PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Volume 14, Issue 2648, 14 December 1904, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

The amount of mischief lying potential in tha " Dardanelles question may be measured by the value to Russia of the right to pass warships through the straits. We have heard of the last straw that breaks the camel's back, also of the last ounce that turns the scale. It may be that when affairs in the Far East are at stalemate, or perpetual check, Russia's command of a new piece- moving freely may determine the game. Intrinsically the Black Sea, fleet is of little account ; and yet it may prove to be the last straw, the last ounce, the free-moving pawn when the game is otherwise in extremis. Now Britain is pledged to prevent the Black Sea fleet passing the Dardanelles — pledged to Japan. X' not, what value is there in the British- Japanese alliance? Russia is bound by treaty not to pass the Dardanelles, to which treaty Britain is a pai*ty. Other Powers, who are "also parties to the treaty, may waive their rights and inform Russia that so far as they are concerned she may do as she. pleases ; butI don't see how Britain can waive any right she has in the matter without failing in her engagements to Japan, and failing in the worst possible way — that is, by assisting the other side. To suggest this as a- possibility with any British Ministry seems lese majesty in "the 'first degree. Campbell -Bannennan would be no more capable of it than Balfour. I conclude, then, that the Dardanelles question may Be labelled "Dangerous." The Baltic fleet trouble if now the affair of the lawyers. It was ablate in the \icinity of the powderroom, but has been pretty well damped out. There remains, however, the possibility of a very lively squib in the Black Sea fleet.

Socialism is a tenable form of thought, not necessarily anti-Christian, still less Atheist ; faddists who preach it are not under any compulsion to speak evil of dignities whether in Church or State. And as this is a fres country, or was at one time, our instinct when a Socialist spouter strolls along is ie- offer him a stump. He may be a. Britisher like Mr Tom Mann, he may be an American like Mr J. M. Wilson, — all's one to us ; and the extent to which he will jump on our corns and flout our most sacred beliefs is a question of taste and decency which we leave entirely to his own discretion. Here I may remind Mr J. M. Wilson that in the country he comes from there are places where any intrusive foreigner taking on himself to blaspheme against the institutions under which the people of that place choose to live would b© escorted out of town riding on a rail, and bidden to make tracks with speed lest a worse thing befall him. But in New Zealand, as Mr J. M. Wilson may observe, wo push tolerance to a vice. Any enlightened. American, though it be none of his business, may complain of the institutions under which we, the New Zealand-ers, choose to live, and which, it may be, fit us like a glove. He may revile them, he may slander them, and yet have nothing to fear. We shall not tar and feather him. And Mr J. M. Wilson may further set down that this singular indifference to the disapprobation of Americans and other enlightened foreigners is a note of all populations degraded by the British flag.

As for this American man-s Socialism, that is neither here nor there ; we have Socialists of our own and think so little of them that we even put them into Parliament. What alone entitles Mr J. M. Wilson to a place in Passing Notes is the ingenuous charm of his rhetoric. It cannot be that all Americans alike are eloquent, and that their eloquence- is always the eloquence of a boy preacher ; yet we have had three of them — a Woolley, a Ward, and now a Wilson— and each one of the three eligible for a prize at the Dunedin Competitions. Ilr J. M. Wilson's

""mission to Dunedin" (see Wednesday's Daily Times) is, as Bottom puts ifc, a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. " I havo ccme to voice a protest. . . and. I have come to wage uncompromising warfare. . . I want that matchless marvellous force, the human mind, to be unchained, disentombed. I ask that men everywhere quit the mole-and-bat life, burroAving underground in the dark, and gain the eagle's eye and the eagle's pinions, and niownt aloft on the wings of light, with their eves on the sun of Progress." 1 Ha-ha.!— *

The raging rocks And shivering shock 3 Shall break the locks Of prison gates ; And Phibbus' car Shall shine from far To make and mar The foolish Fates. In this Ereles' vein Mr J. M. Wilson rages through half a column — the editor giving him rope. " The history of the Church is written in blood ; her record is a mosfc unenviable one [delightful bathos !] ; her feet are moored in the past and her face never glows with the light of day . . . the Church stands for a civilisation whose very presence is a breeder of capitalists and criminals, militarism and madness, disease and debauchery, plunder arid profit, war and waste, misery and murder" — ! To exhibit which crashing crescendo with fitting five and fury the resources of v the linotype are painfully inadequate. What is also inadequate is any attempt I make to explain to myself^ why each American ranter that comes here should be so excessively juvenile.

As I have been betrayed into an allusion to the Dunedin Competitions I may say now, when they are over and done, what I had not the courage to say whilst asyet they were in full blast. There seems to me a something, a what shall I say? — a. je ne scais quoi of indecency when boys and girls, a score of them in succession, are set piano-strumming in competition for a prize. Competitive fiddling is as bad, competitive singing is worse. The whole business from first to last I look upon as an offence against art. Nevertheless, having little hope of persuading anybody else to this, the virtuous view, I am prepared to become a whole-hogger the other way. " Whole-hogger," I may explain, is a phrase established and made classic by I7se- in the fiscal controversy ; " little-pigger " is another. The- Dunedin Competitions people are at present littlepiggers ; they would be much happier as \\ hole-hoggers. A year ago they had a Bible-reading competition, and then, iv deference to some unwonted qualm of taste or conscience, gave it iip. I don't desire it revived, nor a preaching and praying handicap substituted, though preachers are undoubtedly better and worse, and there is record somewhere of "the most eloquent prayer ever addressed to a Boston audience." I counsel .nothing irreverent-/ Porhaps a speeching competition on Bible-in-schools might pass, provided entry were limited to Synodsmen, and the contest, like other stage-horrors, were transacted in private: — "Let not Medea trucidate her children coram populo," says Horace ; let the deed be done behind the scenes and reported. Which rule of art might be applied with advantage to nine-tenths of the Competitions programme. My special suggestion however is of another kind. The best-dressed girl — how would that do? Flirtation in dumb show? Popping the question? Lovers' quan-els and reconciliations? A development on lines such as these would be more refined than a baby show, or grinning through a horse-collar — to which the management may yet come. Moreover it would bs popular, in fact would draw i : ke a poultice.

Mr Carri-.'k, an authority on Old NewZealand, explains what I last week was unable 1o explain — the remark of a writer in the Revue dcs Deux Mondes that in 1839 the French " were jockeyed out or" N"ew Zealand as the result of an indiscretion." That the French formed a settlement at Akaroa, most people know, and probably most people have a notion that New Zealand narrowly escaped - being French altogether. There they are wrong, and at this point- comes in Mr Carrick. When the French went to Akaroa — which place, by the way, they proposed to call " Takobinik " — there was already a British " Governor of N v ew Zealand," Captain Hobson, to wit ; consequently any adverse claim to sovereignty over the Middle Island must have assumed that the Middle Island was no part of "New Zealand," which is absurd. All the same the French were making that assumption, and only failed of making a lot of trouble along with it because their Captain Lavand was so efficiently dined and wined by our Captain Hobson that a British ship had time to reach Akaroa before him and hoist the British flog. This is how the French were " jockeyed out of Xew Zealand as the result of an indiscretion," and Mr Carrick invites ua to find '* food for " "on the score of British honour and hospitalities."' I don't object to find "food for reflection," but I invite Mr Carrick to find also food for satisfaction. Captain Hobson might have clapped the Frenchman in irons ; instead of which he merely put him under the table. Wherefore Captain Hobson, or " the wily Hobson " as Mr Carrick prefers, is to bs accounted an eminent jpostle of peace, a sort of foreruaner of The Hague tribunal. As for the French and their pretensions to colonise New Zealand, what kind of mess would they have made of it when, out of mere natural depravity, they began by transforming "Akaroa" into "Takobinik"?

At the beginning of Term, October 10, Oxford Avas to receive into residence 72 Rhodes Scholars. Of these there are 24 from the Eiilish colonies (ia particular, one from Dimpdin), 45 from the United states, five from Germany. "The Scholars, therefore, -will be non-Biitisli in the proportion of two to one. and three-fifths "will be Americans.'' This analysis by the Oxford

correspondent of a London newspaper ia not intended to sound nervous. Oxford ia not afraid. The barbarian invasion "will not bs allowed to sweep in as a .flood ; ifc is to be divided and distributed. " Tha Scholars have been allotted to the colleges in batches numbering from seven (Worcester College) to one (Keble)."' That is •well. Mr Rhodes is said to have had a notion that whilst Oxford would modify the Scholars, the Scholars in turn might modify Oxford. On this point I take leave to doubt. Of Oxford ifc may be said, according i 0 -the French paradox, The more it changes, the more it is the same thing ; and Mr Rhodes, I fancy, knew his Alma Mater pretty well. Probably he did not desire it greatly changed ; few Oxford men would. "A land in which ifc always seemeth afternoon"? — not quite that; yet with a pleasant old-world tone and tint, indisputable, ineffaceable. They have at Oxford a " New College," and New College is this very year celebrating its 500 th anniversary. Apropos of which fact the London papers have a pleasant story.

Dr Sewell, the late Warden of New, never wearied of emphasising that the correct title of his college was *' the College of St. Maiy of Winton in Oxenforcl." On one occasion the " Shirt." as undergraduates called him, was neatly hoist with his own archcsological petard. The customary bonfire had been kindled in quad to celebrate a series of bumps made by the College eight, when Dr" Sewell appeared on the scene, and exclaimed indignantly, " Gentlemen, is this New College ?" " No, sir, it is not," retorted one of the malefactors; " you have come to the wrong place ; this is the College of St. Mary of Winton in Oxenford." NeTf College, with its related public school at Winchester, is the gift of a mediaeval bishop, William of Wykeham. " Manners niakyth man," said he, and decreed it as the motto for his school. The sentiment is little honoured nowadays, indeed one may reasonably doubt "whether it is 50 much as understood.

The British Empire to-day numbers 400,54-3,713 citizens. The recent completion of the Cape census returns enables the total to be made up. Over 11,876,745 square miles British citizens are dotted to the number of about 36 per square mile.

A remarkable case of quackery was investigated by Mr Justice Edwards at the Auckland Supreme Court last Fridaj-. A middleaged man, answering to the nsme- of William Henry Joseph Kingston, wa-s arraigned on fotir counts of obtaining money by false preteficcs — namely, 5s each from Hone Pete, Here Napier, Heni Ueke, Hiaka Karapa, at Waitangi, on or about February 16, 1904. „The accused was also charged) with wilfully and falsely pretending to be ai doctor, implying that he was recognised' by law as a practitioner in m-edicine. Some very interesting evidence was unfolded, and! it appeared the accused had gone amongsb the Natives, mostly unsophisticated, and represented himself to be a doctor, skilful! in the practice medicine, and the best doctor north of Auckland. He said he could diagnose the diseases from which tha people were suffering without examination. Ho also had, he told them, a hospital at Whangarei, where he had 4-0 patients under, him, and no one had died under his treatment. A fee of 5s was demanded in' advance, and in some_cases the Maoris submitted themselves to examination. He went through the sounding business, he told the people who went to him that they were suffering from serious ailments ; some would die in a few days, and others in a few months, unless the medicine he handed out was taken. The medicine had not done any of them any good. A portion of a bottle of medicine supplied had been captured, and it was found to be a mixture of water, Epsom salts, and cascara. That was the medicine ho had, and apparently had it ia bulk, dealing it out to the patients. Accused waa found "Guilty" on every count, but judgment was deferred.

The city of New York makes a comfortable revenue out of the eminent citizens who own real estate there. When Mr W. ,W. Astor was in New York lately one o£ his recreations was the signing of a cheque for £95,000 by way of. tax offering. It ia calculated that his income from the real' estate alone is worth half a million sterling-. The Tanderbilts and Mr Andrew Carnegie also contribute- pleasant little sums to tha municipal exchequer. Mr Carnegie's personal property in New York is valued ati a million. The total levy on taxable property for tho present year comes to about three and a-half millions sterling — an increase of a million since the preceding collection. New Yorkers shew great readiness to pay their taxes. They do not waifc for anybody to call, but flock to the receiver's offico. This public spirit is said to hay© something to do with a rebate ; bull that must be the invention of a cynic.

Tho Milton Branch of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, at a meeting- held in tha County Chambers on Saturday evening", accepted, with regret, the resignation of Mr 6. T. Martin, vice-president, who is leaving- the colony. Correspondence was received from the provincial secretary to the union in regard to the arbitration award in the milluwners' dispute, in which it was explained that the terms of the award me-antf '" no work, no pay." The stock agents having- declined tho union's request; to reduce the commission on the sale of horses! to 2' 2 per cent., it was resolved to suggest to the executive ihat the rate charged ia too high, and that the union take oiv» auotioneoi's licenses and hold horse sales, say, monthly. After a disoussion on ths subject of paym&nt for sacks it was resolveiV> thai; tlic branch favours all ?aek3 being pait£ for after Ist February. 1905. Mr M'Arthuif was elected vice-president of the bianc^ vie© Mr Man in (resigned).