PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2524, 30 July 1902, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Tinns.)

Mr J. G. Woolley "in explanation" adorns two columns in yesterday's Daily Times. We are nothing the wiser. Mv Woolley reveals himself as essentially the man we took him to be — an illogical emotionalist, which is precisely the kind of man a typical prohibitionist is bound, to be. A good part of the "explanation" is taken up with Mr Woolley's " beliefs " ; and there is a charm in Mr Woolley's beliefs. For the moment we are back with the March Hare and the Mad Hatter of " Alice in Wonderland. I believe that British law ai,d British valour have been the two greatest agencies m the civilisation of the world and the uplift ot humanity, but I say to you that the subserviency of British law and British valour to the liquor traffic is the most infamous thing in history. Which is to say that British Jaw and British valour are at one and the same time supremely good and supremely bad ; the greatest civilising agency, and yet withal, in their subserviency to the liquor traffic, guilty of " the most infamous thing in history." Nothing but superlathes will serve the turn of prohibition rhetoiic, and the more flatly the«e superlatives ll.t-Ii the more effective prohibition logic. To this specimen the remaining ai lidos in Mr Woolley \s credo conform ; take any you like, — for delightful nii.on'-erjueni.e one is as good as another.

1 believe the Priu of Wales'" \ i^.l %\c,ilvcne<l the Impend Fcntirvei.t. A little ';oy r:<d girl, brother and sister, in X'-w Zcluud, told me they shook hands with him, and that he was " Just like other people." Proof conclusive! Evidently tliP Tmpciial .sentiment lerjuued a Pi nice with wing 5 ., or marching thtough the counliy in uown and sceptre. Once raorp :

I believe that every British co'eny advance stowards independence. " Independence," quoth he ; and '" advance*, towards" it! This is thu typical one-eyed Yankee notion — Britain a despotism, the colonies in seivitude ; ■nh'.lj-t, .is Artemus Ward puts it, the earth turn*- on her axletree wunst in 24 houis, subjeck to the constitooshun of the United St'iiies.

To an American of this kidney, the creature of ignorance and prejudice, facts appeal in vain. He fcees only what he brings eyes to see. and no more of that than the* limitations of his provincial mind permit him. Mr Woolley, peregrinating New Zealand from end to end. discovered that New Zealand loyalty *\as> "imaginary in the main." Secretly New Zealand yearns for " independence," and is even " advancing towards " it. Try to make him understand that New Zealand has more independence than Massachusetts, since Massachusetts does not make the laws under which it lives, whereas New Zealand does ; that New Zealand has more independence than it wants or cares to keep, so that at this moment Mr Seddon's special endeavour is to get rid of some of it, by renouncing the privilege, exercised by Yankees and other aliens, of taxing British goods — try to bring these facts under the vision of a political mvo£e lit© Mj Woollej, and j;ou. jvastf

your labour. To him Britain is the Britain of George 111, the Australasian colonies today are as the American colonies were before the War of Independence. Quite in keeping with the American habit 1 of viewing ail things British through War-of-Independ-ence spectacles is Mr Woolley's notion of the situation we had to deal with in South Africa. His opinions about annexation and the rest are identical, he says, with the opinions held by Mr Joseph Chamberlain — in 1881. Convenient date! In 1881 there was no oppressing and despoiling of Outlanders, for the reason that as yet there were no Outlanders to oppress and despoil. Mr Woolley is only 20 years behind the times — a trifling anachronism in a reformer who makes it his special mission to preach up as a cure for drunkenness principles of monasticism borrowed from the middle ages.

Between celebi itv and notoiiety there is no very cle/ir divisidh ; the two things melt into each other ; occasionally each in turn may be predicated of one and the same individual. Mr Seddon. for example, is one and the same individual, and yet withal is alternately a celebrity and' a notoriety. It was as a well-attested -celebrity that he lauded in Natal. Read of his majestic stepping down the gangway and marching up the wharf as seen and described by a sympathetic Natal reporter.

It was a full quarter of an hour before, the man — the MAN that is — came down the ladder at length, and all this time the Mayoix was waiting patiently. But when he did come, he was welcomed most heartily; cheer followed cheer as the greatest colonial alive, now Rhodes is gone, walked up the wharf.

After the handshake with the Mayor and, Mrs Acutt, many presentations ensued. It is something to take the hand of a. man who embodies in himself the true spirit of Empire. It is an honour, and that cannot bs gainsaid. And ho is a man, indeed, from, the toes of him to the top of his head. He is 57 years of agp, and this length of an arduous, honourable, and profitable life has left him vigorous and young. His head is massive and leonine. He has shaggy blows, under which tho keen eyea, a little pouched now, still hold their own old alertness. A white moustache (follows on a strong, straight nose, but i f , do*>s not conceal the kindliness and humour of the mouth. A white pointed beard comes below all. The whole of the man is rodolent of strength and exuberance ; he consumes his days with gusto, and relishes events as they pass. In the crowd that pressed about him, he stood out, he towered, he overshadowed. He is a. big man physically, with mighty shoulders, and morally he is colossal. This Mr Seddon coiild be no other than the celebrity ; yet the same man. by the time he landed in England, had relapsed into a anere notoriety — the "notorious Mr Seddon," or even the "notorious Dick Seddon." The newspapers, all save the painfully respectable sort, made fun of him, poured scorn on him, even punning upon his name, which, as the Americans would say, was playing it very low down indeed. It is the same ambiguity all through. There is a Mr Seddon who is lodged at the Hotel Cecil, holds receptions, attends reviews, is seen at the opera, confers with the Colonial Secretary, dines with the Prince. That is the celebrated Mr Seddon. And yet, if we may believe the cables, there is another Mr Seddon — another, and yet the same — who denies, disclaims, and repudiates the whole sorry business of "the national purse." There never was any national purse ; or, if there wa«, lie never heard of it ; or, if he heard of it, he never got it. What is more, he doesn't expect to get it, and won't have it. The story of a national purse, first to last, is "unfounded."' Too plainly we here hit upon the o T d, original, notorious Diek — the Seddon we know. And this, I am veiy much afraid, is the iSeddon that will come back to us.

That is, if any Seddon conies back at all. No Seddon, celebiity or notoriety, appears in the honours list, an omission that urgently needs explaining. How they explain it on the West Cc/af-t, a region which may be described, without offence. I hope, as the holft- of the pit from which our Richard was digged, will be been in the following letter : Dear " Cms' — As you and all yciu" leading lirother joi.' naksts Feem to b"b in the daik as to what honour the King is keeping up Ins slef\p for our own King Ricliaid, I suggest J hat he may be made suzerain Kms; of Irelai.d. Peace followed his advent to South Africa ; Ins ) rcs°nco in Ireland combined with l,is magic infltiem ° night conciliate the Irish mecoflcilables. The Loid-I.ieutcnancy of lip1hi«1, with £'2(),000 a year and the palatial Dubii". Ca_stle as a resi.lciice, v.ould suit cur Vv r fst Coa^t Kichaid to a. ii'eetv, and v lie proved himsr'f the Ir.'h ilt -siah, .t you'd 1-e cheap to vote him a pai!>am°nt.irv giant equal to that of Lord Kobert-, with Dublin Castle thrown in. 1 R'-E Bll'U. C'l.inin^ fiom the West Ci/.-c-t tins can baldly hr irony. On tin.' cuiituuv, J accept it <is ;i valuab'e Mij.-i/e-li'jn. .nid wiM pn^ it mi to t lie light qu-utei- One tiling is beyond doubt ; if Mi Sidilon and the n<a'ctiitent In^li wei c "-hut up togt th^r vii .in l'-hmd. tlieie a\ otild soon be either no Ir: i -h or no Seddon.

More than once have I declined foi South Africa a& the proper Held for Mr Seddoii'.w talents, and for the Go\ernorship of a Boer ex-Republic as his proper reward there. Any chance he may have had in that quarter has been wrecked, I am afraid, by his amazingly ignoiant- criticism of the peace teim«. They were not "firm" enough; w ought to "have insisted on "unconditional surrender."' Which merely shows how Mr iSeddon. is deceived by a phrase. Unconditional surrender, literally, construed, is an impossibility, never was and never will be. The man who at the point of the bayonet flings up his hands surrenders conditionally — on the unspoken condition that his life will be spared. Otherwise, like a beast of the forest, he would fight whilst tooth and claw were left to him. The phrase " unconditional surrender " had one and only one meaning — that we' did not intend to accept Boer conditions, but did intend that the Boers should accept- ours. The peace terms merely informed the Boers what our conditions -were. On this point may be read with advantage a few sentences from a London weekly : Ii Efi i>%A insisted, on " unconditional eur-

rendei" we must n-xt day have, of our own fr^ Trill, done -nnplpdge<J le things -we are now pledged to do. As we had no intention of act* ting vindictively, wfe must have made exactlj the same concessions as regards amnesty, resettlement, a"d financial aid, and we should of course have -worked towards the establishment of self-government at the earliest possible date. Again, we chould have been quite as lenient to rebels. We have, in tact, not agreed to da anything that we should not have done voluntarily. Mr Seddon, with to statesmanship, could not see this, but hankered after " unconditional surrender." The Boers, ifi is to be feared, would not take kindly to a man who had compltuned that Kitchenei handled them with kid gloves and who grudged to the vanquished their necessary pnd inevitable terms of peace.

The Dunediti retailer, though no •whit less patriotic than the rest of «§", is torn and distracted in mind between" duty to hia Sovereign and a reasonable regard for hia civn interest. The Coronation has been fixed for a Saturday ; why, he doesn't know and doesn't ask. There -are reasons good, no doubt. But New Zealand Saturday morning is London Friday night. Is ife not a little too much to ask him to coronate before the Coronation takes place, and to da this at the sacrifice of his best business day in the week? Why can't the New Zealand jubilation be transferred from Saturday to Monday? Well, it can't — retorts our sapient Executive ; — it can't, and there's an end of it ; all Government celebrations will be carried through on Saturday ; tha Saturday holiday must be observed ! Whereupon the Dunedin retailer, if he keeps his present mind, will open shop on Saturday and shut on Monday, politely consigning the Executive to its* deserts in a warm place. I confess that the more I see of this Government's practical sense in small matters the less I esteem it. The Otago Mining School is in danger ot perishing for lack of a few hundreds a year. This is a Government that boasts an annual surplus ; yet to tlie plea for help to s>ave the Mining School from extinction its response is, Why don't you raise the money by public subscription? Possibly we may da that ; but we might as reasonably be asked to carry round the hat for the Post Office or the Magistrate's Court. Ministers are shewing an equal degree of sweet reasonableness in tbe matter of the Coronation, holiday ; — and it will be remembered against them. Cms.

Dr Brown, chairman of the High Schools Board of Governors, is at present in Wellington, and will bring to the notice of the Minister of Education the resolution;' adopted by the board la&t week, to offer (subject to the payment of capitation by the Government) to provide free secondary education for pupils who have passed the Sixth Standard in tho primary schools.

One of the largest dredging companies which has as yet been compelled to liquidate without returning the shareholders a farthing in dividends brought its chequered! career to a close on the 22nd. This was thaf Earn&cleugh No. 3 Gold Dredging and; Electric Power Company, and the tale disclosed was a dreary recital of how nearly £24,000 had been frittered away in four years without a yard of payable wash being put over the tables. The opinion of experts as to why the dredge has not been,' put into working order is conflicting. Ifc may be mentioned, however, that two shareholders representing about £8000 worth' of interest in the company, and both having considerable experience in dredging on the Molynoux, have thrown up the sponge, andl support the- proposal to liquidate.

Mr E. H. Carew, S.M., granted one renewal of the old-age pension on the 22nd a* £18, and refused one new application on the ground that the applicant was under the required age.

Natal Government railways extend over a length of 600 milee, of which 43 miles sue upon grades of 1 iii 30 and 1 in 35, and having cur\c9 of 300 ft and 350 ft radius, while on a further 100 miles »nd more thera arc gradients of 1 in 50 and 1 in 60, with curvatures of less than 450 ft radius. A tram running between Durban and Charlestovvu l.as to ascend in tho aggregate 12,6001t, or al'out two mile's and a-half of a vertical elevation.

An interesting and al>le lecture wa" givan in tho Cathedral Schoolroom on Monday, evening under the auspices of St. Paul's Mutual Improvement A^ociation by Dr Pan iik .Mar-hall, lecturer at the Otago S'hool of ilino-e. Tire doi lor lectured on, the \olranie districts m the neighbourhood of Lake T.iupo. Starting from Rotorua, Idi.teni slides of the scenery the Spa wcro ghdi, down as far as Lake Taupo. Skftche-, and i hotngiaphs of tbe great volunnci Tonga iiro, Ngaruhoe, and Ruapehu, nnd <>i Uw> magnificent eoGiiery from their ■.loneti were thrown on the screen. Tho Yen. Archdeacon Robinson presided. At the ckise a vote- of thanks on behalf of the a--ociation was accorded the lecturer by Mr W. Wathen. The lantern was in tho hands of Alv Shepherd, of the Bible and Tract Depot.

The executive of the Count il of Church ei on Monday resohed to cable as follows to the Rev. Dr Torrey at Hobart : — "Preparatory missions are being held in anticipation of your visit. You .are earnestly desired and- eagerly expected by the Council of ChuTchee. Reply." Yesterday morning the secretary received, a reply: — "Coming September. Have written." We understand that Dr Torrey willvjje accompanied by Mr Alexander, who is -to the rev. doctor what Mr Ira D. Sankey was to the late Mr Moody.