WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2427, 19 September 1900, Page 37

WEEK.

" Nnnqutm iliud natura, aiiud sapiontia dixit."— JutinaLi "600 a uature aud good sense must erer join.''— Por«,

Events in Parliament and current rumours, taken together, appear to inOn dicate that tha Premier has Velvet. for some time been elabo-

rately preparing two strings to his bow. The process of preparation originated, no doubt, in a certain more or less sudden impairment of health, which evidently set Mr Seddon thinking, and he be!gan, like a wise man, to look round for a soft place to fall. The coincidence of the patriotic movement suggested one line, as it foreshadows higher honours than usual for colonial statesmen — and they have deserved them — and will mean, in one sense at any rate, the culmination of Mr Seddon's ambitious career. The first step was ito unsettle the position of Mr Reeves with a view to any eventuality, while at the isame time fixing nothing — leaving an " open door " in that quarter, in fact. Hence the announcement in Parliament, after repeated dodging of questions, that Mr Heeves holds his present appointment " from year to year," and the inspired hints that he (Mr Reeves) " desires " to be shortly released from office, which we shall believe when he says so himself. Next came the obvious precaution of considerably raiding the Premier's salary, so that there might not be too much over-weight in the London balance when the moment for decision came. The Premier wanted his choice to be made even in as many directions as possible, so that the circumstances of any moment, rather than fixed conditions, might be the determining factors. At the same moment, by the oddest of coincidences, it has been discovered (after some 20 or 30 years) that the Agent-general's salary is too low, and £250 a year has been quietly " clapped on " in that quarter — you never know when it may be handy. At this stage Mr Seddon probably reviewed the work of his hands, and saw that it was good. No one will be disposed to deny that it was, at any rate, clever. His disposals being made, Mr Seddon has now proceeded to give himself the unusual indulgence of a free hand (and tongue)" in dealing with his followers. He is enjoying it immensely. It is, after his masterly placing of his " pieces," a " heads I win, and tails you lose " game. The trouncing of Mr Ell the other night was part of the fun ; but that was a mere piece of by-j)lay compared to the" exquisite take-it-how-you-like indulgence which so amazed and horrified the Auckland r mbers when the South Island deputation waited on the Premier. The country has been carefully put to considerable expense in order that Mr Seddon in his coming decision may be " on velvet," but it is almost worth it to see that astute statesman, for once, putting his hands in his pockets and his back to the wall and giving us half an hour of what he really thinks. South Islanders, at any rate, have scored by the fact that Mr Seddon has so arranged matters that he is safe in snapping his. fingers at the North. The only thing we must not forget is that he is equally in a position to snap them at the South — and may, any day.

Mr Kruger has had much practice during the last twelvemonth in exOff With plaining himself away, and the Loot. his cunning has not failed

him now that he is on the eve of slinking off to Europe' with his millions, leaving some thousands of- his dupes still hopelessly and murderously battling in the cause he has forsaken. " The Boers officially announced "' — in other words, of course, Mr Kruger announces from his secure shelter in Delagoa Bay — that the exPresident has got six months' leave of absence, and is going to Europe to teach less enlightened potentates what a very fi'ue thing it 'would be for their respective peoples were "they to send armies to South Africa to try conclusions with Lord Roberts, and then, if successful, take them away again and leave the Boers "independent." It is needless to remark that Mr Kruger Is far too astute a per&on to make any mistake as to the degree of fascination which this interesting programme is likely 'to possess for any European Government. It makes a -plausible excuse, we must suppose, for people who readily believed on the same authority that the German Emperor had declared war, that the Russians had taken london, that 100,000 Cossacks were overrunning India, &c. ; but, like all these pleasing items of railway carriage fiction, it is strictly for Transvaal consumption, and the author of it is no longer a denizen of the Transvaal, and does not intend to be. The x^lain truth is that Kruger has laid his hands on all the valuables that were lying about after his recent heavy consignments to Brussels strong-rooms, and lias, so to .speak, "hooked it" once for all. And it is very fitting that he should. Throughout a war that has made heroism almost a commonplace, and -has amazed the world with its wealth of daring, resolution, and unconquerable dash, the one despicable and cowardly figure from first to last has been that of President Kruger His weapon in war, as" in peace, has been the lie ; his only care, the safety of his person and his valuables. He has been nobly and devotedly served by great commanders, but his personality has throughout shone with just such a light as has that of the miserable Emperor of China throughout the story of Peking. Steyn's record is no better it is true — indeed, if possible, it is more contemptible still — -but Steyn never made the pretensions upon which Kruger lived, nor did he possess Krager's trick of getting certain weak-minded persons to believe in them if he had made them. The downfall of this precious pair has proved to be the pricking of a bubb's. The cri«is which never fails to bring out grcatncs-3 Where greatness is latent {in Kruger it was

merely blatant) has brought out nothing in Kruger save his unfathomable selfishness and his sordid avarice. His supremacy was based on systematic falsehood and the wholesale giving and taking of bribes it vanishes in " six months' leave of absence " the moment that the word " annexation " is spoken, which makes the continuance of a pretension to government punishable as sedition. History affords no instance of a more contemptible reality following upon such insufferable pretensions.