THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2699, 6 December 1905, Page 47

THE WEEK.

>■ Numqaim allud atturt, alind impientin diiit."— Jotikal. " •ood BMurt mad good tense most ertr join.""— Pon.

The day of decision is at hand, and the colony waits with bated The Day of breath to see what this Decision. 'fateful Wednesday will reveal. "On the verge of a decision we all tremble; hope pauses with fluttering wings" ; and George Eliot's words aplly express the popular mind on this eventful morning. " Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision," is the scriptural way of describing polling day, and it is safe to say that upon the decision of the multitude of New Zealand voters hangs graver issues than have ever before faced the colony. For full 15 years New Zealand has practically been governed by the fiat of one man, and the main issue before the people is whether this abnormality of a so-called progressive democracy ruled by the will of an absolute autocrat is to be allowed to continue. Shorn of all excrescences, to-day's election will be decided upon the question of the wisdom of the prolongation of the Seddon Premiership or its determination in tha best interests of the colony. The flag of revolt against Seddonism has been raised s it remains to be seen whether the forces which to-day are summoned to rally to the flag will be strong enough to accomplish the much-desired object. An artieU headed "Is the Government Indispensable?" which Mr E. T. Cook contributes to the September Contemporary, commences with the words: "There is no necessary man. The most trite ol political maxims is the last which a Minister inured to place and power is willing to learn." Will to-day's polling teach Mr Seddon this lesson? Most profoundly we trust it may, although so credulous is human nature that we confess to our doubts on the subject. Mr Sseddon has no doubt at all on the matter. In that pitiable document in which the Premier appeals to the people for a continuance of support, and in his speeches both north and south, Mr Seddon plainly, claims tp b« U*e " cecegsary maa t ! - Io (

iffect, he says, as he rehearses his socalled "humanities." "my defeat will mean no more humanity for the mother and the infant, no more humanity for the young, no more humanity for the worker, and no more humanity for the old jind' feeble." Could anything be more monstrous? And was any plea for re-elec-tion ever based upon more emotional and less common-sense and statesmanlike grounds? Or take the Port Chalmers speech as a specimen of the Ministerial defence. Of it may be said, as a northern paper, after remarking with local variations, it had done duty at Pukekohe and a dozen other places, declared: "Did it contain one statesmanlike idea, or one scrap of a policy, .unless vague electioneering promises can be termed a policy? The people asked for politics, and the Premier gave them abuses of his predecessors, cheap sneers at his opponents [Mr Bedford being singled out for special attack at Port Chalmers], copious extracts from their speerh.es, "dragged from their context, and reiterations of assertions that made up in loudness what they lacked in supporting facts. It was a record speech, and it contained no single sentence that' a hundred people in the audience .wanted to remember in the mprning." This" constitutes a fair comment 1 ' on the oratory to which Mr Seddon has been treating the * electors during ' his election campaign, and ' upon which — apart, of course, from the humanities — he bases his appeal for continued support. Never was plea so piteously and - plaintively urged that the Government should be reinstated >— not for the good of the country, "but tipon purely personal grounds, he being ihe "necessary man" to guard the colony's future. We have hopes that the bulk of the electors - will, ere they enter the polling booth, have seen the speciousness Df the plea, and that the returns will show such a weakening of the Government majority that the fall of Seddonism, though long delayed, may be near at hand. -*' Though patience be a tired mare, yet ; will she plod," and the fact A Remarkable that/ the Premier has, on Klft ii the eve of a general electhe Lnte. tion, turned the first sod of the Lawrence-Roxburgh .•ailway must be attributed to the patience and plod of the Roxburgh settlers, aided ,by the efforts of the Railway League. It is rather awkward for the Premier that Mr James Bennet, at the complimentary luncheon', should have indulged in a few reminiscences. After remarking that he had been working for the railway for the' past 32 ''years, Mr Eennet declared that' the first practical assistance that the line Jever got was when the Lawrence people 'took the thing in hand and got Mr Jamas >Allen, Mr Thos. Mackenzie, Mr Donald "•Reid, and' Mr Bedford to go to Roxburgh ; one of the "audience ejaculated .that the quartet were all Oppositionists.^ ffh( fact that a Government which had 'been in office for 15 years had delayed so long in giving the fruitgrowers- of Otago, jCentral their railway, and that the proiject was set in motion by Opposition effort, ' was scarcely the kind of. voteproducing fact which Mr Seddon likes to elicit during his electioneering tours. But 'a still more remarkable rift in the lute jwas evident when the Premier began to discourse upon the railway policy which — presumably if returned to power — he intended to pursue. Mr Seddon' s words are in such striking contradiction to the utterances of the Minister of Railways when addressing his Southland constituents that ,we reproduce them side by side. The comparison is an instructive one, and if it fee- true . that' coming events cast their shadows before them, our last week's prediction may yet come true that Sir Joseph Ward made a great mistake when he decided to sink or swim with Mr Seddon. Speaking at Winton on November 22, Sir Joseph Ward said: — I am one of those who believe that it would be better for the colony to build one line of railway at a time. I have always held that opinion; thought •1 am quite ready as in anything else to abide by' a decision of a majority who think differently, and I recognise . there are difficulties in the way of such a policy. If, however, J were able, I would not hesitate to put every man employed on railway constriction in the colony on to the North island Main. Trunk railway and finish it; then put - ~Ahem on the Otago Cent' il railway and finish itj then on the Midland railway -_ ' and finish it; and then upon a railway north of Auckland, which district should have une advantages of the facilities which a line of lailway would confer on it. These works could be done out •,of borrowed money, and would - repay at least a large portion of the intersst on the amount invested on them. Then put of our consolidated revenue, where we have now a balance at the end of the year running into half a million and upwards, our branch lines of railways could be prosecuted with reasonable vigour. — (Applause.) I have very little doubt that in the course of a few years the colony would have under this system completed the whole of its trunk lines, and then we could have ceased oorrowing for railway-making purposes. ■I am sanguine that our surplus consolidated revenue would be ample to er.i Ac i vigorous policy of railway and road construction being carried out to i. set the requirements of the different lv- "litics of the colony. In the mean,tiiae I recognise that the policy is not feasible. livery place wants its railways made at the same time, and the consequence is that the progress is com.patatively slow. The Government, however, is not to blame for this. It is ■the - people themselves and their representatives who insists upon the present policy of railway construction being pursued. I hope they will agree before long to change it. — (Applause.) Cpntrast with this statesmanlike declaration the words of a mere opportunist, Mr fieddon, at Port Chalmers : — He was entirely opposed to those who urged — those who did not know as much i%s he did, and there were many gi

them — that all the money should be spent and concentrated* on three or four railways. He did not agree with those who said that certain principal lin >s should be finished first before the minor connections were undertaken. Such people wanted all the money to be lavishly spent on the country served by the trunk lines, and all other parts of the colony left to starve, while all the time all the people of New Zealand were finding the money and paying interest on the money expended in railway construction. Such concentration was not fair, and at the same time it did the country serious injury.

A late cable states that, according to reports presented to the Germany .and German Reichstag, the the Hereros. Hereros in the northern provinces of youth-west Africa are practically exterminated, whilst thousands of prisoners are in the concentration camps. German colonisation has ever been a record of costly mistakes, but the constant fighting which has taken place between the German troops and the Hereros and other tribes in German South-west Africa is probably the most costly of all Germany's colonising experiences. The beginning of troubles was the settlement between the years 1870 and 1880 of some German families in Damaraland, and~ Namaqualand, in tne Southwest of Africa, between Portuguese West Africa and above Cape Colony. As a sequence of this settlement, in ISB4 Germany declared her protectorate over the country between these points, and. commenced to develop a colony in the district. But instead of a colony Germany has only succeeded in developing a, number of military settlements. From the outset of her colonising experiments in Africa the German officials have displayed an ignoranc of the proper treatment of the natives, which, coupled with a system of harsh administration, has plunged them into endless collisions with the various tribes, entailing the loss of thousands of lives and at -the cost of millions of money. It was as far back as the year 1893 that the more serious native risings began, and these culminated last year in the terrible outbreak of the Hereros tribe, when hundreds of German settlers were murdered and the colony completely devastated. In June, 1904, General yon Trotha was despatched to Africa with instructions to stamp out the rebellion by force. He had command of nearly 8000 troops. Large sums of money we're offered for the capture of the Hereros, and the General announced that he would- spare neither women nor fchildren. A few trivial successes were at first obtained, " but by war and by sickness the Germans suiiered great losses, and a year ago their difficulties were increased by the rising of the Mtherto friendly Witboois. The German force was increased to close upon 20,000 troops, but so badly had the temper and confidence .of the natives been shaken in jGerman administration that the task of settling the country ' is far from an -easy one. A few months back the administration of the . district was taken from General yon Trotha and handed to Herr yon Lindequist (formerly Consulgeneral at Capetown), who was instructed to try more conciliatory methods. Judging, however, by the report referred to, General yon Trotha has taken good care that, so far as the nereros are concerned, there is no need of conciliation, the tribe being practically wiped out by actual extermination. The authorities in Great Britain have been closely watching the operations of the German troops, for the reason that German Sou^h-west Africa touches on Bechuanaland and Cape Colony. la the event of the native rising spreading into those districts the consequences to Great Britain could scarcely fail to be serious. Germany has also colonies in East Africa, at Cameroon and Togo. Already native risings have occurred at Cameroon, and there is always the possibility of their spreading to other districts. German East Africa •lies between Uganda" and. "Northern Rhodesia; Cameroon joins British Nigeria, and Togo is close to the British pos- | sessions in Ashantee. The Great Dark ' Continent, therefore, presents all sorts of problems and^possibilities for the future, and ere long it may bulk as largely in the ' international situation as does the Far East at the present time. The result of the inquiries 'into insurance methods and management j .American made by the Legislative Insurance Investigation Committee of j Methods. the State of New York is anything but flattering to the American nation. As one leading authority remarks: "Recent disclosures of low moral standing, cheap deceits, and callous indifference to the rights of others on the part of men of financial and business prominence have sorely hurt those who long for a decent world to live in; j for an unclean world is as intolerable ' to morally sensitive people as is an unclean house to physically sensitive people. No American who loves his country, and remembers Emerson's definition of its mission to breed superior men and women, can fail to hang his head in ' shame over the continuous revelation of , lack of principle and cheapness of character in men who have been greatly , trusted, and have proved grossly untrust- i worthy." The same writer goes on to declare that Americans are not more dis- ] honest than other men, but they sin j against a greater light, for in the United j States all enterprises of a public char- I acter are supposed to be carried on for j the public benefit. American politicians are never tired of talking about the sacred rights of the people, although there is no country in the world where those rights are more flagrantly violated. The article then continues in the following trenchant strain: — "The time has , come for frankness with ourselves and i with the world. If we cannot be decent, let us at least be truthful. Let us purge ourselves of dishonesty and hypocrisy, and be what we pretend to be; or let us preach squarely the doctrine of *reed and. success without scruples, and keep on

doing what we are now doing. L%\ United States Senators stop talking ab.sut national ideals, or let them ceass to disgrace the country by corrupting Legislatures, dividing profits with land syndicates, and accepting from corporations salaries which they ha-\e not earned. It is time for them to make their choice : the country is in no mood to stand further hypocrisy. It demands that die thieves taks their- hands off the sacred things of the nation; let them ply their trade if they must, but let them forbear to touch with polluted speech the ideals, the aspirations, and the hopes of the nation. They have done their best to destroy these things." Strong language, but certainly warranted in the light of recent revelations of the corruption of public and business life in the United States. And this is what democracy free and unchecked has arrived at in a young country untrammelled by the traditions and conservatism of older lands.

Some of the evidence given during the , sessions of the New York Sora<» Figures Legislative Insurance Comandan mittee is certainly of a Impeachment, remarkable and startling nature. President M'Call, of the New York Life, testified to the relationship existing between the company and Judge Andrew Hamilton, who had the entire charge of watching legislation throughout the country, and of opposing such bills as are "inimical" to the best interests of the company. During the past five years something like half a million dollars were paid to Mr Hamilton for this work, without any voucher except his bare receipt. The examination of Mr Rpbert H. M'Curdy, son of the president of the New York Mutual Life Insurance Company, and general manager of the company, showed that the M'Curdy family profited from their relations to the company during 1904 to the extent of over 41 million .dollars. This and other similar revelations have called forth in the columns of a leading New York journal the following weighty impreachment of insurance officers and their ways : — ' ' It is high time for the officers of some life insurance companies to cease talking about the duty of providing for one's family, the solemn obligation of a man to think of the welfare of his children after he is gone, the beauty of present self-denial for the sake of the dear ortes dependent on one's exertions. If the gentlemen whose dealings with the vast funds committed to their care have recently come to light have any sense of honour ' they will put an end to the sham philanthropy which they have preached for business purposes, and make their appeals for patronage with manly frankness. If they cannot be honest, let them at least drop the mask of honour and deal squarely with the public. Let them make an end to all -the sentimental nonsense about widows and orphans, and say bluntly : 'We want your money; pay us the largest possible premiums, and we will give you the smallest possible returns. We will accept your money as a trust, and administer it for our own advantage ; we will pay ourselves enormous salaries, and, in one form or another, pension the different members of our families ; we will load the management of the business you commit to us with the heaviest possible expenses of administration ; and we will use your money in all kinds of enterprises for our own benefit, employing as much of it as we see fit in buying legislators and contributing to campaign funds.' If this policy of frankness be adopted the country will respect the courage, if it cannot trust the honesty, of the men whom it now holds to be not only betrayers of its honour, but hypocrites as well. It is high time for plain dealing. Tiie country is weary of scandals in high places, of men of reputation who are suddenly discovered to be without character ; of moral sham and humbug among the eminently respectable. There are too many pious schemers ; far- too many wellbehaved self-seekers. If we cannot be honest, we can at least stop pretending to be what we are not. Let us hoist the black flag and stop sailing as a missionary ship.