PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2387, 30 November 1899, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(Proai Saturday's Daily Times.) The mail news flings us back on a misery from which we had reaped — the thought of our lost battalionfe. We are told in what bewilderment, with what dumb agony of grief and pain the news was received in England. For "grief" I had written " shame," which was a wrong word aud a wrong idea. Reading the comments of the British press, I do not make out that my countrymen felt any need to be ashamed ; nor do 1 feel any disposj'-ion 'to be as-humed of hit countrymen. They boie their sorrow with dignity ; they spoke of it with self-resti'aint ; they humbled themselves to accept its lesson. There has been no resentment against General White, no pstulant Avail — " Varus, give us back our 'ogions ! " In short, public feeling about this unwonted humiliation has been exaatly "\/hat it ought to be. That is not to say that the thing is over and done. Far from it! The time for inquiry will arrive, .soon < r lute ; what happened' and - how it hap- '. pened will be accurately known ; tlie blame, if any, will be fitted on to the right shoulders. A heavy reckoning has to be exacted for the conduct of this campaign ; the surrender at Ladysmith may turn out to- be only an item in a lengthyindictment, and not the worst. To-day's cables show us the Boers careering about the colony of Natal as if it were their own. We have troops here and troops there — 10,000 at Ladysmith, isolated ; 14,000 at Jistcourt, isolated ; 10.GOO at Maritzburg, not yet isolated, becausre we can communicate with them from Durban, but as unaole to stir as the garrisons at Ladysmith and Estcourt. And the reason for this helplessness is that our men move on foot, whilst the Boers move on horseback ; in other words, we have not sufficient cavalry. And why have we" not sufficient cavalry? That is what tlie British people will want to know, and the time is not far off when they will ask the question with very alarming emphasis. Meanwhile, I comfort myself with the assur_ance that everything must come right in the end, and that our affairs may take a lucky turn at any time, perhaps to-morrow. Nevertheless it must be acknowledged that the outlook is discouragingly overcast today. I hear it predicted that in this election, as in the last, Dunedin will send in two Oppositionists and one Seddon ite. Not unlikely ; we are quite capable of mismanaging our affairs to that extent. Mismanaged they would be, most certainly. If we can send in two Oppositionists, we can fißnd ia three ; failure to send in three will

1 simply prove that we did not know how to -handle '.our votes. Let lie try to make this , plain. We will do a little election sum, if i you please, with a view to illustrating the j rvalue of the rule — vote solid. . Let there be f a' "constituency which will poll- 1000 votes, dividing them Between two rival tickets jof three names each — Messrs A., -8. , and •C. on the one, and Messrs X., V. , and Z. on the other. Let us suppose that Mr A., the strongest man on his own ticket, is just' able to overtop Mr X., the strongest j man on the other. Of the 1000 vof.es ! polled, A. gets 501, X. 499. On this *tate j of the poll X. is dangerously close ; yet it I is impossible that X. should be elected if •i the other side have had the intelligence to ! vote the'r ticket solid. For, in that case, the £01 votes they gave to A. they gave . also to B. and to C. ; the whoie three go in together. But suppose that some of A. s friends, with the klca cf making his election sure, have plumped for him. That folly will inevitably give one ol the' three seats to X. For, observe, by plumping for A. they do not' increase his total by a single ' vote ; A.'s number will still be 501 and no more. All that they accomplish hy plumping is the ruin of one of A.'s colleagues, or of both. They take away from the totals of }3. and C, reducing them below X. on the rival ticket, possibly, indeed, below Y. or Z. Let it then be clearly understood : the effect of plumping will be to throw away ' a seat — one, and possibly two. My earnest advice therefore to all electors who desire to bring about the redemption of I&rael is to vote the Mackenzie-Sligo-Haynes ticket solid. Let tie other side also vote solid, if they choose. It Mil) make no difference. Scobie Mackenzie's exceptional lead three years ago and Mr Mligo's victory at the by-election show where the voting superiority is. Let us use it, then — carry our three men and secure the everlasting gratitude of the country. j It is impossible to help being struck with j the persistence with which a local candij dale for the honorarium of £20 a month ! protests that he is independent of the party J that supports him. He would stand a better chance of being believed if he did i not protest quito so much. The very cir- | cumstances under which he is a candidate | at all are uncommonly unfavourable to the j assumption of independence. Throw inde- ; pendence to the dogs : Mr Suddon will have ! none o' it. Mr Tom Mackenzie was an in- | dependent candidate for the Cluxha. That 1 settled the matter, said Mr Seddon ; unj divided support must be given to Mr Finlav M'Leod. the Government candidate. Up in the Lyttelton district a candidate ■ named Laurcnson declined to subscribe to a written pledge to Mr Seddon to support him whenever his vote was demanded of him. That settled him ; he was an enemy, Mr Seddon told the electors, and they must vote for Joyce, who ha. 1 * no nice scruples iri a matter of that kind. Did I not read this week that a Workers' Political Association, after having selected a Mr Hornblow as a candidate for Wellington, decided to j telegraph to Mr SeclJon to ask if he would ! suit? And if he will suit, is it not as | plain as it can be that it is because he will ' not dare to bu independent? Why should ( Mr Seddon have the Houss filled with inde- : pendent members when the electors will ' stand by and allow him to select their canj didates for them? He is fighting, mark i you, for his bare existence as a Minister, j He does not want to give up the spoils of ] oWce yet awhile and go back to Kumara ; , and if the people will iniist on returning ; members who will pledge themselves to sup- ! port, him through thick and ihin, through | one scandal after another, why blame him j for exacting pledges? Self-preservation is j the first law of nature, go long as he is allowed to make his pick, it is but natural j that he should select those who would be his obedient servant?. He is encouraged to do so. What other construction can be placed on a circumstance that has come to light in a West Coast constituency? Both candidates claim the Government support. In a dilemma as to which is the real Mackay, an elector wired to the fountain-head of Liberalism, and received this reply : "Well satisfied with Mr O'Regan. Would like to see him returned. Kind regards. — R-. J. Seimjont." Friend "Dick" never omits the kind regards. They don't cost him anything, as the bleeding country bears the expense of his telegrams, and the recipient is amazingly gratified at the proof of this solicitude the Premier has for his welfare. There you have it again, however: '"Well satisfied with Mr O'Regan." If this puts The O'Regan in, as it probably will, what price his independence in the next Parliament? You will get shorter odds about Mr Chapman's chances of elec-

tion for Dunedin than about that. Do noc ' ask me, therefore, to believe in the inde- . pendence of any. candidate on a Govern- i ment ticket. Go to, young man ; if I want < to vote for an independent candidate, it is j open to me to support Mr~Chapman. There ) ■^is some virtue in his. independence, even if he is independent by accident rather than by choice. ! It did not ocur to me that the innocent questions which, with all due civility of phrase, I addressed to the Tablet respecting the destination of the Roman C'ai.holic \ vote at the approaching elections would pub j that sacred print into a blazing fury. Yet ] so it has befallen. The word "blazing" • I retract as inaccurate ; the fury to which \ I have unwittingly provoked the Tablet is 1 a iury of whirling smoke and ashes — blind- < , ing, suffocating", in every way mo&t as- ' tonishing. Heaven save me from contro- '< versy with such a dust-volcano £ That will '. I most carefully avoid. I may be per- j mitted, however, to express my amazement ] that a writer who, presumably, has enjoyed to some extent the advantages -of educa-, tion, should use without rfiame a ' style of discourse which, as far as my observation goes, is without parallel in the modern newspaper press — axcept perhaps in the un- " ■speakable gutter papers of Paris, whose 'habit it is to screech that " Queen Victoriaought to be hanged liko Mary Ansell," and that the time is coming when " France will j be able to strangle the last Englishman j with the guts of the last Scotchman." Just about as flatulent as this, just about as truculent, though a good deal less lucid, is the Tablet editor's outburst against " Civis " and the Daily Times. And all for what? Simply because I asked him whether Roman Catholics generally were -going to vote for the Government. I did not deny their 4 right to vote for the Government, if they j so preferred. I merely expressed a desire .• to know whether the Government had reason to count on the Roman Catholic vote. This is my offending ! And for this the Tablet editor chases the name of '" Civis ' through four fuliginous columns, up and down, cursing as comprehensively as the < Lord Cardinal in the " Jackdaw of Eheims" :—: — j He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed ; | Prom the sole of his foot to the crown of his ! hend ; ' ) I He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in I drinking, j | He cursed him in. coughing, in sneezing, in ! winking, i He cursed him in sitting, in standing, and j lying ; I ; He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying, ] , He cursed him in living, he cursed him in j dying ! ! That is about the drift of it, anyhow ; I j don't profess to speak by the card. InterI mingled with his maledictions are ghastly j attempts at humour — humour at my exI pense. The poor man miirht sometimes be j iunny, if he could keep his temper. As it I is, the faces he pulls at me are the grimac- ' ings of a literary epileptic. I The answer to my questions is, in brief, j No. i There is no "inducement" offered to i ! Catholics; no pact, agreement, promise, or un- ] ! derstanding of any kind " between certain high • I contracting parties that Roman Catholics, as j far as their ecclesiastical authorities can iv- , fluence them, shall bo influenced to vote for ' the Government. ' I Thus the Tablet editor ; and if he could have i limited himself to saying this simply, he [ might have obtained from ■just-minded j people a ready cicdence for it. Nobody • desires to judge Roman Catholics unfairly ; ' so far as this column has any say in the i matter nobody shall be permitted to do it. i Nobody in the least wants to quarrel Avith i Roman Catholics, or to tread on the tail of J the Tablet's coat, persistently though it be ; trailed for- that purpose. Lefc us admit, then, that the editor's denial — " no pact, no agreement, no promise or understanding of any kind " — ought to carry weight. And so it would, had he not mixed it up with other statments which ought to carry no weight at all, being — not to put too fine a point upon it — obviously false. Here, I for example, >s one — a little one — about myself ; — that I fill in and fill up the Passing Note column with : — An occasional verbal -transcript taken (without acknowledgment) from " Oriel " of the Melj bourne Argus. This, like certain theological propositions, may be received by faith, but is incapable of proof. It is incapable of proof for tlie reason that there is not a word of truth in : it. No verbal transcript, nor any other , I sorb of transcript, from "Oriel" of the ; I Argus lias ever appeared in t^his column^ !

acknowledged or unacknowledged. .The Tablet's statement is an ecclesiastical invention, absolutely. But worse remains behind. Hear what he has to say about the Times' editor -and his ways: — Anothcr,niethod [of raising sectarian passion] is to open the -fcolumns of the paper to corres-^ pondence along the proper channel. ""Such correspondence frequently, if not usually, origi^ nates with, and is kept up by, persons connected . with the newspaper office itself. It is for the most part anonymous, and uniformly abusive mid exaggerated. Replies may or -may not como to hand. Effective replies, unless coming from persons of some note or position, are frequently either thrown into the waate paper basket or published in a form so mutilated that their value is destroyed. In order to give'^an excuso for the prolongation of the correspondence, weak, wishy-washy " replies " are, in cafe of need, concocted, frequently at the newspaper office, and published anonymously or over bogus names; or semi-illiterate effusions, coming nominally or really from some indignant but well-meaning '' domestic help," are selected for their sublime worthle3sness and inserted as the best and only reply the "other side." can - make. This account of the genesis and development of a bogus correspondence is so minutely - done that one is compelled to believe the author ,to be describing from experience. Evidently he knows all about bogus correspondents at first hand. Bui as an attempt to describe what goes on in the Times office it is ti failure. ■ It is a, failure, because there , is no truth in it, not a scintilla. And to this my statement the Times editor is doubtless prepared, if need were, to pledge his honour. But there is no need. It is not necessary to vindicate the morality of the journal to which I have the honour to be a humble contributor against the aspersions of the Tablet. I refer to them merely to illustrate the peril into which the Tablet editor brings his statement about the Roman Catholic vote. For if we cannot believe him on one subject, why should we believe him on another? Civis.

During the hearing of the industrial dispute between the Dunedin Painters' Union and the master painters of Dunedin, at a pitting of the Arbitration Court on the 21st, the question of the legality of giving preference of employment- to unionists was referred to. Mr Justice Edwards (President of the Court) said the previous president held that it was legal to give unionists reference of employment, as also did Mr Justice Denniston. His Honor, however, did not share the Fame opinion ; but he was not going to consider whether it was legal or illegal. He felt bound to act upon the viows taken by other judges in the matter. The only question the court had to consider was the expediency of giving unionists tiie preference in each particular case, and he intended in future to give preference in cases where Jie considered it was expedient. If the court went beyond its jurisdiction the proceedings could bo quashed. Our Wellington correspondent telegraphs: — Mr Tolhurst, the well-known Wellington banker, has obtained six months' leave of abeence, and in company with his wife and daughter purposes setting out on a round-the-world tour in January. The party will spend a month in Egypt, en route to England. The Hon. W. M. Bolt has been confined to Lis bed during the past nine days with a severe attack of influenza. He is, however, now recovering, but will probably not be able -to lea^e the house for at least a few days yet. One of the most remarkable freaks of nature occurs in New Mexico. It is (says a contemporary) a river that is not a river. No one ha 3 ever peen it. The bed of it lies between the Rio Grand del Norte and Pecos Rivers. It is well defined, and many travellers have followed its windings to learn, if possible, what becomes of the great volume of ''water which should be there. It is not a dead or dried up stream. It is simply lost. Numerous big tributaries flow into it from- the neighbouring mountains. Immediately, however, they reach the bed of the main stream they disappear from sight. Thus, for some reason or another, a river which should be 300 miles in length has no existence which could bo proved. Mr Elias Dimant, of Melbourne, but formerly of Otago, gave an interesting address on " The Power of Prevailing Prayer " to Christian women assembled at the Y.W.C.A. Hall, on Saturday evening. From many interesting cases cited from his own experience, and that of Christian friends, Mr Dimant fih owed that " God is, and He becometh a rewarder of them that seek Him." Among other things, the nreacher sought to enforce

the necessity of Christians making provision for "The Morning Watch," in order that their work and testimony might* lie in the power of the Spirit through communion with God in prayer. On Sunday afternoon St. Andrew's Church Sunday- school was" visited, and an evangelistic address' Was given, when a large number of the scholars were dealt with who had expressed their desire to be " found ready when the Son of Man cometh." In the evening Mr- Dimant spoke both with power and acceptance at the -Russell street Mission Hall, and on Monday evening, by special request, the' visitor addressed the Dunedin Young Men's Mission members at their usual quarterly meeting, strengthening the hands of the members of that body in their evangelist^ labours., Mr Thomas Alva Edison, the famous .American electrician and inventor, believe? that he has at last discovered a successful concentrating and separating process for extracting goltl from low grade ore, and from grave". To this end he haj purchased a big tract of 'lond near Santa Fe, for the sum of £600,000. Tlie tract contains "54J000 acres, and thbugfi known to be rich in gold, all attempts hitherto made to extract it, have not 1 been profitable. -The. scarcity of water in that region has always been an obstacle in the way of success-. It is stated, however, that Mr Ediaori's new process eliminates the use of water. The basis of his scheme is electricity, and it is believed that he treats the ore and gold automatically. There hae apparently been no trouble in raising the £600,000 foi the purpose of the Innd grant, and the additional money necessary for the installation of the machinery. Mr Edison is still n. comparatively young man — he was born in 1847 — and he may yet succeed in discovering the philosopher's stone. A writer in the London Referee seeks in. formation, as to the fate of the New Zealand naturalist Richard Henry. Incidentally he recalls how nearly he was drowned when fail- . ing with Henry round the northern headland of the Middle Arm of Lake Te Anau. There, wa?, he says, " scarcely air enough to keep way on the boat, but we cleared the hear", and then, as if a blow had struck us, we met the wind, and with a jammed sheet we were gunwiile-under in a flash. We had a grim five seconds, and baling enough to last us as many minulee. Dick -Henry'sN smartness brought him off that time, and brought mo with him." No doubt the writer in question will be pleased to learn that Mr Henry is still in the land of the living, and that any communications addressed to the care of Captain Bollard, Wellington will reach the subject of hirf quest. Dread prohibition is apparently not without it 3 terrors, even for the Supreme Court bench. The other : day a case which was- before an ~~ august court not more than a hundred miles from Dunedin necessitated the adjournment of the court to. a provincial, township. The principal personage who presided over the> court made anxious inquiries as to the possibilities of accommodation in the unknown regions. He wa3 eventually satisfied on all minor points, but was evidently not quite' easy in his mind until assured that the township did not lie in a prohibition district. Only one lady delegate joined in the rather pessimistic discussion on " Australian -Morals and Homes " at the meeting of the Baptist Union of Victoria, but her remarks (says the Argus) were very pointed. "We have heard, a great deal to-day about what the motheru ought to do," said Mrs Wallace, the lady in question, "we might now hear something about the fathers. In the training of the children one great mi&take is made. Too much is left to the mothers. You men go to meetings, and when you have aired you:; opinions and said what you want to say, yoa pray. But you don't pray at Jiome. Why, don't you slay, in sometimes, and leb mother go out? She is, as some of you have said, tired at tlie end of the day, but, all the tame, the dinner must be cleared away and washed up, .and. the children p,ut to bed before she is ready to go out, and by that time it is too late. It takes a woman of some courage to ask a man to stay at home, and take his turn, but, all the same, it should be done, and if not, then when father goes out mother should go too. You men are selfish. You go out to pray, to meetings, to the theatre, or somewhere else, but no man is fit to conduct family worship in the morning after being up hal£ the night. You can't pray all"night, and get up feeling fresh in the morning. Let the fathers do their share in teaching their chJV* dren the Gospel; it is needed,"-'