PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2430, 10 October 1900, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

Mr Seddon annexing archipelagos and widening the boundaries of empire makes an imposing figure. One thinks of Canning's majestic attitude when recognising the South American Republics : " I have called the new world into existence to redress the balance of the old " ; and of Napoleon's curt masterfulness when .snuffing out a conquered Slate : " The Government of the Two Sicilies has ceased to exist." Whox, helps the illusion is that Mr Seddon seemed to be doing it all on his own mere motion. That is where Lord Roberts in annexing the Boer Republics is seen at a disadvantage. Lord Roberts had to employ an army of 200,000 men ; whereas Mr Seddon sinvply makes a speech in the House : sic volo. sic jubeo ; put the question and divide ! Whereby we perceive Mr Seddon' s " slinmess "—" — to borrow a word from the Boers — the artful _ dodgery which is the Seddonian notion of party politics. Not a hint did he give that might lead the House to discern the hand of the Imperial Government in the matter; he was just doing it all out of his own head. And i^o Captain Russell, being leader of her Majesty's Opposition, assumed, as his duty to her Majesty required, an attitude critical end cunctatory; also Mr Monk, whose Imperialism runs to hysterical lengths, and whose speech in praise of the Flag is to be circulated for use in schools — even poor Mr Monk -was betrayed into something like hostility. ■Then, after the other side had been got io put itself as far as possible in the wrong — then, and not before, was the cat let out of the bag. Ib was the Imperial Government thai was annexing ; New Zealand was merely the agent and the beneficiary, since New Zealand must be asked to receive the new Imperial chickens under her motherly Aving. Slim Mr Seddon!

We are iioav over-lords of the Austral Dominion— a name which nobody will ac-

cept, but which, all the same, is w .scientifically descriptive. We were aheady more Austral than Australasia, and our savage possessions newly acquired will be more strictly in the nature of a "Dominion"' than any that Canada can boast, though Canada bears the name. As I make out we are now about the size of the Russian -Empire. Tongarewa, otherwise Penrhyn Island, which lias suddenly become the northern extiemity of New Zealand, lies about latitude 9 — a trifle nearer the equator than Cape York, which is Lhe northern extremity of Australia. The Aucklands and our other southern outliers stretch down to latitude 50. So that we spread over 40 degrees of latitude — say, roughly, 3000 miles. It is true that three-fifths of it, or more, is water, and only two-fifths, or less, dry land ; but the same objection may be alleged against the great globe itself. The essential fact is that the whole of this wide and airy section of the eaith's circumference is now under the beneficent sceptre of Richard the First and Last. As monaich of all he surveys his Royal Highness will presently make a State progress through his new dominions, considering how many residents he wants, how many commissioners, how many' Road Boards, County Councils, tide-waiters', rabbit-inspectors. Gracious ! — what patronage there Avill be ; and what pickings ! If Fiji can be persuaded to come in — a consummation devoutly to be wished — we shall have the pleasure of applying our labour laws — Arbitration Act, Shop Hours Act, Aliens Excliision Act — in a new and interesting field. Natives won't work the sugar plantations ; Europeans can't; imported coolies are both able and willing. Shall we permit them? Perish the thought ! Perish also the sugar industry ! At any cost the principles of democracy must be maintained.

A year ago the Paris Exhibition was the sheet anchor of European peace. In, the belief of Paris shopkeepers and hotelkeepers all the world .was bound to rush "to the World's Fair ; to that belief alone we owe it that France constrained herself to stomach Fashoda and to express her | sympathy with the "Boers by nothing more cleadlv than lvmg telegrams and obscene caricatures. How go to war, when Avar would ruin the Exhibition? A luxury may be bought too dear ; pelf before patriotism ! No Britisher has any reason to speak ill of the Paris Exhibition : personally I coulc]^fc think more highly of it if I had been presented with a fiee ticket there and back; in, my view its mere existence has been to the human race a boon unspeakable — barring I the French themselves. Yes, sad to ,say. the proprietors of the exhibition, they and they alone, are the people that are not. ?oing to profit by it. I have seen some distressing documents headed " Statement of the affairs of a. mining company " that I don't read worce than the following : —

The number of franc tickets of admission printed in advance — ris a fhst instalment, it was fondly imagined — reached the huge total of 65,000,000. These the State sold, before the World's Fair opened, to a syndicate of banking houses, at half a franc each. The bankers hoped to unload upon the public at anything between that price and the full franc. Other speculators took blocks of the tickets at figures which would leave them net too large a margin of profit even when they retailed them at full face value. It has now become very clear to the syndicate and to the other holders that they will not be able to dispose, even at prices greatly below those they gave, of half the entire issue. Tickets marked 1 franc ore selling at 21 francs a hundred wholesale, 2^d apiece letail. The syndicates drop three-quarters of a million sterling, and although the State lo>es nothing on this head it will lose on other*. For example, the concessionaires, who took up &pace for restaurants and side shows, are going bankrupt in shoals. Then as l expects the public generally:-

Although huge crowds have poured in, all with money to spend, very much larger crowds had been expected ; and the main part of the vast capital sunk upon such anticipations is bringing in no return. The hotel accommodation, for instance, was augmented enormously by new buildings and additions and improvements to old ones; while all Paris* turned lodging-house keeper, by turning its fli^s into furnished apartments. The result is that, in spite c£ the /low of visitors- into the city fiom ah over the world, ihe hotels, as a, rule, are not lull; while the commonest object of all the boulevards is the placard which catchos tho eye at eveiy step announcing, " Grand Appaitemcnt a. Lover." In &hoit the exhibition has turned to bitterness, and the clanger now is that the French, .soured by dbsagyjoinlmeni, will waul to

make war on Fomebocly, preferably on the Biitish, for mei'e distraction.

The French, like ourselves, are a Avellhated people, and always have been. It would be a mistake to suppose that the British alone aie universally odious. The French run us hard for first place in the world's dise&teem ; and, if the Avorld Avere just, the first place they Avould undoubtedly have. You .see the French are hated for their vices ; Avhereas ayc — but need I complete the sentence? That it is for their virtues that the British are hated should be to all Britishers a self-evident proposition — pro-Boers and such like alone excepted. Curiously enough, the vices that make the French detestable are chiefly domestic. It is true that at one time or other the French have looted all Ihe capitals of Europe, and would do the same again to-morroAV, if they got the chance. But their revolutions, massacres, coupd'etats, the Commune, the Dreyfus case, have all been strictly for home consumption. If Aye may believe Mr Boclley — Avhose "France," though written for the English, is accepted as an authority in both countries — the French hate no foreigner so bitterly as they hate each other. Voltaire must have had a prevision of the present state of things when he admonished bis countrymen : " Little Frenchmen, love one another! For if Frenchmen won't love Frenchmen, who the deuce is there that will?" Refusing to heed the Gospel on this point, they might at least have listened to the cynical Voltaire ; but no ! — there are always "Frenchmen who Avant to cut some other Frenchman's throat. For which reason there is not, nor can be, any stability in French institutions. The SAviss, as republicans, get along with decency ; so also the Americans — alloAvance being made for the scandals inseparable from a republican form of government — the presidential election, for example. Not to the French. Only the other day a Paris paper, " l'Autorite,"' delivered itself as foiloAvs: —

Other nations— like England. Germany, etc.— would not have a republic for anything in the world. If they had wanted a republic, they would have had one. But one look at France Avas enough for them. This witness is true.

With Lord Roberts at the War Office there will doubtless be some "reorganising," but not so much as hysterical alarmists have been clamouring for. Lord Wolseley, who retires, is not by any means a fossil; nor has it been pio'ved that the present army system is in any one particular intolerably bad. We shall have learned something from the war, no doubt, and Lord Roberts is the proper person to say what that something is, and to correct our methods in the light of it. But Aye needn't look for revolutions. The intuitions and inspirations of infallible Avar correspondents are not going to be altogether justified, I fancy. As respects the service rifle, for example. Hoav often we hive been told that, the Lee-Metford is nowhere in comparison with the Mau&er : that the War Office to all its other sins had added this, that it sent our unfortunate troops into the firing line Avith an inferior Aveapon. Yet Loid Roberts, with the experience of the Avar behind him, pronounces the LeeMetford the better weapon of the tAVO ; and the Boers, it seems, Avere of the same opinion, for no Boer neglected to substitute a Lee-Metford for a Mauser Avhen he got the chance. Another aversion of certain newspaper critics has been the class of officers stigmatised as "society pets." According to the notion Aye have been invited to form of the society pet lie is an incapable if not a coward, sometimes both — a real-life embodiment of the military duke in Gilbert's opera : — In enterprise o£ martial kind, When there was any fighlinsr, He led his regiment from behind — • He found it less exciting. But when away his regiment ran His place was at the fore, OO — ■ That celebrated, cultivated, underrated nobleman, The Duke of Plaza-Toro! Thi" notion al«o is bound to be Knocked on the head. When the roll of honour 'is made up it Avill be found that the society pet did just about as well as any of them.

An intelligent London newspaper finds space for a correspondent who writes as follows : —

I am about to malic a machine that will fly round the world in 14. days. The machine is capable oi carrying three mo'i pncl provisions. I can guide it against any weather. "What I want to know is, What do you think

it would be worth to sell the invention to the Biitish Government for war purposes? A. S. M. The signature should have been corrected to A. S. S. Sydney Smith's remark on the initials of a foolish correspondent Avho signed himself "A. S." was, "Pity that the fellow Avill tell only two-thirds of the tiuth!" In the present case the formula A. S. S., it seems to me, would serve equally Avell for correspondent and for editor. In another London daily I find, dignified with a cross-heading, a story about a cow that swallowed a watch, which story seems evidence that the standard of pro"babilily in the northern hemisphere differs widely from any tint avc in this country should be likely to accept; also that there is a corresponding difference in the measure

of human credulity. A farmer hung his waistcoat on a barn yard fence within reach of an enterprising calf, which forthwith chewed and swallowed the pocket wherein was a gold watch. Seven years later a coav was -sent to the butcher; Avhen lo — The watch was found in such a position between the lungs of the cow that the process of respiration — the closing in and filling of the lungs — kept the stemwinder wound up, and Ihe watch had lost but four minutes in. the seven years. Sceptics are shown the watch in evidence of the tiuth of the story. Net having Qualified as an Anglo-Israelite, a theosophite, a Chosen Remnant, or an esoteric Buddhist, nor ' indeed in any of the more liberal forms of religious belief, J find this story beyond the capacity of my faith. The coav may have swallowed the Avatch, but I am quite unable -to &wal-

loav the coav. What chiefh r puzzles me is the large-mindeciness of the London editor —

or sub-editor, shall Aye say — who evidently supposed that the story might and believers. And he must have knoAvn his public, too. CIVIS.

Unfortunate shareholder:, of the Colonial Bank of New Zealand Avill observe from a letter which appears in another column that the liquidators expect to bring the liquidation of the bank to a close about the end of December, and hope to be able to pay a dividend to shareholders of about Is per bhare. The amount paid up per share was £2. It will be remembered that the provisional liquidators paid a dividend of 10s per share. Presuming that to be paid in December next to bo the final dividend, shareholders Avill have lost £1 9s on each of their shares, and will have the melancholy satisfaction 'bf

knowing lhat their suspense, which has extended over several years, is at an end.

The adjourned inquest on the body of Thomas Telfer Fogo, the victim of the Frederick street tragedy, was held on the 2nd. On the application of Mr J. R. Thornton, counsel for Mrs Fogo, the proceedings were token in private. The following verdict was returned: — "The jury find that the cause of death was from having been stabbed by his wife, Sarah Fogo, but under what circumstances there is not sufficient evidence to show." The output from the mines of the Westport Coal Company (Limited) for the month of September was 32,935 tons 14c\\t. The second malarial expedition of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has just telegraphed Home from Bonny, in Nigeria, news of a moat important discovery —namely, that the parasite which causes elephantiasis has been found, like that which cauf-es malaria, in the probo.scis of the mosquito. Oddly enough, the same discovery has just been made simultaneously by Dr Low in England in mo&quitos brought from Australia, and by Captain James in "India. The Government have decided to celebrate the conclusion of the war in South Africa on Friday, 9th November, which is, the Prince of Wales' & Birthday. - The fishermen of Port Chalmers have telegraphed to Mr E. G. Allen, M.H.R. for the district, re the pollution of the lower harbour by the deposit of Dunedin nightsoil, whicn, they state, is an objectional practice, interfering to a marked degree with their industry, and, if continued, will Tbe the means of driving away their sole support. The men also waited, on his Worship the Mayor in reference to the matter, and in consequence his Worship telegraphed to the Mayor of Duucdm a.? follows: — "When arc you going to discontinue depositing the city nightsoil in lower harbour? A deputation of fishermen waited upon me this morning and spoke strongly oi the damage done to their industry.

Citizens also are demanding an indignation: meeting-, which I am loth to give, as I am sure you will see it is necessary to at oncft find another solution for the difficulty."

The Roslyn Tramway Company had a trial of their new electric extension line late on Wednesday afternoon. The car started from Maori Hill and ran to the top of Newington road and back several times. The trial was in every way a success, but owing to the lateness o£ the hour it was not considered advisable to mn all the way to Roslyn. Mr Goodman, who has superintended the installation of this fcervica throughout, was present at the trial on Wednesday, and appeared to be satisfied in every way with the result of tho test.

The great advance made in the quality of the pictures in the illustrated pages of the Witness is the subject of general comment throughout Otago, and congratulations aro being received on all hands by the management. One subscriber writes: — "I have always felt it somewhat of a reproach that Olago readers have hitherto had no illustrated paper of thpir own to depict events of general interp&t, and I hail with feelings of very great satisfaction the entry of the Witness into the field. I trust the paper will meet with the hearty support of Dunedin and Otago people, and that this can be fairly claimed has been evidenced by the large number of well-exe-cuted illustrations you are now giving week by week. The Witness is now filling a felfc v.cint in our midst, and I trust the community at large ■« ill recognise your .efforts in this direction." Words' of encouragement like this are pleasant reading, and the management will no doubt leave no stone unturned in the endeavour to keep the illustrated pages of the Witness up so date.

The weekly meeting of the Benevolent In-

slitulion Trustees, held on Wednesday, was attended by the Chairman (Mr Haynes), MessrsAllan, Wilson, Treseder, Ziele, and Hazlett. The accounts passed for payment amounted to £353 12s 4d. The outdoor relief book showed that the ca^es for last month numbered 327, representing 119 men, 241 women, and 594 children ; cost per week £100 16s. For September of last year the cases were 324, which included 119 men, 240 women, and 567 children; the cost of maintenance being £96 1H £4 2s less than last month. Twentyse^en relief cases were dealt with.

Bishop Nevill having sent a telegram oi congratulation to the Premier on the subjeefc of the annexation of the Cook and Hervey Islands, received the following reply: — *' Thank you very sincerely for congratulations on the expansion of the boundaries o£ oiu 1 rolony. I feel sure it is in our interests: and in the best interest* of the Empire." — R. J. Seddox." The Bishop, as is welt known, has always taken much interest in the future of the Islands in the Pacific.

The "New Zealand Guardian" for October states Ihr.l Bishop Nevill expects to visit Tonga after the synod, and chiefly for that purpose the synod meets earlier this year — nsmely, on Monday, October 15. The bnsincs. will bo hewy.

Dr Edmund J. M"Ara, assistant house sur geon at the Dunedin Hospital, died on Wed nesday from a sharp attack of phthisis. Edit cated at the Otago Boys' High School, he graduated at the Otago University as M.B. and 13.Ch., being appointed to the position he held in the hospital in March last. He was s brilliant student, and took an active interea* in athletics. . -

Mr John Tennant, long and favourably known as chief clerk at the custom house, Dunedin, has decided to retire on the pensiou to which he is entitled.-

A young man named Walter. Dunstan, evrcV ployed by the Dunedin and Kaikorai Tramway Company, met with a painful accident on Friday. By some means the thumb of his right hand got jambed in some part of the machinery and was badly crushed. He wenfc to the hospital, where it was found necessary to amputate the injured member.

The Corporation of Kivertort invite tenders for the purchase of J61200 debentures in sums of £100. The currency is 10 years, and the iaterest 4 per cent. The general revenue of the borough is £1110, and the endowments amount to 3500 acres. The rates amount to only Is 3d in the pound an the annual rateable value,. Intending investors should apply early if 'they, wish to secure any oi the bonds-