PASSING NOTES. (From Saturday's Daily Times.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2471, 24 July 1901, Page 5

PASSING NOTES. (From Saturday's Daily Times.)

The utter shipwreck and final going-to-pieces of the great historical Liberal party in Home politics is a sad thing to see. I say this, being myself a Liberal of the Liberals, though 111 this country, by canting Seddonites, dubbed a "Conservative." And in some things Conservative I am, no doubt, for 1 Avould have conserved the existence of the Liberal party. This party has beer in trouble since 1886, and its history during the intervening decade and a-half carries a lesson for all pro-Boers and Little Englanders. as well as for jaundiced malcontents of like kidney Avith the Tablet (see, for example, the tAVO issues fclloAving the Duke of York's visit). What has ruined the Liberal party? Opposition to Imperialism and the Unity of the Empire — that from first to last. The split of 1886, when Lord Hartington, Mr Goschen, Mr Chamberlain, and the rest of the " Liberal Unionists " severed themselves from Mr Gladstone, was over Irish Home Rule. The question really at issue, as the seceders saw, Avas the existence of the Empire. What would have happened during the last two years had a semi-independ-ent GoA r ernment been established in Ireland? The chances are that we should have had to conquer the Irish as well as the Boers. It has been the misfortune of the Liberals all along that they have not been able to perceive, or to accept, Avhab Lord Rosebery calls " the evolution of Imperial feeling " ; and now they go under, politically, because, as the same candid friend points out to them, whilst " the vhole Empire had rallied over the war," they, the Liberals, " took an "impossible attitude of neutrality." Similarly has gone under Mr Findley, the Melbourne Labour member, expelled the Commonwealth Parliament for reprinting the Irish People libel on the King. That fact is a portent of bad omen for certain Jack Cade politicians amongst ourselves.

Lord Kitchener does not favom' " the magnifying of minor successes." Equally, I suppose, he would discountenance the magnifying of minor reverses. And thirs, so far as Lord Kitchener's control extends, the war correspondent's occupation is pone. For of minor successes and minor reverses in dreary alternation all that is left of " the war," as we still call it, is made up ; if, then, the war correspondent may not resort to a little magnifying, how. shall it appear that anything of consequence is going on or that the Biitish public is getting value for its million and a-quarter a week? Lord Kitchener himself, I fancy, is indifferent to these considerations. He transmits periodically to the War Office his tally-sheet — so many Boers gathered in, dead or alive, so many rifles and rounds of ammunition, so many head of sheep and cattle — a business-like record with no touch of heroics about it ; he sends it in, and then, with the same taciturnity and smgle-minedness, sets about compiling the next. This is all that is left of the Boer Avar. Long ago it rleqjeneiated from "la guerra " to "la guerilla " — an infinitude of racings and chasings,, petty gains and petty losses, .which may continue for months or j cars, as the nature of la gueiilla is. For such a business we do not want a starring general, intent on self-advertising. Probably if we ransacked the Empire we couldn't find a better man for the job than the man Aye haye — silent, stern, implacable, and always, 'in President Lincoln's phrase, "pegging away.'' Now that pro-Boer " Liberalism," so-called, has received a defilaifce set-back in English politics^ we may

reasonably hope that the job will be shortened.

From the tone of a discussion in the Legislative Council on mining scandals, I judge that some of the " lords " have been badly hit. The Hon. Mr TAvomey expatiated on the crimes of a mining engineer, at present unnamed, who predicted 20 grains to the yard, " whereas subsequent inspection condemned the claim as Avorthless>" ; — "he ought to be in gaol,, that is the only place in Avhich he ought to be ; some day I may give his name to show what a swindler he is." Something Avrong here in the reporting, apparently ; I don't see hoAv telling a man's name can shoAv Avhat a swindler he is. But that is not the point ; the point is that the indefiniteness of Mr TAvomey's threat will spread, dismay amongst the Avhole fraternity of mining engineer? — the general dismay of a. negro congregation when the preacher i< going to name "de biudder dat steals chickens." For at such a moment who caa feel himself safe ! Next in order of demerit after engineers cbine directors, and the Hon. Lee Smith made the not unreasonable demand that directors Avho press defaulting shareholders for calls should be expected to pay their own. Not so ! — said \ th» Hon. W. 'M. Bolt— who, I fancy, is by Avay of being a director himself.— the suggestion that directors should be made to pay up "would be unworkable." It Avas difficult now to get directors at 12gs a year, and such a provision would make It much more difficult, and would have a tendency to bring oiit the Avorst" men — men of means, but without financial ability. FlOlll which sapient deliveiance it is a clear inference that a man of means is vsually Avithout financial ability, and that a man of financial ability is usually without thp means to pay his calls. I take this as a fair illustration of the Avisdom that goes to the direction of mining companies • if J wanted another, it is at hand in the resolve of certain directorial boards to let the names of their respective companies drop out of the Stock Exchange lists rather than pay a guinea a year for registration. A guinea a year, observe ! Why don't they come to me? I Avould pay the guinea a year myself.

r ' Civil," not " Civis," dishkes the " giuel " administered last Saturday by '• Cms " to shareholders in dredging companies who do not come out into the open to back up Mr Easton, but write anonymously to the papers. A weak man such as he is, being in arrears for calls on share 3 taken up 12 months ago, many of which would have been saleable months ago' but for the incompetence of engineers and mistakes in Inanageme.lt, cannot well come out in the open, like Mi Easton. to attack abuses. He must entrench himself as best he can, and fight under . cover. Does not '-' Civis," he asks,--*lo the same? Thus a '' condensed '" correspondent in Wednesday's Daily Times. In Avhat sense, pray, is '' Civis " anonymous? I should have thought that the name was tolerably well known in the Republic. " Civis " is no more anonymous than the Daily Times itself. But let that pass. This correspondent, somewhat thick-witted, I am afraid, as Avell as "condensed," imagines that I recommend shareholders in distress to bottle' ii]) their grievances. Absurd ! • I recommend precisely the opposite. Let in the light upon them ; write to the uewspapers about them — name or no name ; since they exist let us know what these grievances are. But don't suppose that in anonymous waitings in the mining column there is salvatiwn ; for there isn't. When the cart sticks in the mud, call upon Jupiter, if you like, but clap your oAvn shoulder to the wheel. This wisdom, as old as the hills, has been forgotten in Otago dredging affairs. There are a score of companies in which the shareholders, after looking on complacently Avhilst things went from bad to worse, and from that to Avorst. are noAV supplicating Jupiter in one form or other — Mr Easton or the Government — to come to their rescue. In Thursday's Daily Times there is an account of the present position in the Fraser Flat Company. All washed up, it amounts to this: Soiae £17,000 has been spent, £2000 more would be required to complete things; the shareholders get nothing— not even a statement of affairs for account; the mortgagees for .£SOOO get possession of everything, and the other creditors go without. It has taken two years and six months to arrive at the present position. Could affairs have reached this pass if the shareholders had looked a little — only a little — after their own interests? Apropos, a correspondent writes as follow* : — Dear " Civis," — At a meeting of the creditors of a certain gold dredging company, held today, after the creditors had been kept meekly waiting for some twenty minutes the chairman of directors entered, and, in a. jaunty manner, said (evidently to take his 3oke of any religiously disposed person present) " Shall we open this meeting with prayer 9" The longsuffering creditors present did uc-t seem at all to appreciate the pleasantry, one remarked "Hardly necessary; the c^ichtois, I fancy, have been the prey in this c. je." All seemed to "see this joke except the clianman, who at once proceeded to Irasmcss. What meeting this Avas, or what the name of the company concerned, I know not ; but. I haven't any doubt that the clitinman's impulse to get doAvn on his marrowbones Avas a, sound one. " Shall avd begin with prayer?" said he. It wou'd have been more appropriate, possibly, if he had begin Avith Confehbion, Penance, and Restitution. For meetings of shareholders in companies such as, say. Fia.ser Flat, should theie be a disposition to devotional exercises 1 vi.uld suggest a ''Hymn for thobe at Sea.' 1 Royalty and Gloves. Dear " Civis,"— During the recent visit of the Duke and Duchess we were instructed officially, as you may remember, that pej^ons to bo piesented to theij Royal Highvess-es were to have the light hand ungloved. From a passage in Horace "VValpole's Letters I gather that a hundred years ago it would not have been thought the correct thing to offer an ungloved hand to loyalty. Walpole writes to his friend Conway, July 7, 1795, describing his leception of Queen Charlotte and her daughters at Strawberry Hill : "As 1 had been assured that her Majesty would be attended by her chamberlain and yet was not. I had no glove ready when I received her at the step of the coach; yet she

honoured m« w>"-Ji her lund to lead her up* stairs, nor did 1* jocoiiect my omission when I led her down again. Still, "though gloveless, I did not squeeze the royal hand, as ViceChamberlain Smith did to Queen Mary." Queen Mary (William Ill's Mary) is said to have asked some of her attendant ladies whai a squeeze of the hand was supposed to intimate Jhey said "Love. Then, said the Queen, My Vice-Chancellor must be violently in love with me, for he always squeezes my hand." On questions of court usage in his own time Walpole was an authority. He had " the soul of a gentleman usher," says Macaulay, basing the remark on what Walpole often used to say of himself— that from his knowledge of ceremonials and etiquettes he felt sure that m a previous state of existence he must have been a gentleman usher about the time of Elizabeth. Apropos of the approaching coronation, 1 may as well present you with another extraci from Walpole's mine of eighteenth century I stovy and gossip. At the coronation of George 111, 1761, the heralds were so ignorant of then business, says Walpole, that,. though pensioned for nothing but to register lords and ladies and I what belongs to them, they advertised in the neAvspaper for the Christian names and the places of abode of the peeresses. The Kmg complained of such omissions, and of the want nf precedent; Lord Elpinghom, the Earl Marshall, <tokl him it was true there had been great neglect in tha-t office, but he had now j taken such oare of registering that next coronation would be conducted with the greatest order imaginable. The King was so diverted with this flattering speech that he made the Earl repept it several times. An observation as awkward as Lord E.s had been made by the beautiful Lady Coventry to George 11. " She was tired of sights," she said ; " there was only one that she Avantecl to see, and that was a coronation." The old King told the story himself at supper to his family with great good humour. As it happened, he outlived Lady C. by a few days. 0-uniuu Gatherum. Many thanks. Pos-siblv the change ol usage in the matter of gloves may be due. like so much else, to the march of democracy. An ungloved hand for gieeting 13 is the rule noAvadaA's ; but royal personages of an earlier time may have scented defilement in the touch of a plebeian palm. And certainly from the Duke of York's point of vieAv. AA-hen he has to pump-handle seriatim half a population all perspiring Avith loyalty nnd nervousness, gloves s-hould be preferable. Civi".