PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2744, 17 October 1906, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

From the Saturday Review,, September I,—

There is a hitch in the tariff negotiations between Austr&Ha and New Zealand. . . . But, if New Zealand were less keenly in favour of prefer«nce tariffs than she is known to be, she might yet be trusted not to pay the memory of " Dick Seddon th© bad compliment of rejecting a scheme to which he put his signature- a few hours before his death. How little they know us, these London journalists. This keenness of ours for preference tariffs, when, how, and wherein has it appeared? I seem to remcmbci that by way of expressing affection for Great Britain, dear old Motherland, we clapped a few per cent, extra, on Germany and America. Our kith and kin we tax no less; we merely tax their rivals more. Then, as respects the Reciprocity Treaty, the chances are that had its author lived we should have ratified it. Tho features that have eince ruined it were in Irs eyes a merit. In fact they were its reason of being. The treaty struck at two great industries — "monopolies'' would have been the word — the associated flourmillers and the Sugar Company. What a card to play — tho cheapening of flour and sugar, everyday commodities, — what a vote-compelling election cry ! In short the political chances of the treaty were good, as good as good might be. Does anyone suppose that we should have had courage to reject it? Then he argues from what we have done under altered circumstances, and he is a man of scant imagination. I recommend him to borrow something of that useful quality from the too imaginative Saturday Reviewer.

"The new Land Bill is a long step in the direction of Socialism," complains a country con-espondent, and incontinently drops into verse : The mission of the Socialist Is to root out the " Social Pest," And — cunning fellow that he is — il© gets M'Nab to do the biz. M'Nab — himself a Social-Pester — Puppet now of Fato the Jester, Freeholder, with lands galore. Damns the freehold evermore. Says all land that's not been grabbed: Must from henceforth be— IT Nabbed.

At which point the piesck-nt Muse dries up.— not exhausted, but feeling the exigency past. Mr M'Xab's Land Bill stands postponed. This is not altogether a backdown, nor is it exactly a iizzle-out ; it is just a postponement. Mr M'Xab wants time to find out what hi^ bill ic-olly mear.s. It came to him in a moment of inspiration, and he has been exercised over sukp in efforts to explain it to the country and to understand it hinicelf. More and more apparent has become the fact that Mr M'Nab's bill was going to do many thingo Mr M'Nab never meant it to do, and many thing? the country would never consent to its doing. In this posture of affairs Sir Joseph Ward opportunely bethinks him of the ChrLstchurch Exhibition ond its moral claim to an undivided attention. Hon. members will be expected and required to apply their intelligence to banqueting and junketing in ChrLstchurch, a duty to which all other things must be adjusted. The legislative mind has its limits ; you don't get any forrarder by subjecting it to a double strain ; nobody wishes to see it* give way altogether. And go, Sir Joseph's humanity coming to the iv cm. 1 , the Land Bill stands pootponcd. Not tine die, still lees to the Greek Kakuds toeiisli the thought!) but to tu?t

limbo of uncertainties the more - convenient season.

A weet or so back Mr Tr-?P. O'Connor was reported by the cables (an agency that cannot lie) as exclaiming in "an eestasythat " Ireland was now within hours of her glorious goal," — her^ -glorious goal being Home Rule, what*" else? We may say that the- millennium - is "within hours " — or th© crack of -doom, or any other event of the dim future — if we choose to speak that way. Ruf'MifJT. P. O'Connor's prophetic spoil meant better than that. He was lecturing to Americans-, presumably Irish Americans, with whom progress is o/ten rapid.

" There came to the beach a poor exils from

Ei in, The dew on his wet r<?be hung heavy and

chill. -- - ' Ere the steamer that brought him had passed

out of hearin', He was Alderman Mike, iuthrojuoin' a Bill!" In Mr T. P. O'Connor's belief Irish Ho.me Rulo is for to-morrow or^the day after, — that is his meaning; — the hours to intervene are few. I notice that . the Westminster Gazette, a Government organ, but usually fair and moderate, talks in much the same strain. One might suppose a perfidious plot to do the thing sans phrase, nobody's leave or license asked. I shall believe it wh^n I see it. Home Rule may bo " within hours,'' many or few, but not till after tliere be wigs on the green. Meanwhile it is clear that the Liberals as «a party are not happy. There are the Irish Nationalists on one flank, the Independent Labourites on the other, C.B.s nominal allies both, — yet neither will obey hLs orders, nor with either is it possible to make a pact or conclude a truce. It is a situation, I should say, that cannot endure.

It is pleasant to meet in the columns of the Nineteenth Century our first Rhodes scholar, J. Allan Thomson, and to hear him speaking words of truth and soberness from the lofty pulpit whence his townic and schoolfellow, Arthur H. Adams, had spoken words of folly. Thus the balance swings even again,— the on© Otago boy weighs against tho other. Adams is trounced on the 6cene of his indiscretion and the friends of both are comforted in beholding Thomson tenderly and affectionately giving him " what for." I notice that Thomson — or Mr Thomson, as wo ought to call him now — has become an authority on Oxford " tone." Of course there is an Oxford tone, as there is a Cambridge tone. Every seat of learning, from tho kindergarten up, has its tone. In quality tho ton© varies, naturally. I recall a remark by another' academical Thompson (Thompson with a p, this one) Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, about a preacher who had "so much tasie." " Yes,"' said Thompson, " and all of it so very bad." Similarly with "tone"; — to have it is not necessarily to havo a' thing you may be proud of. But Oxford tone, according to Mr Thomson — our Mr Thomson — is good. I agree, adding only that Cambridge tone is better. Oxford tone is that you go about as if the world belonged to you ; Cambridge tone is that you don't caro a hang who tho world belongs to. Tho great English public schools also axe known for their tone, each for its own. Take an illustration supplied by an old public-6chool man to the Manchester Guardian.

A lady, arriving late at a college concept, and finding no vacant chair, was met by three stewards, reared respectively at Eton Winchester, and Rugby (or, as some editions read, Harrow). The Kton man. made a thousand apologies, could not conceive how such a mishap had occurred, implored her to wait a moment, and was quite sure that there would be a vacant seat directly. Tho Wykehamist said never a word but went out and fetched a chair. The Rugbeian (or Harlovian) sat down ,on the chair which the Wykehamist had fetched.

In Japan, where " bushido " sets the tone and eets it high, instruction in English public-school virtues should be. superfluous. Yet the other day Mr Japanese 'Minister of Education, presided at a lecture given on this subject at h:*> request by an expert just then visiting Tokio, Dr Welldou, ex-liishop of Calcutta and an old head mastoi\ Probably Mv Makino desired to put the two codes of honour side by side that he might 6te how far tho English ccd« fell -short. But the English code is 'high, indeed our temptation in New Zealand would be to think it fantastically high.

There is a curious unwritten code of honour determining the proper re'ations of masters and boya in the public schools. For example, a master miibt not question a boy about others, nor mu<-t ha question a boy about himself, or. if he asks a boy whether ho has done a thing or not. he mu-t not punish lum for doing it ; he niu->t not (except in certain extreme instances) u=e tho evidence ol seivants against boys, fcr all i-in-h behaviour would undermine confidence. . . . If a bey sa\ s 'bat a thing is so, it is so; tho master unhesrtatingly believes him. To resd bo\s* letters, to listen to their conversation, to j rac'ibe what is called espionages upon their movements, would bo in English eyes an unpardonable offence. I have heard of a fcchoo'mast-er who was suspected — wron«lv. I hope and believe — of "hying to watch his pupils at play through a telesoope, Ijul it was long beicro they forgave him. To read of such things — meiely to read of them — is a moral refreshment. On the other hand some of Dr Welldon"s remarks concerning corporal punishment leave the New Zealand paterfamilias cold, if not contemptuous.

About corporal punishment, which i"» v. lecognised part of Knglish education it is a curious fact thi>+. whilst -the- working class and the lower middle c!a=s dislike and resent it and will not allow their children to undeigo it, the aristocificy tolerate it without complaint. Th© tia3^ id coining, one might as&ciu paradoxically, when -t will be impossible- to flog anybody but the sen of a peer. Another cunou» fact ij, that flogging never interrupts confidence lior begets bad blood. '-Temple is a beast, but a just beast," wrote the Rugby boy— sore after a merited flogging, probably. To have been thrashed by a distinguished head master m itself a "distinction. Qi\ turning

I the thing about, we may put it in Sir Roger de Coverley's way: — " Dr Busby! a great man, sir, — a very* great man ! H* flogged my grandfather.^' A London paper give 6 some recent examples of "things that might have been otherwise expressed." Sir "W. Laurier said he was a, man of peace, pieferriug expenditure on peaceful arts, development, and transcontinental "thoroughfares, like the Governor-general. -The comment being that " a Governorgeneral is called many things in his time, but-uot often a 'transcontinental thoroughfnav> ' " Then there js th^e story, not new, of the brais" plalo put upon a refuge, or eheltered seat, facing the sea at an Englisb watering place : This K^fug-e was erected by Mr Ajdermau Blobbins. The sea is bis, and he made it. Two other specimens are of Baboo origin and them I most certainly have met before. But they are good of their kind, and humour, conscious or unconscious, is immortal. la the Foreign Field of iJie Wesleyan Missionary Society are quoted some letters written by native converts to a lady doctor in India. Here is one : " Kind and fair Madam. " I have pleasure -to inform you that my dear -wife wiH no longer ba a patient oE yours, she having left this world for the nexfc on^February 27 last. For your kind help in this matter I shall ever bs grateful." ■ Another grateful convert addressed the lady in thi3 strain : " Dear She! — My wrfe has returned cured from your hcsprtal. If a male person is allowed to enter your bungalow. I should like to come and see you. I will not attempt to reward you. Vengeance belongs unto the Lord." At tho anniversary of that meritorious institution the Gaelic Society of New Zealand the Chief, in the course of an interesting address, for which see last Saturday's Daily Times, 6aid — Other objects of the society are stretching out the hand of friendship to all Highlanders who come to the colony to make it their future home. There is nothing to complain of in objects that stretch out a friendly hand : but, as wo go on to learn, there arc also '" objects " that " are carried out at the monthly meetings." To piohibitionists this is bound to look bad.

Our Palmerston "correspondent states that the local district high school, which has been closed for a fortnight on account of the prevalence of measles, was to havo been reopened on Tuesday, Bth, but as tho epidemic still retains a hold in the district the School Committeo has deoided to keep the school closed for another fortnight.

The late Mr William Imrie, one of tho owners of the White Star line, whose death was recently announced, has left the miihificent sum of £100,000 to the Liverpool Cathedral Fund, and £50,000 each to th© Liverpool Seamen's Orphanage and the Homos for Aged Marines at Egremont. besides le&?er sums to various other local institutions. The total value of his estate is £300,000, the interest only of which ho bequeaths to hie daughter for life, whilo the principal is to go at her death to tho public objects above-mentioned. The Liverpool Cathedral, though not yet completed, gives promise of being a magnificent and unique pile. It will cost £500,000 altogether, and in total area will exceed that of any other English cathedral.

The historic) island of St. Helena, which used to be an important British colony, paying its Governor £10,000 a year, is plunged into depression at present, owing to tho Government's resolve to withdraw th© garrison. A writer in tho Monthly Record of the League of the Empire states that, after tho withdrawal of tho garrison, tho population, consisting of about 4000 — 200 of whom, are whites, the rest coloured people and Africans, — will havo for their sole defence and guard five policemen. "Tho island has no- trade,, no products, and no resources in itself. The islanders, who are a quiet, gentle, and loyal people, will bo left almost in starvation, their on« mcaii9 of living— viz., catering and working for tho military and for the English settlers on the is'and — being gone. They cannot go to South Africa, as they are- not, allowed to land without £10 in their pockets. What is to bo their future? There is talk of a flax industry being introduced, bufc that, at best, will bo a small affair. There* is talk of the Government giving compensation to the owners of cattle, etc., but this will not give protection to the island or its residents, or allow it to remain a e-aluting station, or prevent the decay that must come to ita roads, guns, telephones, and barracks— all of which wero kept up by the military. There will ha none left to carry on their work."

Our Wellington correspondent lolograplis : — '' The number of men ernplojecl on co-operative works in New /"aland dwring August wa3 7273, of whom 5153 wero in connection with the Public Works Department and 2120 wi*h thf> Department of Road->. Of tho-o employed on railway work*, 2550 wcic on the North Island tnuik line.''

At a meeting of the Otago Fallei? Soldier' Memorial Committee it waS decided that tho unveiling of the monument now # nearing completion at! the Oval should be carried out on November 30—" People's Day " in connection with the forthcoming summer show,— it being thought that such a, date would b% eminently suitable as far as the relations of the fallen troopers are concerned. It is understood that his Excellency the Governor will perform the ceremony, which is timed for 1.30 p.m.. and the Premier and Ministry will also be invited to assist at the function,