The Otago Witness. THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2669, 10 May 1905, Page 48

The Otago Witness.

THE WEEK.

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN

MEXCUK.Y

(WEVITESVAY, MAY 10, 1905.)

>• ■itß«au» »U»<i n»t»r», allud »»i»t!a dlxit."— Jdti»a», "«t«4 iuih ud fo*d umfaun otw joib."— P»rm.

Very many superstitions and curious ideas have been, and are Is Mr Seddon still, connected with numSuperstitious ? bers. Great hopes have been founded upon certain combinations of numbers in lotteries, in horoscopes, or h? predictions regarding important events. Important undertakings have awaited favourable dates for their inception, and the lives of more than one leader of men have been more or less inflaenced by a regard for certain numerical combinations, supposed to have a dominating power in shaping a, successful career. We do not know whether Mr Seddon is at all superstitious, but it is certainly a curious coincidence that no sooner has he entered upon the thirteenth year of his Premiership than indications appear to point to the possibility of the overthrow of his Government being within measurable distance. Thirteen is generally looked upon as an unlucky number ; there are many people who refuse to sit down thirteen at a table, or to make one of a party consisting of that number, and should the general election result in the beginning of the turn of the tide, the circumstance is sure to be widely commented upon. It- is safe to say that Opposition prospects are looking brighter than for many years past, and the enthusiastic reception accorded to Mr Massey throughput his campaign in the South Island is evidence that the people of New Zealand are inclined to welcome a change of some sort. Straws show which way the wind blows, and on the top of Ihe Premier's latest and most explicit denial of the oft-repeated rumour concerning his intention to take the High Commissionership comes the inspired suggestion of a Ministerial journal that the Leader of the Opposition should be paid a salary out of the Consolidated Fund. The argument is thai the Opposition

leader should b3 as free as are Ministers to travel about the country and to devote his whole time to public business, and thus act as a well-informed critic on public affairs, having reasonable access to departmental offices and to official returns. In this way, it is hoped that there might be an appreciable improvement in the character of much of the legislation placed upon the Statute book. We can imagine that next to holding the office of Premier there are few positions that would be more congenial to Mr Seddon than the one here indicated, providing as it does many of the enjoyments and emoluments of office without entailing too many responsibilities. Whether, however, the country would be willing to add yet another salary to the already overburdened civil list is another matter. Possibly, this might be compromised by the repeal of the High Commii.sionership bill, especially as there is apparently now no intention of filling that office. All this, of course, is so much mere speculation, and further theorising on the matter may well be left in abeyance until the numbers go up in November next.

If the people at large needed another proof of' the necessity for Xeutixes of a change of some sort, Neg'eet. it can surely be found in the harvest of mischief and muddle which the colony is reaping as the consequence of the illconceived and hastily-drafted bills which found their way upon the Statute book as the result of the labours — heaven save the mark! — of last session. At the present time the Government are in the position of having enacted a great deal of blundering legislation which they are afraid to put into force, and yet which they dare not constitutionally hold in abeyance. Take first of all the Shops and Offices Bill, which after numerous delays is at length to be put into operation, with the almost inevitable result of being openly defied by a number of shopkeepers, who are not afraid to say that its provisions are unworkable. What can be more mischievous than that the majesty of the law should be brought into dishonour and disrepute by such a piece of freak legislation, barely enacted before the cry is raised for its repeal ! Then, again, we have the patent medicine regulations, also the work of last session, which the English patent medicine proprietors decline to comply with, preferring to cease sending their preparations to this colony. Unless some via, media is discovered great injustice and inconvenience will be the lot of the settlers in the back blocks, whose reliance upon many of the well-known and thoroughly-tested patent medicine is very gi-eat. Indeed, the suffering likely to be caused by the sudden stoppage of supplies of remedies in constant use is not pleasant to contemplate. Experimental legislation — and New Zealand has had a plethora of that sort of thing — may be useful to the onlooker desirous of gaining experience at other people's expense, but its continuance is apt to become annoying and harassing to the unfortunates exposed to its influence. There is a growing sentiment in our midst in favour of settled and permanent conditions of life, such as the Government as at present constituted do not seem to be able to ensure. The expensive peregrinations of the Land Commission are a melancholy monument of the ineptitude of an Administration which endeavours to evade a direct issue by the collection of a mass of evidence which the country does not require, and which, when collected, will scarcely be even perfunctorily studied. Ere long the electors will have a chance to speak, and "we trust that they will give due and patient consideration to the claims so clearly and explicitly placed before them by Mr Massey, and that they will decide to act in their own best interests, and in the interests of the colony as a whole, by voting unmistakably in favour of men who possess sufficient independence to act on their own initiative, without being content to act as nominees of Trades Unions and slaves of the party at present in power.

Passing events in the Australian Commonwealth afford a useful obThe Object ject lesson to New Zealand. Lesson of A battle is in progress beAustralia. tween the anti-socialists, led by Mr G. H. Reid, and the extremists of the Labour party. According to the decisions adopted at the Brisbane convention, the objective of the Labour party in Australia is nothing less than the securing of the full result of their industry to all wealth producers, by collective ownership of means of production, distribution, and exchange, this in its turn to be brought about by an extension of the economic functions of the State, and the local governing bodies. Criticising this programme, Mr Carruthers, the Premiei- of New South Wales, who is heart and soul with Mr Reid, declares that the Labour party by its efforts towards collectivism, is raising a monster which ultimately will devour it. History undoubtedly teaches that the nation which seeks to stifle individualism must ultimately perish, but then Socialism has no time for the History of the gast : it is occupied with visions of an impossible future. Thus it pushes forward to it 3 dream of State ownership, heedless of the abuses and corruptions which under such a system, when once the incentive of individual competition is removed, will flood and drown the entire fabric. Concrete examples exist in New South Wales in a State Clothing Factory which on an eighteen months' ■working showed a loss of over £2,000 ; and in Victoria in MiBent's brick-making works, the laughing stock of the whole State. But there are other planks in the Socialists' programme, defined as " the cultivation of an Australian sentiment based upon the maintenance of racial purity; and the development in Australia of an enlightened and self-reliant community." These highiouudiiui; sentiments ace. at strange vari-

I ancs witli actual fact. The maintenance of racial purity, according i.o the Socialist idea, entails the deportment of the Queensland Kanaka, which according to Mr Carruthers will constitute a blot upon | civilisation ; it has recently exposed a gentleman tourist, unfortunately afflicted with blindne&s, to insult and inconvenience upon his seeking to land at Hobart ; it lias disarranged seriously the mail services of the entire continent; and it threatens grave complications with Japan when the present war is over. These are heavy prices to pay for an attempt to realise on the part of a people which has not had time to evolve a distinct type of chimerical racial purity.

Grave as was the international situation

during the excitement England ami created by the Dogger France. Bank outrage, we appear to

be approaching an equally grave crisis. The irritation in Japan owing to French action in sheltering and provisioning the Russian Baltic fleet, has been heightened by the absence of satisfactory explanations or assurances on the part of the French authorities. Feeling in Tokio runs high, and the_ excitement and indignation are fiercer thsftf when war was declared against Russia. Some of the soberest of the Japanese papers go so far as to declare that France has virtually taken up arms against Japan, and there is evident feeling that Great Britain is expected to take action. The outspokenness of The Times at this juncture is exactly what is wanted, and it may reasonably be hoped that France will now make the amende honorable. The Times points out that the complaints made by Japan cannot be either evaded or ignore^ and that Great Britain's duty to prevent the interference of third parties will have to be attended to. Great Britain is placed in a peculiar position owing to the breaches of neutrality in which the French authorities at Kamranh Bay have allowed tliemselves. On the one hand she is bound by her alliance with Japan, and on the other she is anxious to preserve the entente cordiale so recently entered into with France. At the same time The Times does not hesitate to hint at the possibility of the dissolution of the entente cordiale with France, when the two nations might find themselves on opposite sides. There is no need to emphasise the extreme gravity of the situation — it speaks for itself. It is profoundly to be hoped that the strong representations made to France by Lord Lansdowne may have their due effect, and that as a consequence we shall shortly hear that the French colonial officials implicated in the breach of neutrality complained of have been firmly and promptly dealt with. - Unless immediate action is taken to appease the indignation felt in Japan, there is danger that the incident^ may pass beyond the realm of diplomacy, with consequences too appalling to anticipate. The Japanese are notoriously a patient people, but it is well not to^pu£ too great a strain upon either their patience or their politeness, for as their dealing with. Russia shows, when the time comes to strike, they srike without hesitation, and they invariably strike home.

It would be a signal mistake were the

exchange of international

Tlie Exchange amenities, now so much in of International fashion, to experience a Amenities. rude shock in the breaking

off of friendly relations between England and France. Down to the middle of the last century the Germans alone enjoyed the reputation of being more interested in the politics of other countries than in their own. It used to be said that the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung began its daily political review with South America and concluded it with Bavaria. France has perhaps remained longest in her political aloofness, in spite of the rude awakening from her dream of military supremacy in 1870 ; but the mass of Germans, as well as Frenchmen, believe English self-sufficiency to be proof against any vicissitude of fortune. Yet while mutual misunderstandings among nations are always with us, there is apparent today a more sincere effort to remove them by appeals to reason than ever before. Sovereigns and Ministers no longer hold the destinies of nations in the hollow of their hands — the Czar of Russia, perhaps, exempted. Scarce any ruler can to-day startle the world as did Napoleon 111 on the first o'i January, 1859, when turning at the Ne jv Year's reception to the Austrian Ambassador, Baron Hubner, he said : " I regret that my relations with your country are not so good as I might desire " — words that fell like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, and presaged the coming war. Nor is it likely that any modern successor to Prince Bismarck will employ the rude methods of the Iron Chancellor, who for years kept ready on hand the means of provoking the two wars on which he had set his heart — those of 1866 and 1870. Count yon Bulow has on more than on 3 ocasion shown his readiness to imitate his great predecessor in the gentler art of taking the foreign press into his confidence in order to counteract momentary antagonisms between Germany and other countries. In this and other directions there are evident throughout Europe gratifying signs in unexpected quarters of the dawn of an era of greater international forbearance, which at such a crisis as the present affords good grounds for the expectation of the preservation of international peace. At the same time we are still far from that intellectual height v-hir-h. in Goethe's opinion, instifies a cosmopolitan indifference to the narrow claims of patriotism.

At the Lyttelton RJ\I Court, before Mill W. Bishop, S.M.. Alexander Munay. master of the steam-er Cygnef, was fined £5, and costs, in addition to solicitor's fee, for failing to k^op the steamer's lifebelts in gcod order. It was admitted that" the fiirui-jj were aligning from a few, belts.