PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Volume 26, Issue 2419, 26 July 1900, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

China in her present attitude must be understood as challenging the world in : arms, and as resolved on a duel to the j death. The military demonstrations of the ; Powers at Ta-ku and at Tientsin were equiva- [ lent to asking her whether that is really her meaning. For answer she massacres , the Legations. That is answer enough, i certainly; henceforth there is no more ■ place for words. What remains unintel- i ligible .is the Chinese motive. Why this madness, and why just now? The Chinese" l^^^Tlwa-ys hated foreigners; but foreigners have not made themselves more hateful of late than heretofore. Nor have tjie missionaries, who are always an irritation, invented, _so far as I know, any new provocatives to Chinese conservatism. I have net heejrd of any missionary edict against pigtails, for example. Looking all round if is hard to see what gadfly has stung the Chinese to this sudden frenzy. There is nothing new; as things were three years ago, five years ago, so are they now. Ca r i it be that the Chinese have learned the military lesson of the Transvaal war? What is that lesson? That an invading force, far from its source of supply, moving through a hostile population, compelled always to, the offensive, is at an enormous disadVantage. In a degree that was always true, but not in the same degree that it is now. Modern weapons have made the difference. If the Chinese are able to reason — and I suppose they are — they will need only short logic to prove to themselves that China is able to beat off any conceivable force that the rest of mankind may array against her. Suppose the Boers hal been four hundred millions! Only suppose it, and ask whether all Europe, and America and Japan, even with New Zealand thrown in, avoulc! have been able to ; conquer the Boers. ■ j

In London, on the night of Friday, May 18, between 9 and 10 of- the clock, a livefied Guildhall footman, running forth bareheaded •from the doors of the Mansion House, shouted excitedly from the top of the steps, "Maf eking is relieved!" A policeman on the pavement took up the cry " Mafeking is relieved !" And that was liow the. great news reached the Londoners. The Lord Mayor had beaten the War Office, and -wara himself only beaten by the Mayor of Dunedin, who, it will be remembered, beat not merely the authentic sources of information but the relief column itself, a thing the Boers failed to

do. Within 20 minutes the approaches to 1 Guidhall were blocked by 20,000 frantic citizens, and such a roar went up to the stars as old London had never heard in all the x'iofs and tumults, the drums and tramplings of its 20 centuries. This was the beginning of a national frenzy which lasted for two days and night.% — " wo days and nights which are absolutely without parallel in the history of the world," boasts a London editor, and the boast is hardly too much. The relief of Mafeking is , already ancient history ; but, if anybody desires a genuine patriotic excitement, let ' him read the London papers of Saturday, \ May 19, and Monday, May 21. They will make him gasp and sob, and laugh and cry ; they will, shake up his liver, brighten his evidences, and be as good to him as a ■ night at the Pollards. In short he will ' live through all his Mafeking emotions again, sharing them with the surging crowds in London streets, the cafes, the j clubs, the music halls, the theatres. Ah, the music halls and theatres .' — sorry I j wasn't there to see Hamlet seize Ophelia i and spin round the stage with her in a ! mad dervish-waltz ; or Dan Leno in the i middle of his "great blackboard trick" — ' whatever that may be — fling down his blackboard and dance a hornpipe on it, all m honour of Baden-Powell and Mafe- . king. Or at Charterhouse, B. P's. old school, when the Mafeking news found the boys in bed, and 500 young lunatics sprung up with a shout to celebrate in night shirts and pyjamas the triumph of " old Bathing Towel." Verily it had been good to be there. The Londoners spent £100,000 in flags and £50,000 in fireworks. What they spent in new silk hats has not been estimated; but, since a City man's highest expression of patriotic jubilation is to bash ' in his neighbour's belltopper and accept : a similar favour for his own, we may infer that the London hatters had a good time.

A strange thing is this sentiment. of race and nationality. If it were France, instead of England, that had a Mafeking, and if it were Paris that was rejoicing; if the Americans had gained an unhoped for triumph in the Philippines and 1 New York had gone off into patriotic hysterics; do you suppose that we should either laugh or cry for sympathy? Not much! The event would leave us cold, critical, contemptuous, cynical ; moving' us at all, it would move us, probably, to envious disparagement. And that explains the attitude of the French towards our English Mafeking. " Not much of a triumph "—" — sneer the Paris papers — " remembering that the British Empire has taken seven months to relieve the beleagured garrison, and has had to bring men from all over the world to do it."' The ending was devoid of interest ; in fact " the siege has ended in the most commonplace way, since there was no supreme struggle, the Boers adopting the wisest course and retiring when they saw the combat would be unequal." The Boers retired for strategic reasons and in order to concentrate elsewhere. No compulsion, observe ; nothing of that kind ; oh dear, no ! " Mafeking was not delivered by an English victory, the Boers having retired before the arrival of the English column." How sad, therefore, this spectacle of a whole nation surrendering itself to delirious joy over an event so petty!

This madness of enthusiasm which seized a great people in consequence of a feat of arms of secondary importance can only inspire sorrowful reflections as to the nervous condition of the English nation. " Nervous condition '! — exclaims another editor — don't talk of nerves ; the English were simply drunk. It is proved that this patriotic enthusiasm is maintained in certain cases by the warmth of alcohol. Never were the public houses so much adorned with flags, and never so much patronised. In facts like these, and in the pious reflections to which they naturally move a Paris journalist, there is consolation, bill not enough. The thing is to p»v^..' that there has b»»n no relief of Mafeking at all. Accordingly : The Boers marched away from Mafek'uig with Baden-Powell and 900 prisoners, leaving the empty town to the British relief column. Considering the many times during the last few monlhs that Continental journalists have announced the capture of Mafeking by the Boers, this final whopper is nothing out of the way, and seems demanded by consistency.

The Chrislchurch Press has been calculating the number oi Ministers other

communities, less privileged than ours, would require if officered on the same scale as New Zealand. "On a population basis, the Australian Commonweal th would require 72 Ministers (instead of the seven which it gets under the Commonwealth Bill), and Great Brit&iii no fewer than -250." Bat in Australia and in Great Britain a Minister of the Crown is not also an election tout. That is the whole explanation. I fancy. In this happy country, as soon as the House is out of session, Ministers take to the stump, l peregrinating the constituencies from Dan j to Beershebai, wearing themselves out in ' self-sacrificing toil for the good of " the i great Liberal party." Mr Seddon per- I son ally fights every eleciion — on the spot, j if he can get there ; from Wellington, if j he can't. And that is why our unfortunate ■ Ministers are overworked, must have their screws increased, must be reinforced by new colleagues. I regret that it is impossible to compliment them on the success of their election business. Their forte seems to be to interfere in an election and hava it go against them. Thus it wais in Auckland ; thus it is, again, in Waihemo. If Mr Seddon were an election tout in my employment, I should discharge him. Mr Thomas Mackenzie's success at Waihemo was from the first a tolerably sure thing. Why, then, did the Government oppose him? Wiry did they court an ugly slap in the face? It is true that Mackenzie is not a Government man; but neither is ho an Opposition man. He is a frozen mutton man, a dairy produce man, a avool and hides and tallow man; the j man who understands as no other man i does the export trade and the London market, and that is why he has a first-class claim to a seat in Parliament. If the Government had possessed the veriest scintilla of practical nous they would have annexed and appropriated Mackenzie, willy-nilly; they would have proclaimed him the Goverument candidate, warned all others off the course, and secured him a walk-over. Instead of which they did — what they did, and the result of what tlieydid must be highly comforting to them. I say again that if Mr Seddon were an election tout of mine I should unhesitatingly give him the sack.

Mr G. W. Russell, of Riccarton, and Mr A. R. Barclay, of Dunedin, are to the fore with bills for the relief of women's disabilities. Ridiculous bills, both, too absurd for anything but derision in a House that itself is not overwise ; but, in a sense, Messrs Russell and Barclay know what they are about. Mr Russell got into Parliament by a majority of one ■ vote on the Riccarton poll, and, as he was told in the House this week, wouldn't have got in at all if there had been a proper recount. Mr Barclay also " got in," nobody knows exactly how, himself perhaps least of all. Naturally each of them would be glad to improve his somewhat precarious position. It may be that neither has anything more to hope from the men of his constituency ; there remains the women. Yes, tan women ! — impressionable, simple - minded, susceptible to blandishments, avid of flattery, and every one a voter — can nothing be done to captivate the women? Mr Russell thinks there can; Mr Barclay thinks there can ; and both have experience. Hence these seductive bills for removing the disabilities of women. Would women like to sit in Parliament? So they shall! Would they like to enter the army or the police? Why should they not? And if a woman desires to preside at a coroner's quest, or the Council of the Churches, to sit on the Supreme Court bench, to manage a chamber of commerce or a harbour board, to hold a portfolio as Minister of the Crown, or to skipper the Tutanekad, who shall say her nay? It may" be that these p.re not exactly the provisions of Mr G. W. Russell's biil ; I don't pretend that they are. I am merely indicating its spirit and its olr'ious look towards the women's vote at the next Riccarton election.

Mr Barclay, I observe, addresses himself in particular to domestic servants — tbeir wrongs, their rights, their claims, their grievance*, and, in the last analysis, their votes. For, be it remembered, domestic servants are an important element in every constituency, an element till now, it may be, too little regarded. Mr Barclay is going to cultivate the domestic servant. Eight hourrf a day, weekly half holiday, unlimited followers, right to practise on iho family piano, and to receive visitors, in missus's parlour — are these Ills boons and blessings of Mi" Barclay's

bill? 1 can't say, and it doesn't matter; there is one thing that does matter and in comparison with it all other legislative possibilities sink into nothingness. Mr Barclay makes the tremendous suggestion that the terms " master " and " servant " ought to be abolished, as being, I suppose, inconsistent with democracy. We* imagined ourselves to have gone far enough in saying that in a democracy Jack is as good as his master. But it was a mistake. That saying is an affront to Jack's self-respect. In a democracy, according to Mr Barclay — and he is an authority on constitutional law — there are no masters and no mistresses; by consequence there can be no servants. These terms, arrogant on the one hand, degrading on the other, are to be abolished by law. Nor is that all. Thy conventional "Mr " and " Mrs " will also have to go. For "Mr" is short for "master," as "Mrs" is for "mistress"; and when you have recognised that fact where are you? Evidently back in the pit out of which Mr Barclay is painfully digging you. I foresee, then, that we shall have to do as the French .did in the Reign of Terror — abolish all servile distinctions, and address each other as " citizen " and "citizeness." I apologise to Citizen Barclay for describing him in this note e<s " Mr " Barclay. I am sure it must have been distressful to his democratic feelings. I will remember in future. And. let me recommend Citizen Barclay not to injure his health by grief over the loss of his first-born. Organisms of a certain place in the scale of nature are amazingly prolific. In due course he will bring forth again.

Least week's cablegrams announced the reelection of Mr T. Glassey, one of the most prominent of the Queensland Labour party, to represent Bundab&rg. At a meeting of his constituents on the 4th inst. Mr Glassey referred to the desire of the Labour party to make a question not included in the platform a test one, maintaining that the members of the party who might believe in Government measures- were compelled to vote against the party or sacrifice their individual principles of manhood by voting for them. He was as loyal as ever to the principles of the Labour party, but wanted to get away from their methods. He had arranged for his resignation to be placed in the hands of the Speaker on July 4. He was not going to join Mr Philp. What he was going to do was to endeavour to reorganise the pnrty on a broader, sounder, and better footing th.tn existed now. He would contest Bundaberg again as a candidate in entire accord with the Labour platform, but refused any longer to be a puppet. The resignation was a great surprise to the meeting, but Mr Glassey was loudly cheered for the independence of spirit he exhibited.

"While the Fz-ench press still rides ltd Anglophobia hard, the French, or, at least, the Parisian people, continue (the Daily Graphic says) to pay us the compliment of murdering our language. It is fashionable through Paris to interlard all con -ersation with hybrid expressions filched — and of ien damaged in the process — from our Cockney and sporting argot. For example, the motor-ear zealots, who form one of the staple subjects of conversation, are generally known as " scorchers," or, by a process of literal translation, " chauffeurs," and the most popular daily gathering is said to be an afternoon function in the Rue dcs Nations, which is known as a " smart do 5-o'clocker. No Parisian is quite in the fashiorj, unles3 he can manage — in the prevailing term — to "Saxoniser" his colloquial style. Even the Anglophobes, who look with regrets on this growing habit and dread among other things the introduction of " le sport English," allow in their candid or forgetful moments that the English are excellent " struggle-for-lifers." After such international amenities as this who can longer object to the frequency of French phrases in our daily press?

The Queen's countenance (writes " Madge " in Truth) grows more and more beautiful with

advancing years, and the look of worry and anxiety has now been replaced by an expression of calm serenity. Her glance has the frank, quiet openness that bespeaks a "mind at leisure from itself,' ' and when a smile comes it illuminates the whole face, brightening the blue-grey eyes, and giving tenderness to the lines of the lips. The Queen looks 20 years

younger when she smiles. I had an opportunity (" Madge " continues) not very long since of seeing her Majesty's ungloved hand. Years ago I heard of the wonderful beauty of the Royal hand and arm, and of the line of beauty from shoulder to middle finger-tip. The hand is now very plump, the weddingring sunk into the flesh, but the beautiful curve of the wrist is as fine as ever. The Queen never wears long, tight sleeves. They fall away from the wrist in the fashion of tho days when she was a happy wife and mother with all her young family about her.

The meeting- of Otago High School Old Boys held at the Chamber of Commerce on the 18th was largely attended. Mr J. F. M. Fraser was voted to the chair. The baianca sheet for the previous yeav was passed as being highly satisfactory. It was resolved unanimously that the old boys' annual dinner be held on Friday, the 3rd August, being tha anniversary of the school. A strong committee from those present was formed to carryout the necessary details, and, judging by tho amount of enthusiasm displayed, this year's meeting should- be even more successful than those of the pasfc.

At the meeting of the Municipal Conference on. the 17th, it was rerolved that " the Gold Duty Abolition v Act ' be amended in the direction that all mining property be rated for charitable aid purposes ; that the Government and fire insurance companies contribute to the cost of fire brigades within boroughs; that borough or county councils should control the expense incurred in the election and management of licensing committees and the appointment of returning officers; that any itinerant vendor of goods by auction in any borough shall where such goods reach the value of £25 or over, pay a tax of ,5 per cent, on the amount of goods sold; that the Magistrate's Court Act be amended so as to admit of an ejectment order being made hy a stipendiary magistrate in default in payment of rent or rates ; thai the conditions relative to the erection and maintenance of party walls should in boroughs be imposed by statute instead of by deed.

The following appears in the annual report of the Labour department : — Generally speaking, the past yeai has been, marked with a degree of prosperity that has seldom, or never, been equalled. The building trades have been exceptionally busy, which, remark also applies to most of the skilled trades. The dredging industry in Otago ant?. Southland continues to expand enormously. This has necessitated the erection of more! buildings and the importation of up-to-date mechanical plant to enable engineers ano ironfounders to overtake the large orders thej have in hand. At the 31st March, 1900, thera were no less than 266 dredging companies re gistered, with an approximate capital of' £2.500,000. The outlay of a considerable portion of the money has given a great impetus to kindred industries, besides giving employment to those engaged in transit operations.

Two shipments of frozen eels from New Zealand, one consigned from Auckland and the other from the Bluff, have recently arrived in London, and have been put on the market. Bui, writes our home correspondent, I greatly fear that financially they will scarcely prove a success. They may. But, Jike the old Scotchwoman, "I hae niy doots." The shipments aggregate five tons, and from all I can gather have arrived at the wrong time ; there are too many of them, at once for the creation of a market, and it can hardly be said that they have been placed in the best channel. For instance, one of the consignments has been sent to a firm- — a most excellent firm, no doubt — afc Smithfield. This, however, is a meat market, and kauri limber or "Wostporfc coal might just as woll have been consigned there as fish. In fact, nearly the whole of the five tons have been sent to people who really do not want fish, who have nothing to do with fish, and have no interest in pushing - or creating a trade for, frozen eels. Imagine sending, a consignment of .gum, for instance, to a butcher— yet one is as sensible a course as the other. Without doubt those to whom the shipments Have been consigned will do their best * for their clients ; but if senders of new produce only follow the example of the New Zealand fruitgrowers, and ask , the Produce department at the Agency-general to take charge of the shipments, do the best possible with them, find' out the best place to send them, and so interest people, ' and work up a demand it .'would be more satisfactory to all concerned. Better still, let intending senders of frozen eels put themselves in communication withsMr H. O. Cameron, the produce commissioner, and get his advicei as to the quantity to send, at first, and tho best time. If they do some such thing asi^ this, there is a splendid chance of opening; up a trade. As it is, I am afraid those who have sent these consignments may — II 11I 1 say "may" — be disgusted, and give up the trial, which would be a pity.

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