PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2516, 4 June 1902, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

Of the war news we may say, as the Spectator said six weeks ago, that it is mainly peace news. And 3'et of peace itself there is no sure word.. Last Sunday night we were all set palpitating by optimist assurances in church — main points had been settled ; the few trivialities still in debate would be adjusted during the week ; believing which we naturally rejoiced — ministers, pious souls, giving audible thanks and the Rev. Curzon-Siggers singing a hymn of his own composing. Alas, it was a case of crying Peace, peace, when there was no peace. Here we are, seven days older but not visibly any further forward. True, the joy-bells may ring before these words see print ; — they may ; on the other hand, they mayn't. This tantalising delay means, I suppose, that an irreconcilable minority are still holding out. Then the reconcilable majority should try what virtue there may be in methods of persuasion. I once had experience of a ship's crew that refused duty. We were in the Downs, intending for the Channel ; but at single-anchor, windbound. A police-boat came off ; and then, after a " barney " influenced usefully by this display of force, the mutineers announced their submission. All but one — a lubberly, blubberly Dutchman ; for his part, nothing should induce him to "turn to." Whereupon, after wordy argument, the reconciled majority, stretching the irreconcilable Minority an the stock of the anchor, resorted to methods of persuasion, which, I am afraid, were in this case methods of barbari&m. In short, they cobbed him. After which we had peace. Historic precedents of the same kind were famous under the Constitution of Poland. Any one member of the National Council might bring the whole political machine to a stop by pronouncing his veto. He was perfectly free in exercising this right, — it was a " liberum veto ";■ but his fellow-member's were also free to pass their swords through the objector's body ; and this they generally did". If the Boer dissidents — already at. " noisy recriminations " — push their obstinacy much further, something will have to be done on the model of these piecedents. And the sooner the better.

The following letter to arrive has been partially anticipated by cable.

British Headquarters, Pretoria. Dear Joe.— l fancy I have pretty well fixed up things here. Arrived just in the nick of time. When it comes to talkee-talkee Milner and Kitchener, good men :n their own way, are no match for these Boer Johnnies. " Let me at 'em " — said I to Milner—" I'll convince 'em!" Not he! — daren't for his life without fiist consulting Chamberlain! Just the same difficulty with Kitchener " Order up the New Zealanders," I told him; — "they're the best men you've got; what's the good of scattering them, a handful here and a handful there? — put them into one mob here at Pretoria, and they'll go through the country like a rocket. Besides some of them'll be back before the general election, and I've got to make them a speech." That's how I talked to Kitchener. But, no — not a bit of good! Couldn't do it, he said ; the War Office would haul him up for disorganising the campaign. That's the kind of men they are! However, it's all right. The Boers know I'm here, and that I don't care a hang for the War Office, or Chamberlain either. They've got a notion that if the British backed out I should declare 'war on 'my own acccmnt, bring over the Maoris, and annex South Africa to New Zealand. That knocks 'cm! And so wo shall have peace. But not till I get to London, I fancy. If Milner and Kitchener have any sense of gratitude, not to say decency, they will spin things out so that peace and the author of it can arrive together. In that case, look out 1 The Coronation may t»ke n back seat.

Naturally T have liept my eyes open -wiih a \ie\v to contingencies. A Governorship of the Iransvaal or the Orange State? Don't you bfheve it! — too small beer. The High Com-:nissioner->hip, in succession to Milner, I might look at. But mum's the word! ily next from Dowttiftg street or Windsor.. Jfeansdbile-^

Meanwhile Praise Dick from whom all blessings flow. The strain is no novelty, and we are learning to sing it in larger and ever larger congregations.

The English papers, as was to be expected, are full of Cecil Rhodes — eulogies, criticisms, anecdotes ; also of memorial sonnets there are not a few. Now fall? the lion head of grizzled grey, Now fades contemptuous sneer, persuasive smile, Pails the blunt speech and loosely ordered style That hid the deep-set piirpose far away; &c, &c. Amongst the anecdotes and personal memorabilia I find nothing better worth quoting than this, contributed by; Sir Harry Johnston, Governor or ex-Governor of British Central Africa.

I remember, -while we still discussed farreaching plans of this description, amid the ruins of a hastily-eaten breakfast, an excited man forced his way into Rhodes's presence, despite the protestations of the waiters. He was desperate, he said; woDfld have- the law of Mm, but his bill nrust and should be paid. He -w?3 an Oxford tailor. Rhodes listened unmoved to this excited language, and said, " But I have only just arrived; I have not been in England since such and such a time. ' " But I sent you the bill to South Africa over and over again." " Ah, but I never answer letters. How -much is it?" The man, pp. using in hi 3 angry speech, gasped out the total, not far short of two hundred pounds. Rhodes, without another word, pulled ' Out of various pocWets and pocket-books notes, gold, silver, and_coppeio to the exact amount, and pushed^the money over. The tailor, with the veins still standing out on hi i forehead, receipted the bill with a trembling hand, and walked out too astonished at the abrupt solution of his difficulty to find any word of deprecation or apology. Rhodes was Imperial through and through, even in the paying of his tailor's bills. Kings and Kaisers might envy him this story. Probably few of them carry the grand manner to his degree of perfection. As. for his " Ah, but I never answer letters," that is the peculiar luxury of millionaires, and compensation for the burden of their millions. On occasion Rhodes could be imperially courteous. Thus General Booth, having obtained an interview with him to discuss a proposed Salvationist Settlement in Rhodesia, wound up by inquiring, as in duty bound, after the state of his soul — Are you saved? or words to that effect.

" Though he did not," says General Booth, " assent to my remarks by any passing pretensions to religion, he did not resent them. On the contrary, he was serious and thoughtful, and when I said I should pray for him, he responded, ' Yea, that was good.' Prayer, he considered, -was useful, acting* as a. sort of time-table, bringing befoxe the mind the duties of the day, and pulling one up to face the obligations for their discharge. I must say I very dimly apprehended his meaning at the time." There is ground for doubting whether he more cleirly appreciates the meaning now. It were sad for some of us if the only way of getting to heaven were General Booth's way.

The Americans, considering their ancestry and the literary heritage that goes with it, considering their teeming wealth, their irrepressible energy, their manifestly imperial destiny, ought certainly to be an intelligent people. Yet, judged by their newspaper press, or a certain large and prosperous section of it, they are the most benighted race on earth. The other week I quoted some illuminative comments on the Boer war by the San Francisco Weekly Post. In a later copy just received I find the editor still happy on the same theme. T<> match his degree of ignorance and prejudice you would have to go to the hirelings of Dr Leyds in the German and French provincial press. It is a small thing to be told that the British araiy is " rotten," that the navy is in the same plight, and that the British mercantile marine has declined by more than half — by 61 per cent., to be exact — during the last 10 years. It is also a small thing to learn that Mr Chamberlain is politically " a fallen man," "the butt of the British "nation," and that " many characteristics of Cecil Rhodes were essentially American," whilst " his greatest fault was his ambition for Anglo-Saxon dominance." These are trifles. But what are we to say to the statement that in this war we have " expended a billion of treasure and men by the hundred thousand " ? Or to this, that " the voice of the people," the British people, " is unanimously in favour of the oppressed Boer " ? All that one can say is that to the proBoer, American or colonial, this should be good hearing, and that it is just as true and just as intelligent as most other things that pro-Boers encourage each other by repeating. Here, however, from the same paper is a morsel that will strain the credulity of even the'pro-Boer : ''Upon the news of Cecil Rhodes's death being conveyed to him, Paul Kruger said: 'The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.'" By this, estimate the intelligence of the readers for whom the average American editor purveys.

It is pleasant to know that my perilous steps in this column are affectionately supervised. Anonymous guardians, critical though friendly, are always ready to pick rrn; up as soon as I fall, and even before I fall. Thus a certain " Arcadius " writes from the Taieri to correct me in what he styles an " anachronism." Quoting last week a story about the Emperor Honorius and his imbecile indifference to the news that his capital, Rome, had been sacked by Alaric, I placed him at Constantinople instead of at Ravenna. That is the " anachronism," and evidently I sit corrected. I am ready to profehs and maintain that Honorius was never at Constantinople at all — unless, as some maintain, he was born there ; and " Arcadius," who personates his brother, ought to know ; — I am ready, I say, not only to confess my mistake but to call it an " anachronism," or an allegory on the banks of the Nile, or any other thing that the learned Theban who takes me to task may prefer. In return for this complaisance perhaps he will let me off the duty of consulting Gibbon as

to the truth or falsehood of tlie story itself." Though I don't write from the Taieri, no* from His Majesty's Gaol, I am. as it? happens, in a place where I can't conveniently consult Gibbon ; and, anyhow, I maintain that if the story is not true ifc ought to be. Honorius was a degenerate, a "roi fainant," the type and representative of a degenerate people. Heuce in this controverted story — that when the wews " Rome has perished was communicated to him, the EmperoT's first thought was of a favourite chicken that bore that name — there seems to my mind nothing improbable. Indeed I believe it outright ; — and for this reason,, because I am perfectly sure that In Dunedin there are hundreds of people" whose "chief interest" in to-morrow's paper will be, not the state of the peace-or-wai* debate at Pretoria, but the state of the, score in the . England and Australia test match. Let "Arcadius," who discerns nothing of excess, in our devotion to sports and games, "put that in hid critical pipe and smoke it.

A correspondent informs me that some remarks of miae on- the low- estate of certain Molyneux companies that profess, to have suffered by a " waterspout " were altogether unintelligent. To the waterspout, a^ I understood, was " imputed" the silting up of the said companies' claims ; and I wanted to know how it was that this calamity had caused the ladders N of their dredges to be of insufficient length, seeing that the distance from the surface of the river to the gold remained what it was before. It seems, " however, that I was " clean out of it." The effect of the waterspout was to erect a dam in the river and thus to raise its level for the claims immediately above. So that was it, was it? All right ; I will try to believe in ,this paradoxical phenomenon as best I can, and now proceed to ask a question or two. The claims affected are five, it seems ; their collective capital may be. put down at £50,000; the- meteorological visitation which has brought about their paralysis happened some months ago — four, shall we say, or six? Then what have the five boards of directors been doing in the meantime? The river is at its lowest, the dredging season flitting by — what haVe these directors done to remedy their misfortune? Apparently nothing. What they vaguely think about doing may be gleaned from tlie following information furnished to shareholders in one of the companies concerned the shares of which, once at £2, are now vainly offered at 2s.

Shareholders will be' pleased to learn that arrangements are being made for blasting away tlie debris in the xiver caused by the recent waterspout damming back the xiver. An expert wil! probably proceed to Cromwell about Monday next to remove the obstructions. Absolutely non-committal, you see ; and therein lies its charm. "Arrangements are being made," and the-expert " will probably proceed," not on any given date, „ bufc " about Monday next." In connection with this hypothetical expert's problematical operations there has been mention," I think, of dynamite. The chief need, .however, of the five waterspouted companies is a little moral dynamite applied to "the directors. Civis.

The Arctic dogs on view last week before being sold by Messrs Park, Reynolds, , and 1 Co. were well worth a visit by all true lovers of dogs. Three- of them are pure white, with long, soft, silky hair, and conform to the description of a pure Siberian as given by Nansen in his " Farthest North." In disposition, Nansen describes these dogs as being gentle and affectionate. It is now over two years since a pack of 40 sledge dogs was landed on Stewart Island, and placed in Mr A. W. Traill's charge, and it is only after careful selection and the rejection .of scores of pups that the owner has succeeded in perfecting the. typo aimed at — viz., a jmre Siberian without any sign of the Russian collie or other cross, and now he can confidently state that no such dogs have hitherto been offered for sale in New Zealand.

Mr E. G. Allen, M.H.R. for "Waikouaiti, addressed the Waitati portion of the electors at the Good Templars' Hall, Waitati, on Monday evening. There wa3 a good attendance, which, considering the roads and weather, must have been gratifying to the speaker. , Mr Kilpatrick occupied the cßair, and in his introductory remarks cpoke in complimentary terms of the manner in which Mr Allen had carried out his duties as their member, and referred to the fact that his assistance had always been readily given to any movement the carrying of which would be beneficial to- the district, irrespective of whether brought under his notice by supporters or non-supporters. Mr Allen spoke for about two hoiira on matters of general interest, and among others the Oldage Pensions and the \Vorker3' Compensation for Accidents Acts wero exhaustively dealt with. In speaking of the small-bird pest, he said- that -he thought that if taken up by the Fanners' Union it could be successfully dealt with without the aid of legislation, i Referring to the Fanners' Union, he said much good must accrue to the farmers through it. He was glad to see that it was to be" a non-pilitical body, as otherwise its usefulness would be to a great extent marred. • The finances of the colony were then dealt with, and, in conclusion, he enumerated the different acts which had been panged to assist the dairying and farming industry and 'the' ben&fits that had accrued to the producers" through "the passing of these- acts. The 'speaker was frequently applauded during his "address, and at its conclusion received a > unanimous vote of thanks and confidence. ' A vote of thanks to the chair closed the proceedings.

During the past 36 years 500,000 tons of coal have been, burnt in manufacturing Lemco to fill the little earthermvare pota known everywhere. Lemco is the genuine Liebie Comjpany'a Extract*