PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2850, 28 October 1908, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

- ♦ (From Saturday^ Daily Times.) The Balkan trouble is evidently going to settle itself by that happy rule— the last resource of diplomatists in an international wrangle — uti possidetis, As you are; — not, As you wkke; we can't go back to that; but, As you abe, — Let each keep what he has got. From the moment that Germany took' sides with Austria the business was virtually concluded, and concluded on the uti possidetis principle. Conference or no Conference, Austria will keep the two provinces, and Bulgaria tvill be permitted her independence. But why does Germany look so benignly on the aggrandisement of a neighbour and erstwEile "rival? For the reason, the sinister reason, -that she looks upon herself as that neighbour's ultimate heir. PanGermanism,, the dream of all German jingoes., means one Germany from the North Sea to the Adriatic, and, consequently, for Austria as for Holland the boon of absorption. It follows that any. interim gairi to Austria is an ultimategain to Germany. But there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip ; The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Sang aft agley. For th"c integrity and independence of Holland there is, if I don't mistake, a British guarantee which should count for gomething in diplomacy and the Chanceries of Europe, if not in the Battle of Armageddon. A discussion in the Oamaru Presbytery on Mr Gibson Smith and his book was "marked by calmness," says the reporter, an estimate I see no reason to question. It was with calmness that the llev. W. Nicol intimated thai lie found in the book "a fierce and bitter temper," and that he condemned it as "a virulent and poisonous attack on doctrines its author had promised to defend." The same rev. gentleman, still perfectly calm, said that in reading the book " his feeling was that a Red Indian, with scalping knife in hand, was at work." With equal calmness were propounded the sentiments ,of the Rev. J. Clarke. The book, he said, " pursued the doctrine of the Church with fire and sword, and would give it no quarter." Further, he quoted the Rev. Mr Jolly, who, "fitting calmly in his study, had stated tnat the vital point of the book was a psychological absurdity." In short nothing could exceed the calmness with which these Oamaru fathers and brethren assumed thai they were the people and that wisdom would die with them. It was the calmness of the righteous few when safe from the contradiction of pinners and having it all their own way Reverend heads were bhaken over Mr Gibf-on Smith as a fallen brother, pious tongues wagged about his book as a moral delinquency, and this with a calmness that found its finest expression in a protest that they were really too calm. Mr S. H Goodall said he thought thero was too much leniency about the Presbytery's attitude. He would say. lebuke him sharply, and it may be you will save his pcul. Mr Goodall does not know, and his reverend colleagues appear to be equally ignorant, that what is heresy With them may be orthodoxy elsewhere, and amongst Chnstian.s every whit as good as themselves. The doctrines of Mi Gibson Smith's book are taught in Enq;ii^li universities from divinity chair?. Then, why this complacent calm of moial superiority in his accusers? We might suppose that he had stolen a horse, or forged a cheque. Bishop Julius, of Christchurch. would appear to be setting his affections on Socialism. "Sooner or later they would al| be Socialists, by conviction or necessity," — he told his Synod. But as he also told his Synod, in effect, that to j-void dulness he would cease from

sobriety, we may know how much weight should go with his words. Read this :—: — Speaking at the opening of the Chriatchurch Anglican Synod yesterday, his . Lordship said : "As for ourselves in the Diocese of Christchurch, we are almost • as sober and dull as they are at Home. It is impossible to be eaien, and almost as difficult to be drowned." A very acceptable form of frivolity this, in a bishop, no doubt, and we don't often j get it. Sydney Smith could jest about " cold missionary on the sideboard " ; but Sydney Smith as a jester had not the advantage of being in episcopal orders. On the other hand it seems a drawback in a frivolous bishop that you never know when^you would be safe in taking him seriously. Whether Bishop Julius would desire that we should take him seriously "on the subject of Socialism,, may be_ debated. Last week we learned that the AucklandSynod, in a frt of compunction over the poverty of country clergy on £150 a year, raised the salary of Bishop Nehgan from to £1000. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of these figures we' may put Bishop Julius's screw,' and not be far wrong. Now a Socialist on, £looo a year is an anomaly, but an anomaly for which the correction is obvious. - Nothing 'is easier to get rid of than £1000 a year. If Bishop ' Julius is minded to become a Socialist, so be it; we only ask that he live up to his principles. I invite the bishop to sell all that he has and give to the poor, preferentially to his own poor curates. " • "■*' ■" * • - -■- %-v My correspondents will please take notice that this column is J not; operf to invasion by the No-license controversy. So-called " arguments" for or against must eeek vent elsewhere. "North-Islander," writing from Hawke's BaY,- offers ' me " Biblical Reasons for Prohibition." I may offer him in return one 'Biblical reason, just one, against it : ■*- '.'. ■' ' Paul the Apo3tle to Timothy :—" Take - A little wine for thy stomach's sak«r." * : Inference clear from this admonition. — Paul the Aposile votes — No Prohibition! J shall be told perhaps that if Paul- the i Apostle votes No-Prohibition, he also votes • No-License, or would, had the chance ■ come to him. That's as may be; I have Imy doubts. Or rather my private convic- | tion is that on both issues Paul the Apostle would vote—^Freedom ' and Selfcontrol, which is v and has been always the vote of " Crvis" and Passing Notes. Freedom and Self-control !— it is ' thef only scheme of life that befits a 'man, or -is worthy of his manhood. But Prohibition, ! as a miserable- substitute "flJr it, may be Lour destiny; all the same. "My country-" • men," said Carlyle, "are thirty millions.; mostly fools." I speak of Prohibition j because the No-license principle is the Prohibition principle in disguise.- Every No-license propagandist would. pTopagand Prohibition if he dared, that is if he thought it expedient. And yet, when Mr Seddon offered- the Prohibitionists Prohibition, putting the offer in legislative form, they rose up as one man and repudiated it. The cloak of insincerity sits . heavy upon them to this day. We are to have a rest, it seems, from fussy and meddlesome legislation ; Sir Joseph Ward has got tired of it himself. This somewhat late repentance may be due in part to the consentaneous uprising of dairymen against his tyrannous and impracticable dairy regulations. I don't | in the least understand the subject myself, | but the insurrectionary dairyman understands it, and, I should say, is in a proper state of mind to vote against the Government. Be that aa it may, I notice that in England there is a disposition to regret "the passing of the milkmaid," in other words her disappearing. And this in the interest of clean milk. Dr Cook, medical officer for the Tend- ' ring district of Essex, has been £*yingthat theabolition of the milkmaid was, in spit«Cßf all, the greatest misfortune that <>ver happened to the dairy business (he should' really have said to the milkdrinker), for she generally bad clean bends, whereas the cowman's hand,s are of necessity filthy. I fail to see the necessity, though the fact may still be the fact. To the employment of milkmaids there is, however,- a curious objection. Says a canny Scot quoted by the North Britibh Agriculturist : " Lads and lasses will be courtin'. When hairpins drop a^oot, wha's tae pey?" It is the cow that has to pay, and the owner thereof, for the hairpins drop into the hay on courting nights and the cow eats them. Two paragraphs in harmonious juxtaposition, exactly as I find them in a local newspaper : — Deau Fitchett •will deliver a second lecme on " Ihe Rome of To-day." with lantern illustrations, in All Saiiifs' Schoolroom to-morrow evening. Dean Fitchett will deliver a Feconc! Je^txire entitled " The Myth of Promoiljeus" at the 'Iheosophical Society's meetnig to-morrow evening. Disciples of the Higher Criticism will profess to sco in this a mere error of th^o printer, alleging the prosaic objection that I Dean Fitchett could not, and in fact did not, lecture in two places at ono and the fame time. There its a rationalising spirit abroad that would dissipate all the poetry of hunitin life, resolving its most beautiful beliefs into myth and legend, •ciroi- and Jelusion. This spirit is much to |1m depiecated. ±so Theosophist can doubt i that -Mrs Bezant — to take an illustrious example — is ?,l>le to be in two places at once. I my&elf have heard her affirm a« much. And I prefer to believe that it wa* in his yo^eer part that Dean Fitchett Lectured on The Rome of Today whilst at the same hour in his astral body he was lecturing elsewhere on The Myth of Prometheus, his audience in the one case All Saints, in the other all Xheosopliists. There are greater wonders than this in Madame Blavatsky aad Colonel Olcott. That the newspapers do occasionri'y i say t'linga that put a strain oil human

' credulity may not be denied. The Kaikoura Star, for example, commenting on the sxiccees of a local pig-hunt: Wild pigs are often captured in this district, but it seldom occurs that a pig of 2641b weight, cleaned with its head off, is caught in any of the bush of New Zealand. A wild pig Tunning about .n the condition described, " cleaned with its lie ad Off," is a phenomenoit 1 peculiar to K«aikoura For another queer example lam indebted to the Saturday Review : An Australian correspondent sends us a quite distinguished specimen of etymological ' learning from the Melbourne Argu"<9. .The l^ad«*-writer^ arguing for Parliamentary independence (a very good "cause), 'pleads that 'the word itself is on: his sid^. " The ..very . origin of the word . -- Parliament in<dicat«3 that it is an assembly, appointed to parle, or speak; men turn, the -mind." • That this -story can be> true of the Argus, and of an Argus leader-writer, is to me incredible. I can. easier. "believe -in the headless wild p%. Vet- tie Saturday Heview .by no means suspects that . its leg is being, pulled. "Young nations may despise - old" learning," — says' the " editor* sententiously— -"but they would be wise to ehotj. their* contempt by leaving it alone. Philology is not _a gopd thing to flirt with." "Yet one other example, this time from a printed ' book. On the page of The Victors, a novel by Robert Barr — who, by the way, writes novels ~, not at all bad— occurs this sentence: "Two, very young men lay prone on -their .backs, in a fence corner." ' " Prone on their backs' 5 - is' eVery bit, as godd as parle, to speak, mentum, the mind. - What lends it edjge; is the .dedication of the book— "To the IMverlity "of 3*iohigan." . ■/»*.* ■'-■«- ' ""Crvrs. . Over 200 appeals from the classification' of the, lan 4 within the Taierr Drainage district .have been lodged wiffi the clerk of the Magistrate's Court Jit Moegiel. It will be reooileoted that th"c .cjlaserfication was made by Meedrs B~B.' CoustbnV(aotin«^.engineer to the Taieri Drainage Board), "Sfr. L. Craig (Government valuer), and E. O'Neill (Crown lands ranger). The lands in the district were' classified in accordance with the Land j Drainage Act into four classes— viz. : (a) j Lands receiving, or supposed to. receive im- . 'mediate and direot benefit from \he construction of the drainage works; (b) lands receiving or supposed to receive less direct I benefit therefrom;' (c) land receiving only, an indirect benefit therefrom; and (d) allT other Jands. The heating of.tne appeals will 4 tift commenced on the 4th. prox. ) - The council of the Barnardo Homes in J England has opihmi^ion^d, .jthiei.'.Rev.. W. J J Majror to pay a visit to. New Zealand* ! in the interests of 'the institution." "-'Ho is,' now on* his way, to-' Australia. Ho* haa with Tiim a party of 10 trained, musical' boye, all of whom have , been rescued . andeducated by tfie homes, and who will give . evidence of the benefits they have received by their music, action songs,, and drill. Their musical instructor, Mr Henry Aaron, is their accompanist. The Rev," W.-\ E. Rice, the organising secretary, of the . present tour, is already, in Melbourne. The party will; visit in t urn Victoria, Tasmania, New Zealand, New South Wales, and Queensland. It is expected that t^e whol« tour will extend over two years. One would think that a Health Department would do its work amidst sanitary surroundings. Such, however, is not th« case in regard to the New Zealand Depart* ment" of Health. The building in Wei* ling ton in which the officers work wat erected many years ago as a residence for the curator of the Colonial Museum,, Some paTts- of the outer- wall have utterly rotted away, and new boards have been, inserted, but it is possible still to easily, thrust a finger through epots which hafte been painted over. Inside, the walls hay« been repapered, but the musty smell of disintegration pervades the rooms. The. 'bacteriological work (says the Post) is done under specially discomforting conditions, both from the point of view of the analysts and the general public. The body of the late Dr Coughtrey wa« buried on the 20th instant at the Anderson'* Bay Cemetery. Dean Fitchett conducted tho. service at the- house and also at the grave., A number of personal friends and those who had been associated with the deceased*gentleman in various capacities attended, ainonget the mourners being tho Rev. Father Coffey, the Rev. Father Cleary, the Rev. E. L. Woodhouse. the Rev. Vincent, King, the Rev. A. T. Chodowski. Dr* Fifcchett, Marshall Macdonald, Ogston, and) Fulton. Messrs J. J. Marlow, R. Glendin. ing, T. W. Kemptborne, J. F. M. Frascr, D. X Theomin. J. E. White. J. M. Gallaway, S. Solomon, K.C., Captain Morris, ex Lieutenant Park, Lieutenant-colonel 1 Smith, and Captain Gardner. The Drain* age Board, at a special meeting held oof tho 20th instant, passed the following reso* lution in recognition of Dr Cough trey'rS cervices on that body : — " That this board; x expresses its sense of the less sustained by^ the citizens of Dunedin through the death oS Dr Coughtrcy, for some timo a most use-'f ful and energetic member of the board, on. which he held the offices of deputy-chair- '• man and chairman of works, and wishes to. convey to his sorrowing relatives its deep,! sympathy with them in their bereavement.''.' The motion to moved by the chairman oi* the board (Mr W. Burnett), who said- that aty. the members knew Dr Coughtrey, and! although some- of the members differed; from him they all respected him. The late/. j Dr Coughtrey was alv\a\s a fair, upright; fighter, and the citizen-! were tho poorer/ for the lo^e of an ui.»i>!fi li. flia r"~r "~ honouiable int.n V\- Sm.-i' -.t <l I.' 1 fiil.jr QlA'Jl~<<\ tliO lCiliUkj of ill. (.LuWIUIAU.

A casa of " child slavery ". is referred to . «n tfce report of a Hawke's Buy echcol in- | It is stated that a family of six ' fibildaren— three boye, ag«d 7, 10. and 12 years, and th*es girls, 9, 11, and 13 yearsmilked 51 cows night and morning. The obUdireji appeared to be overworked, stated Uie report, and their progress was described .

Official figur?' j ii= t i-=u^J demon-irate the failure of the " .Hua f lc-:-hi" ruo\e;H-nt as a commercial boycott. Tl » toial imports into British India Sic 20 per cent. higher than tho=o of Ih-e preiious V3ar. when the value of tl.o ln>;> >, - \va- c-u-matcd at £78,161,000. '!•.<• \ iWie of cotton import, shows an iiiTca-c of 17 pii cut. on the £27,278,0-30 of 1906-7.