believe that so far Mr Seddon is to be believed ; but when he goes on to give . his own account of what has really been done, the question at once arises how, from I such a bald and unimportant arrangement J as the Premier depicts, General Booth can have derived the extreme gratification he professes. Indeed, it seems odd that ,for such a result the elaborate conferences in Wellington should ever have been arranged at all. Probably the truth lies somej where in the middle, and it is quite possible that neither party is to blame even if the statements of both are inaccurate. But wo remember the history and origin of the Technical Schools Bill, and it will not . therefore surprise us if General Booth succeeds in demonstrating that he • holds at -any rate more important promises than the Premier yet owns up /to.

It is a very serious thing that British rail-

way companies, and our Effects of Egyptian - administration, » have found themselves oomStrike. - pelled to order locomotives

and iron bridges from America .and Belgium. ' This confession ol rt-eakness by the- greatest ma-nufaotairing country in the^yorld is startling and humiliating, to Englishmen, though- on ; the Continent it will b& hailed, with "open delight as another sign of the decadence o! our nation. It is just as well, hovrever, that the announcement has come, in such a wholesale and sensational form. There is. every reason to believe that" ever since ■ the engineering strike there ha"s been a good deal of importation of engines and manufactured iron going on- in Britain, but the fact was not presented to the public in any conspicuous way. Now that a whole batch of locomotives and bridge material has apparently been openly ordered from the greatest of England's rivnls in the iron trade, those who are persistently nptiinistio about our , commercial supremacy may find themselves uncomfortably but usefully stirred. We observe that the English firms attribute the passing of the big order to the fact that " the hours of foreign labour are longer, and no attempt is made to limit the output." In other words, the anxious predictions so freely made during the disastrous engineering strike have been only too well justified by the event. The strike, it is true, -failed : but its direct coat to the parties concerned was measured by millions of pounds, and now; we are having light thrown upon . some of its indirect effects. The uneasiness and "uncertainty; resulting to employers through the revelation made to thenv of the' utter-unreasonableness of the-tittitude of their men .undoubtedly, led to extreme caution in allowing what should have bfeen ft natural expansion, in each firm's • plant -and. -establishment, ah effect -which : was^ much promoted also by the- tremerv- • dous losses suffered by owners' through 4;he long stoppage and the paralysis- of ''the trode. The result has been that the productive capacity of the works has been unequal to even an ordinary strain such • as this not very large order for engines and ironwork, and that, though if a long time were available British firms could doubtless fulfil the order more cheaply than foreign ones, a loading hns had to be put upon the price to meet the special expenses involved in hurry. The loading gave the foreigner his chance. This small item of the week's news is one of immense importance to our nation and country. _ American and Belgian iron manufacturers* will be enormously, encouraged in their - long-cliErished. hope of " cutting out " England "at her own specialty ; and the worst of it is that there is as yet little hope of trade unions taking a sensible and prudent view of the danger and its causes. Another such folly as the engineering strike may finally slay the goose that lays for them the golden eggs. We may have to send to Belgium for our ships yet.

It is a very curious thing that in the midst *. . of the stirring times we -live Tlie Rjtnnlistic jn the f oremost- public, quesPuzzle. tion in England "at the present moment (using the wore "foremost" in the sense "of being hearc n.ost of) is ' not China, nor Africa, noi Samoa, but the tremendous squabble in tin Church of England. No doubt this is due. to the personal intervention of Sir William Harcourt, and to the medium he chose foi his message to the "Evangelicals" — namely, the columns of The Time-'. A person in his- high position could not but command a hearing even in the very hour of his political fall: nor c.iv anjmie whom the leading joum.i! pei mils to u'.f it- coveted cori ejspoudence columns as freely aa ilie ex-

Liberal 'leader haa fail to reach the ears and homes of His fellow-countrymen in a special degree-.- This and the fact that the Ritualists are pushing forward their advanced guard with vigour have combined, to bring about 'what is called a " crisis in the church," the end of which may quite possibly be disestablishment and the disappearance of the political power of the fcishops. It is this latter possibility, that chiefly interests colonists, as any considerable change in the constitution of the British Parliament obviously must. To give only one instance, many colonists suffer nnder a chronic grievance connected with fche law of marriage, which hitherto/ the House of Lords, entirely through the power »f the bishops, has persistently refused to Jissimilate in England to the Statutes of the colonies. Of course, however, disestablishment is, anyhow, a long way off yet, and meantime the fact that every English, newspaper is discussing the " crisis " forces the controversy to the front, even in these distant parts. Sir William Harcourt — whose letters, we must candidly say, do not, in a literary sense, illuminate the columns of •The Times — calls furiously upon the bishops to " do their duty" and scatter these "unfaithful priests" to the four winds. The Ritualists, in reply, defy them to come on, and declare that they, and they alone, are duly serving what they delight in calling - "the Catholic Church" (the word "Roman" is, of course, omitted), and are prepared to welcome disestablishment before yielding. The medium party,, represented by the Spectator, keeps expressiag mild dismay at the excesses of the Ritualists, bub entreating- both parties to keep their temper and the peace, and all will com.c right. To turn out the extremists, they say, is opposed to the cardinal Anglican principle of toleration or " comprehension, ' which means that a good deal of latitude beyond the 39 articles is officially winked at, as in the

case of the Westminster confession in* another church. The bishops meet solemnly at Lambeth, and keep up a dropping fire of "pastorals," "which do not seem to amount to much. Both Lord Salisbury and "Mr Balfour have be6n frantically appealed to by the Evangelicals to "do something," but, though they are both decorously shocked at ritualistic excesses, they evidently wish it politely to be understood that they do not consider the matter any business of theirs. The fact remains that

everybody in the church is excitedly calling upon everybody else to "do something," or to do nothing, or to come on, or to stand fast, or to make somebody else do one or Other of these things ; and the difficulty seems to be to get anybody to take the least practical notice of these confusing appeals. , -•

The Rev. J. Gibb has given notice that lit the May meeting of the Duuedin, Presbytery he mil move that the presbytery take the initiative in the formation of a council, similar to the council of the Free 1 Church 'of Scotland,' for the uniting together of all the Nonconformist churehes7««for the purpose of taking 'common, action against social evils.

There died at Balclutha on Saturday, at

}he house of her daughter, Mrs Hugh Bower, f very old resident of. Otago in. the person of Mrs Francis Marshall, aged 91. Mrs Marshall landed at Port Chalmers from the JPhilip Laing on Saturday, April 17, 1848, and it will be observed that by a remarkable coincidence she died on Saturday, April 15, exactly 51 years later. The deceased lady was born at Paisley, and came out with her hußband and six of their family in that

historic vessel. Her husband was on the sur-

.vey staff, then employed by Captain Cargill, .settled at Halfway Bush, dying there in 1887, where his relict lived until about two years' ago, when she came to live with her *ou Matthew at Hillend. Five of the family iwho came out in the Philip Laing are still alive — viz., Matthew Marshall and Mrs Bower (Balclutha), Francis Marshall (Mosgiel), Alex. Marshall (Milton), and Mrs

Dewar (Ratanui), — and three born in this country — Mra Dall (Invercargill) and Robert juid John Marshall (Invercargill). The deceased leaves, in addition, 44- grandchildren jmcl 46 great-grandchildren. — Clulhs? Leader. So good are the prospects of the dredges already in operation* at Waikaka that a number morefrlO, so we (Wyndham Farmer) hear — are about to. be constructed for work

in th© same, locality. More dredges are also .to be placed. on the Mataura. A party from ■<3ambrianß (Central Ota.go) has pegged off an area in the Mataura, by Charllou.

While at' Clifden, Mr Durie, who has the accommodation house there, drew our atten* tion to * what might be appropriately called the Waiau ' Spliinx. To parallel the Egyptian antiquities, it requires the lion's body, but although it lacks this part, it lias a feature which they have not, and that is that the "Waiau Sphinx is the work of nature. A few chains south of the new suspension bridge there rises' to a height- of 200 ft or more a bold limestone headland, and it rises almost sheer from the rapidly-flowing river. At the top of this is the representation of an immense human face, and so well delineated is it that one does not hesitate to notice the resemblance when the attention is drawn to it. Many thought they saw a resemblance to the countenance of Gladstone, others of Roeebery, and certainly it bears a tomarkable likeness' to both. From the sumJnit a -"splendid 'of the surrounding fccuntry is to be obtained, and several venlurespme/. parties lost, no time in\ scaling the, fceight, "being well rewarded for tiieir pazna. — ■ Western Star.

In connection with the claims for injuries eustained in the Rakaia railway collision, the Cbristchuroh Press states that a number have been received, ranging from £20 to £1000. The matters are referred to the medical officer as they come in, but it will be a long while yet before any final steps Jfre jaken, as many negotiations are pending.

A meeting of the Dunedin Pipe Band waa Tield in their rooms, Rattray street, on Monday evening, when there was an attend auce of 15. Pipe-major A. Gray occupied the chair. The following were appointed a Working Committee: — E. H. Jamieson, J. H. MacPherson, C. Fraser, John M'Lean, It. Murray, Angus Chisholm, James Priest, G. Meildejohn, and Donald M'PhaiL Noncommissioned officers were then elected as follows:— Pipe sergeants— Alfred !£urriy and W. Duncan Hume; pipe corporal, LachJ»n M'Kenzie. The band practice' nights ore Mondays and Thtusdaye, and those inter-

ested are invited to visit the band orderly rooms in Rattray street. Subscriptions are now being received to j>rovido uniform for the band by Mr William Reid, secretary of the Caledonian Society, who is hon. treasurer of the band.