The Otago Witness THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2429, 3 October 1900, Page 37

The Otago Witness

THE WEEK.

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN' MERCURY. (WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1900.)

11 Snaquata aliud natura, ailud aapientia dlrit."— Joybkal. "Hood nature ana zoad sense niubt ever join." — Pop*. The General Election in England is going to be a very interesting one. A National The Government has taken Crisis. a lesson from Kruger. It has suddenly precipitated the war in the electorates, and caught the enemy in confusion and unpreparedness, with thi'ee leaders all at sixes and sevens and about half-a-dozen utterly inconsistent ideas of & plan 01 campaign. It is the fgishion to speak of the present appeal as a Khaki election ; we should r?.ther be inclined to describe it as emanating from principles over which Khaki has just proved victorious. That the Government is going to win, all sides agree ; a vote of want cf confidence by the electorates at such a time as this would " stagger humanity," and send three-fourths of Europe intd ecstacies of insolent delight. But the Government, very properly, wants to do more than v/in ; it wants its already enormous majority substantially increased. This is one of the odd features of the present election. The natural desire on the part oE

Lord Salisbury and his colleagues would be that the Opposition should be stiffened up, so as to consolidate the Unionist following and render substantial aid, as- only a strong Opposition can, in managing the difficult business of legislation. There is 110 insincerity (as so many think there is) in the desire often exjjressed by a powerful Government for a strong Opposition ; or rather for one that is not hopelesly weak ; the latter state of affairs contains perpetual elements of danger. But on the present occasion the strengthening of the Opposition by the votes of the electors would be a serious blow to the nation, for it would inevitably be construed by all the world, including the Boers and Afrikanders, as an indication that British public opinion is greatly disunited on the question of South African annexation. The leaders of the Government are therefore compelled to appeal for a vote of unprecedented unanimity, which, if given, must reduce the Liberal party to not much more than the Irish Radicals and the section — headed by Sir Edward Grey — which has given emphatic and consistent support to Mr Chamberlain's policy in respect of the Kruger negotiations. At present (jt looks very much as if this would be the actual outcome of the elections, unless, indeed — as Lord Salisbury himself sees to be probable — the certainty of victory should keep immense numbers of Unionists from attending the polls at all. We cannot see how any patriotic Briton, whatever his political creed, could do other than wish that the result of the elections should be to give the present Government the right to say that they have received the unfaltering support of the nation at a great crisis in our history. The defeat of the Ministry, or any weakening of its hands — probably even the failure of the- British electors to very materially strengthen them — might mean such confusion and humiliation at the hands of the teeming enemies of our Empire as the mind shrinks from contemplating until compelled. We trust that the next four weflcs have no such compulsion in store for England. £100,000 foi the Otago Central will -do vry well — if they spend it. Twin The worst of it is that there Work. i s no certainty that this very pleasant-looking set of figui'es is worth more than the paper it. is written upon. The one great injustice 01 which we have had to complain for so many .Years is not comprised in the successive

allocations to this great Southern work ; it consists in the systematic and really impudent way in which those allocations have been ignored year after year by their own authors. Resentment we have often expressed at this treatment, but of late never surprise, because we, like Mr Seddon himself, have learned that when a " Liberal " member for Dunedin wants to put into Hansard a protest against the ill-treatment of ths Otago Central he not only af-ks leave before he speaks, but apologises afterwards. This kind of thing is about as terrifying as stage thunder, and as it is still in full blasi we must own to certain misgivings as to I whether " savings " on the Alexandra line will not figure in the manufacture of next year's " surplus." . For the present, however, we admit with pleasure that prospects are favourable. Very real and energetic work has been done beyond Wedderburn and in Ida Valley during the lasc 32 months, and is being done now ; but whether, in view of the f?^t that six months of the financial year are already gone- and that " savings " have always been the order of the day, the efforts have been up to the 5100, GQCf standard, we still have our doubts. Mr Hall-Jones, however, admits (without the grudging ar.id occasionally " nasty " qualifications insisted upon by his more immediately interested colleague) that " owing largely to tho great development of the dredging industry, tLa traffic upon the completed portions of this ' railway ha.s greatly increased — thus emphasising the importance of o.pening t>ho line as far as Alexandra as early as possible " So much as this hap never been officially said before, and we may reasonably hope that it indicates at fcvit something like an opening of the Ministerial eyes. The work of next importance we consider to be the North Island Trunk railway, and we are glad to see that the Government has decided to treat this also with liberality, though there is no clear reason why it should receive, as it does, a far larger allocation than the j Otago Central. An equal division of the | 5330,000 provided for the two lines would have been substantial justice, but it is the kind of justice we in the South have learned not to expect, and we s>hall be content to &ay no more about it. Upon one tiling the South may reasonably congratulate itself — namely , upon the genuinely friendly attitude it has always maintained towards the great Northern undertaking. Few Southerners understand — for Northern pa» pers are little read on tiiis side of the Straits — how entirely unreciprocated this generous goodwill has been on the part of our fellow-colonists nearer the equator. But that is a trifle, and will, we must hope, cure itself as the iron horse conies nearer to the one inevitable ferry which some of these days will form the only break of gauge between the cities of Auckland and Invercargill. We in the South, cherishing that still distant ideal, once more offer our best wishes for the early completion of the North Island Trunk railway. We do not usually assign much space in this column to the examinaOLlier tion and criticism of the Features. greater Parliamentary Statements- and Reports' of the year, as it is our aim not to build our Notes of the Week upon too ponderous foundations, but we cannot refrain from devoting a little more space to the Public Works Statement, which 0111* readers will find to be an able and lucid document — the best piece of work yet offered to the country by the present Minister, -who is evidently improving. Besides summing up the position and requirements of the two great undertakings with which we have just dealt, the Statement is of unusual interest in at least three other directions. We are probably right in saying that the expenditure proposed for roads is a record one. This we shall neither approve nor disapprove, since the very essence of such a matter is fairness in allocation and purity in administration — in other words, such a scheme must be judged by its inner details, and these the country may at once make up its mind that it will never know. The prospect meanwhile is not as reassuring for the South as might be wished, since the Minister admits that he spent under this head last year nearly three times as much in ths North Island as in the South— £2oo,ooo against £68,000. The present Government, unlike an older Providence, helps those most who do not help themselves. The second item of unusual interest ife connected with the Midland railway. For the first time since the inception of this work as the basis of a series of political cabals promoted by the Stout- Vogel Government in 1884, the railway makes its appearance as a colonial undertaking. Reports which amazed New Zealanders who knew the country traversed, and which were regarded everywhere except in Canterbury as fraught with, real peril to the honour of the colony, were eagerly swallowed in London, and even by great London financiers after due local inspection — the latter circumstance, however surprising in itself, being welcomed as virtually lifting from the shoulders of the colony a burden of responsibility which chreatened ultimately to crush us under a burden of shame. Many years of struggling against the inevitable and the impossible followed, until at last the great company-, like some more modern dredging concerns, had to acknowledge that "by reason of its liabilities" it could not carry out what it had' been formed to effect. The Government — acting, such is the whirligig of time, under Sir R. Stout's advice — took vigorous action, and a long fight, conducted with strenuous ability on both sides, ended in the early part of this year by the colony being left in undisputed possession of the works as forfeit for non-completion of agreement. Now we are going to spend £100,000 of our own money in a year's work upon it. Lastly, Mr Hall-Jones's very favourable verdict on the advantages of light railways (2ft gauge) will be welcomed in the country districts as po&sibly the fore-runner of a wholly new era. The Minister is straightforward and direct in his opinions on the subject, and we can only nope that in announcing that he is goining to try the system this year on the line that ha pnot * been chosen for the Northern Trunk—thereby possibly mitigating much, otherwise inevitable soreness — lie

is not giving an indication that his affection for narrow gauge is a purely political accident of the moment, and "kin be altered" when once the rival trunkists up north have affectionately rushed into each other's arms. The fizzling out of the Boer war proceeds apace, now that Kruger lie and has fellow-robbers are fc'-u- clear away with the bar gold, leaving their precious paper behind them. The British hold all Lhe railways, including the key of the Delagoa Bay line ; and a^ they also have all the gold mires and the only factories where ammunition could be turned out, it is clear that further resistance by the Boers is worse than madness, and for the most part they see it themselves. Hence they are destroying their guns and ammunition wholesale, though not f-o fast as to prevent some of the former and enormous quantities of the latter from becoming the spoil of British generals. The destruction of the guns is not in the least to be objected to, provided we have some means of counting those destroyed, so as, as far as may be possible, comparing the number accounted for at the end of the war with the number -which, according to the best available information, lias from first to last come into the hands of the enemy. The guns are probably pretty well done anyhow, and most of them will not prove to be of our standard tj^pes (some of them are much better, by the way), or suitable for our ammunition. The thousands of Boers who are "pkeda<ldl ing" hastily into Portuguese territory will find that all very well for immediate purposes, but foxes cannot stay in their earth for ever, and something will have to be done, when once the m^d rush for safety has ceased to be the primary oonsideration, to provide means of livelihood for the fugitives. it is not a pleasant prospect for the Portuguese officials who are finding it cheaper to offer them free passages out of the country. A certain number of Boers, including, of course. De Wet (who never enjoyed himself so much in his life as during the last four months), are still sullenly holding out, and it is by no means certain rhal "unfortunate incidents" are quite a thing of the past even yet. However, the war is really oxer now, and it may suit England at any moment to proclaim that it is at an end and to outlaw all who resist con&titvifced authority by force of arms, after a given notice. The Transvaal sentence upon the Jameson raiders was that they should be "hanged, drawn, and quartered," and but for two circumstances it is by no means certain that some such atrocity might not have been carried out. The first circumstance was that Mr Chamberlain cabled instantly that the President and Executive would be held personally responsible by England should a hair of the prisoner's heads ba harmed ; and the second was the ever-alert avarice of Kruger, who saw his way to enormous alternative fines (and ultimately, as we know, got them) and to a bill against England for "moral and intellectual damage" to the tune of something under two" millions. England certainly will not treat De WSt and his marauding bands according to Kruger' s own example ; but the time has nearly come when they must be treated simply as rebels iv arniti, and it is lucky for them that "there is no Kruger on the, English throne to suggest what' their punishment might be.

With great reluctance, and only because we hope "to aid in instantly releA First gating the subject to obanfl scurity, we refer to Mr AshLast Word. croft's conscientious and

•well-meant but utterly hopeless crusade against a certain aspect of ths social ethics of to-day. The birth-iate is going dowu. Mr Ashcroft, in common with an increasing number of less educated persons, knows or guesses why ; and he thinks that remonstrance, or discussion, or whatever shape his proposed attack may take, will perhaps turn the scale the other way. We have not the very faintest hope of that kind ; and as, except in the .hope of amelioration, discussions of such matters is distasteful beyond endurance to all modest persons, we most earnestly deprecate the apparent intention of a number of no doubt perfectly conscientious and genuinely distressed critics to drag them out for public examination in the columns of the press. We entreat all those who may, even for the most laudable motives, entertain such an intention to give serious reflection first to 'the formula we have indicated above — namely, that unless there is a clear probability, perceptible ,not merely to pious frenzy but to common sense, of effecting substantial good, it is unfair to our community of men, women, and children to inflict upon it the intolerable pain of a public discussion of certain family aspects at all. We believe that even the most earnest reformer, if he will seriously and silently weigh that preliminary uncertainty first with the determination to give himself an honest answer, will feel that his voice hadbetter not be raised. For one- of- the most painful aspects of what lies before us if the new crusade be persisted in will be found in the fact that reformers will not 1-e allowed to dwell unchallenged upon the purely evil origin and effects of the misfortunes they deplore. Women talk at quasi-officiail gatherings about " electing" between certain alternatives "at their pleasure ; there are medical questions of extreme importance often involved," the very notion of discussing which at large is appalling ; there are problems of poverty cognate to the subject; there are, in short, a score of points of danger at which issue' may be joined to still further destroy a possibility of improvement which is already i inherently hopeless. We grieve to see thac already the most hopeless line of all has been adopted by some, as we think, thoughtless critics — the use of violent adjectives applied to the trouble in hand and its (unknown) promoters. Is it conceivable that this can ever hit a concrete mark? Is it to come to men, who travail not.vwrangling with women about the alleged "revolt" of the latter? Of course if a crusade is started we must assume that good results arc hoped for, because no one Avho did not look for the reward of success could take up a burden so dismal, so unnerving, "as this s?Wcli has become associated witU Mr

•> Ashcroft's name. All we can say is that ten thousand converts a day by a Modal | Purity Association would surprise us less"' ' than the ultimate justification by any posj sible result of the " crusade " with which , j the newspapers are now threatened. Those ; alone who are guiltless will take part in. ; such ; but those who are not guiltless — if guilt is to be the word — will live, and die, and make no sign ; and who shall interfere \ with their silence?

Dr. Hocken's researches into "The Beginnings of Literature in New In Olden Zealand" are marked, as i{ Times, a n hj s wor k m connection

■^ith our past records, by laborious accuracy of derail (though in certain matters of cher-acter his optimism is* vigorously disputed- by an apparent expert), and are illuminated by welcome- touches* of humour ; but they appeal, of course, to - ft small audience, as no one must know better than the genial author himself, 'Progressive"' ideas, as defined in recent political gospels, appear to be inconsistent with any regard for the past. You aro disloyal to Liberalism" if you turn your eyes for a moment from the" turgid orator ■v ho happens to be thumping the tub at the moment, and allow your imagination to linger gratefully upon the short- and simple annals of the pioneers. They were, after" all, evidently a poor set. They had not the-, spirit to remove their political .opponents from positions of public usefulness in orde; to substitute hengers-on who knew nothing of the work in hand. They went about' among the Maoris, but they 'never knew now to make up bills of expenses running into hundred? of thousands when they wot home again, for a grateful country to pay. They imported printing-presses, 'but th'ev .never understood the art of first getting the public to pay the cost of obtaining and running tho^e presses, -and then using them (with or without the assistance of "organisers ") ior secretly -flooding the country with literature . favourable to their personal and party interests. Txiey were utterly ignorant of the science of wedging drawings of their own into post office or other estimates ; and, in fact, on the whole matter of how to work the oracle with regard to travelling allowances and expenses, they seem to have been simply beneath the contempt of certain modern politicians in their hopeless primitiveness. This sad state of affairs is clearly indicated, though only incidentally, in the interesting records of various kinds which Dr Hocken has been instrumental ,in getting during the last few years, and there is much to lead to similar conclusions in the beginnings of our literature. Some of Dr Hocken's facts we oxvrselves feel ashamed to Lave forgotten, if we ever knew them. Who, for instance, would have supposed that in 1842 there war started a Maori newspaper which, with on© brief intermission of publication owing to war troubles, lasted for 20 years, only ceas--ing publication in 1863? Previous to this "I'he New Zealand Advertiser and Bay of Islands Gazette" had been started in English in 1840, and Dr Hocken informs" us that "it was violently opposed to the Government," a condition of things that shocks us beyond measure. The Government seems, however, to have first killed, and then kicked its enemy, for after suspendiing the papier from publication it started the first "ISFew Zealand Gazette/ and took in notices from tenantless landladies, and from people who promoted lotteries and had spiced beef for sale. We have &een less interesting notifications in the Gazette of 1900. The missionary press,, Protestant and Catholic, were meanwhile making things particularly lively for each other, which must have very much promoted the propagation of the Gospel among the Maoris. Sir George Grey translated and issued " Robinson Crusoe " and

i'he Pilgrim's Progress," which went off like hot oakes in the Kaingas, until somebody revealed that they really belonged to the novel-with-a-purpose class, the result of whioh announcement was very much about, what it would be to-day. (Dr Hocken, we> should add, does not put.it that way — he merely says that " then all interest ceased"). This effort was followed by a treatise on tobacco, which all good Maoris thereupon proceeded to grow. We ourselves have in past days inspected some of. the results, and never thereafter, felt any surprise when we heard stories of ' MaorLatrocities. A book "Ko nga pi" (on.. the bee) followed, but we never y,et heard, of bees in northern Kaingas; probably, indeed," they are the only insects that yo\i never find there. This latter fact is another of those which our author refrains^ from fe-' cording in his interesting rechauffe of longburied literature.