The Otago Witness, WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 1900.) THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2401, 8 March 1900, Page 37

The Otago Witness, WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 1900.) THE WEEK.

" Nnnquam »liud natura, aiiud aapiontia dixit."— Juvinal, "Good nature and good souse mim orer join."— Pop*.

Wednesday, the 28th February, and Friday, 2nd March, are days to be Bed Letter Days, remembered throughout

New Zealand, as they will be remembered throughout every other part of the British Empire. No doubt our history records infinitely greater occasions, tells of infinitely more serious difficulties overcome and much greater dangers escaped. But on these two days in February and March, 1900, the nation's heart was full, and its emotion found joyful expression. If the work achieved seems to outsiders scarcely equal to the character and extent of the rejoicings, it matters nothing ; to the Briton it is all very intelligible and satisfactory. The great Empire to which we belong had been insulted by a grotesque ultimatum ; had been plunged into a war that was hatefully humiliating in its origin and character ; had had advantage taken of its unreadiness (for after all it is the strong only who can afford the vice of unreadiness) ; had had to suffer under a series of petty losses and disasters, and to withstand the jeers of jealous neighbours who could not conceal their delight at misfortunes they thought were about to pave the way to our ruin. Then one swift, masterly stroke, and the entire asj>ect of affairs is altered, two starving but gallant garrisons are suddenly relieved, an army of our enemies with their most trusted leader surrenders, the gibing foreigners become instantly serious, lugubrious, indeed — and the British nation rejoices. Not without reason. However insignificant the Boers may be as a nation, we had a gigantic task before us, and right pleasant it was to get the first grand augury of that ultimate success which we all instinctively felt was pretty sure to be our lot. A pleasant sight } truly, was Dunedin, on Friday last. Wednesday's victory took us, as it were, by surprise. The bells were wavering and uncertain, and the news did not run, though it delighted as it was known. On Friday we were better prepared. The message of the bells was instantly understood. The bunting was ready. Everyone, high and low, instinctively took to himself a holiday, and the holiday] 1 without any kind of elaboration, was a glorious success simply because the heart of man was full. It is something in a remote colony to have lived through such a day — to see national loyalty so utterly spontaneous and national pride so absolutely universal. It is pleasant to hear the word Empire on every, lip, to see school children grasping the meaning of the national destiny that lies before them ; and to be conscious of the very movement which is daily welding the far-flung fragments of the nation into one 1 glorious whole. Inexpressibly consoling, too, it is"to find the Transvaal war, the outbreak of which seemed at first so great a calamity, not only preserving South Africa to the Empire, but adding enormous impetus to the process of national consolidation.

When we spoke of the sense of national pride bsing absolutely uniHuman Oddities versal, we said what, and an happily, is substantially AgcHt-Gcneral. true ; but we have on this, as on every subject, to count with the usual exception. There are some people in this colony who sympathise with the Boers. If these are foreigners we "have nothing to say ; |hey are entitled to j their opinion ; though ihe fact that they ! shpxxld sympathise with our enemies when a death struggle is on is itself a warning to keep the foreign element in the nation within reasonable and manageable- bounds. It is after all the.. Cape Dutchman who has made j the Transvaal Dutchman so formidable, i Where the Boer ' sympathisers are Britons, I it would be well and charitable to leave them alone. They are harmless cieatures on the whole. The man with the harmless thi ee-Qomered twist in his mind will «c for ever to the fore. So will tho man who 1 finds his sole chance of attaining notoriety to lie in differing from everybody else in opinion. A few who arc desperately anxious to obtain credit for extreme radicalism think they somehow attain their end. by taking the part of the weak nation against the steong. It sounds well ; and many a man who is simply hopelessly stupid and nar-row-minded gets credit by the trick for being an irreconcilable radical. All these niuy be let alone ; they are always with us, and they are too few and too* unimportant to count. But what are we to think of our Agentgeneral and his cablegrams? > In Dunedin last week the indignation expressed against | him was positively comical. For our part, } and up to a certain point, we felt constrained to defend the Agent-general. We thought his cablegrams were simply specimens of the ineptitude of the man' who is , self-centred, morbidly egoistic (for this is the real character of Mr Reevesi), and conse.- • quently wholly incapable of any form of enthusiasm for any cause whatever. ' Thus I when Mr Reeve 1 -;,' cabled oiit (at a time when , the General was fighting with unexampled I difficulties;) that Sir Reivers Buller " was making small progress towards Laclypmith," we took it EJmply to be an inept and blood- ' less way of expressing the fact that General Buller was making slow but, Eie-'dr progress towards his goal. But cs the Agentgeneral's further cablegrams cam a in, we Juid to abandon the defence of mere ines-

titude. When the Agent-general began to systematically overestimate all the work of the Boers', and to minimise the work — hovering, as it Avas, on- the very verge of great success— of, the British, another explanation had reluctantly to be looked for. And when we were told — at the colony's expense, of course — that Cronje was sure to be -taken because it was a case of "fivo to one" (General White was not taken though he had three to one against him for four months) ; that after the surrender of Cronje the Boer losses amounted only to some 9000 as .against our 15,000! — and especinally .when the Agent-general rushed in to tell us that he had been right all along, and that the Boers had only some 35,000 men. in the field from the first (the prisoner Albrecht has since informed us that they have still 75,000) — then it seemed clear to. a good many enthusiastic souls that our Agent-general was a psQ,-Bper. We do not think so ; the more charitable explanation is that he simply lacks enthusiasm. But, after all, what does it matter'/ While our gallant fellows are fight•ing their way to Pretoria, ' the Agent-gene-ral, like the crank, and the man who differs, and the sham radical can safely be let alone.

Will 'foreign nations interfere at the conclusion of the war is the

Will . question anxiously asked they Interfere! oy a good many just now.

Last- week we took occasion to express the opinion that there was not the remotest chance of anything of the kind. Our opinion, we may here say, -was -based upon a tolerably sure foundation — namely, the fact that the statesmen of Europe have by no means lost their wits, and are in no immediate danger of doing so. It must be admitted that times like the present are dangerous times, that the blood of nations, like the blood of individuals, is liable to get up on small provocation, and that statesmen are liable to be tossed *by public opinion like a rag before the wind. But it takes something also to make a nation run mad when every consideration of self-interest and even of national safety is at work to keep ie sane. The reason %vhy we need not expect the nations to interfere is because they have no possible motive for interfering — no material motive, that is. They, might succeed, it is true, in humbling a disliked and too prosperous rival ; but then, modern wars are now seen to be such frightfully expensive and hazardous things that the most emotional nations can be safely trusted not to rush into them for mere sentiment. When there is a material object to gain a nation will go to war. Russia, for instance, interfered with Japan after the Chinese war, and induced other nations to interfere in concert with her. But then Russia was vitally interested in the Chinese question. Witness the subsequent acquisition of Port Arthur, the extension of the great Siberian railway to that place, and the }:>ractical extension of the Russian Empire to the warm waters of the China Sea. Russia could not afford to let Japan have a permanent footing on the Chinese mainland, and aanex Corea. The game was worth the risk' of it, even had Japan been a greater nation than she is. But no nation has any material interest of a vital character — indeed, any interest at all — in the settlement of the Boer question. Germany 'has territory on the west, but a hopeless desert of some 800 miles intervenes between it and the Transvaal* Continental commerce, even, would not "be affected by British absorption of .the Republics, for British ports are thrown open to all nations. On the other hand, war arising out of sentimental interference wpuld be a terrible war ; might partake of the character even of an Armageddon, and would be costly perhaps, beyond all the calculations founded on the past. The Avar, too, would be largely on. the sea, where Britain is strongest, and where she is perfeetly«ready. England, it is true, is at present denuded I of troops, but invasion is altogether too hazardous an undertaking to be entertained under any circumstances. The colonies, ' too, it must be remembered, are not the weak spots they were once thought to be. The Boer war has itself pretty well proved that. Finally, the British cause is a just cause ; it is the cause of civilisation, "of liberty, and of i)rogresfe — and moral supports are not to ba despised at a time like this. Taking, everything together, it is morally certain Great Britain will have a free* hand in settling the South African qviestion, and "the temper of the nation is such that we may be pretty sure the question of supremacy will be settled for ever.

The so-called " Secret Despatch " from Mr Chamberlain to the PrePillars v ra j er o f jfew South Wales oi turns out to have been no ti:e Empire. secret at all, but a very plain, intelligible, human document, confined strictly to business , but containing within its business lines the very finest and most indisputable compliment that could possibly be paid the colonies. It was a request to Australia to provide 2000 more troops entirely at the Imperial expense. It was in" answer to a similar request that Mr Seddon set to work to form a New Zealand reserve force of 500 men a fortnight ago. The despatch is a landmark _m the history of the colonies, and a very important one. We have said that the despatch is an indisputable compliment, though we are conscious -that tlm expression is a feeble one, for the 'position has got quite past the stage of compliment. The despatch is something more ; it is the first serious call from the mother country to the colonies to assist in the task of preserving, establishing, and vindicating th-j Empire. For let it be borne in mind that hitherto the offers of a&si.stance have proceeded .from ,tlie colonies,, and have simply baen accepted, at first dubiously, and out of compliment, and later gratefully by the mother country. "Now it is a request for military co-operation. Hitherto the colonies have been appanages .of the Crown. Now they are in a very real sense pillars of the limpire. It would seem as,. if the colonising genius of the British race . was destined to re.-ip a rieli reward.- A strange sight would the position of to-day be to some of the staie&men of a former generation. Mr Gladstone, Lord Beaconsfield (with all his Inieprialism) , Lord Derby, Sir James Graham, were all under the iiuDres-

sion that colonies were a good deal of a nuisance,, and something of a danger ; but were perhaps fortunately destined through a process of .discontent to, break away when they got older. There was a famous dictum that colonies were fruits that remained on the parent stem until they ripened, and then they dropped off. The instinct of the nation has. proved to be truer than the judgment of some of its leaders. There is another consideration which 1 makes the comradelike, shoulder-to-shoukler attitude of the colonies a matter of great moment just" now.. It largely tends to neutralise the hatred of the nations for the mother country. . Last week we gave "some idea of what that hatred was like. Since then the Review 'of Reviews has come to hand, containing" .'an article by its _ Australasian editor on the same subject. In travelling over . Europe/ Dr W. H. Fitchett" was • much „ struck with the intense dislike and " jealousy displayed towards Great Britain in every quarter. He made some praiseworthy attempts to discover- from intelligent foreigners' the causes — to which w.e .may allude on some other, occasion. But hejconcludes his article .with, the following pregnant sentence : —

' " But the injustice of Continental feeling towards England has had one unf ordeen and happy -result -. it makes John Bull yet more gratefully sensitive to the affectionate loyalty of his own children across the sea. This, indeed, is one reason why English feeling towards the colonies has "that note of delight and of ' personal affection ' which we have, already described." Here, then, .we hare a noble . destiny before vs — to establish all over the world nations who shall not only be content to love liberty and maintain justice, but who shall enabie Great Britain to maintain her splendid isolation in security and peace.

The decision of Mr Justice Dennislon in the case Taylor and Oakley Law versus the Court of Arbiaud tration, is a very importJustice, ant and at the same time

an unsatisfactory one. We mean that it is unsatisfactory from the point of view of the law itself, and not the judge's interpretation of the law. — which we have not doubt is right. The case was brought- to te3t the right of the Arbitration Court to include in an award an order compelling employers to give preference to unionists over non-unionists. The Supreme Court has decided that Arbitration Courts have this right — that is, that they can.debar any employer, who may chance to come before them from employing a non-unionist while there is a unionist to be employed. The history of the dispute on this subject dates from 1896, when Judge Williams, sitting as president of the Arbitration Court, decided that the law contemplated — that is, by the actual wording of the Act of 1894 — that preference should be given to unionists. The judge relied largely, upon the wording of the preamble, which set forth that the act was for the purpose of encouraging the formation of industrial unions. Later, ( the judge somewhat modified the dictum by expressing the opinion that it was intended to apply only to cases -where it had been customary to employ unionists. In 1898 the legislature deleted that portion of the preamble, leaving it under the impression that no right of ordering preference for any particular set of men would remain with the Arbitration Court. Judge Denniston's decision shows that that was a mistaken belief," and that the power still remains with the Arbitration Court. We believe that much good may be effected by unionism when the power it gives is judiciously used ; and unionists have a perfect right to secure all the advantages they properly can by combination. Employers, too, have a perfect right to favour unionism, and many of them, doubtless, find it is to their advantage to do so. But the, -unsatisfactory part is that the law itself, ■ which is there to do equal justice to all subjects, should specially favour one set of men as against another. It is not against the law, and it is not against public policy, that men should either combine or refuse t* combine. In the eye of the law they' should be all equal. It does make the law the less inequitable that only in an indirect manner does it invest the Arbitration' Court with the power of compulsory discrimination. The language of the judge in supporting the power of discrimination shows how seriously the law interferes with what would appear to be the elementary rights of the minority. " A non-unionist," he said, " was not deba-rred from offering his services, but an employer was forbidden to accept them.' There could be no stronger condemnation of the law than is involved in these words. The remedy, of course, is simple enough, but there is small chance of it being applied, — in fact, Mr Seddon, we fancy, had already declared his intention of restoring the deleted words of the original pfeamble of the act of 1894, under the belief that that was necessary to give compulsory preference. Judge Dfinniston's decision, therefore, saves him the trouble. Mr Seddon may ' in many respects be entitled to be considered a- " strong man," but he has never shown any strength in advocating the cause of minorities. The hope for justice to individuals depends upon the way in which the Arbitration Courts shall use the arbitrary power with -which the law undoubtedly invests them.

An inquest on the bodies of the victims of the fire at Toiro on Sunday was held on iionday, before Mr J. 8., Fleming, actingcoroner, and a jury. In hid evidence Jam<?s Christie, father of the deceased children, i stated that he had no idea as to the origin of the fire. Saturday night was the first time_ he and his wife had slept away from Keithmore while - the children were there. Louie Walker- deposed 'that she went to bed about a quarter to 10 on Saturday»night. Be-, fore doing so she banked up. the ■ kitchen fireby putting a shovelful, of coal and a shovelful of a^hes on top. She thought she shut the door of the -range, bul could not be certain. The floor of the kflclien was wood, and a sheet of iron covered with abag-laj^ in' fro.it of the range. When awakened by the roar of fire in the morning the. side of the room next the kitchen -yva=s on fire.. The children's room was next the kitchen, and witness's across the passage from the children!^. Hugh Ross also pave evidence. The Jury returned a verdict that the fire was purely accidental,

- _* , : .„; — «r and no blame was attachable to anyctii'. '. he , insurances on the place f.re as f ot. aw : —^ House, £50: furniture, £50; outbuildings, £35; all in the Royal Insurance Company ,-f—t j Free Press. _ '