PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3029, 3 April 1912, Page 11

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Dxily Times.)

" The beginning oT the end" was what I foresaw and announced in Mr Thomas Mackenzie's caucus-born leadership of the "Liberals.'' Eight days have passed, and we are only now at the end of the beginning. It took the. whole week to accomplish Sir Joseph Ward's resignation. There was a hitch somewhere, possibly not unrelated to the attitude of the Governor. The caucus broke up like a Vatican conclave on the election of a Pope—the thing complete, the business over and done, the Premiership transmitted like a piece of heritable property, the Hon. Thomas Mackenzie acclaimed " Premier-elect." No mention of the Governor. In their cocksure elation they appear to have forgotten all about him. From the look of things it may be conjectured that most of the time since then has been spent in removing the Governor's natural doubts whether a Mackenzie Government could hope for a majority in the House—doubts possibly not altogether removed at this hour. Meanwhile Mr Mackenzie in travail and pain was evolving his Ministry. On the result I offer no comment. Except this —that as exhibited in certain newspaper portraits the new Ministers look a lugubrious lot. They might be criminals ordered for early execution. The ex-Premier proposes to himself a holiday, also, incidentally, a tour of political inspection. Whereupon : Dear "Civis," —Sir Joseph, after tho arduous strain of the last few months, may bo expected to take a holiday, leaving the Hon. Thomas in Wellington to digest the duties of a Premier, and to make a preliminary draft of tho new Budget. When the tima comes for Sir Joseph to return to Wellington I suggest to him the following telegram (see Bardell versus Pickwick): "Rt. Hon. Thomas Mackenzie, Wellington. " Chops (from the State Farm) and t'martyr sauce; don't trouble about the warming-pan. Slow coach (motor retrenched). Regards.—Yours, J. \V." I make the so.g-g«»tioa through j<.\i for they both read " Passing Notes "; —on that you may bet the bottom dollar of the five million loan. Wo must be pretty near the bottom now, and the bottom dollar belong as much to you as to them. Thero will bo no breach of promise case; the breakintr oi pledges is rather a virtue than otherwise. Or perhaps - wo should say that Sir Jo.-eph's heroic resistance to solicitations by " Liberals " of the pledge-breaking persuasion makes him a political faint for whom —in the meantime—tho Premiership is not good enough. In the meantime only. Sir Joseph must stay out long enough to honour his pledge, but that needn't be long. His pledge duly honoured, there is no reason why he should not listen to the plaint of his distracted "Liberals"—"Will ye no come back again?" Not unaptly was the Mackenzie Ministry named before its birth " The Warming-pan Ministry." Since its birth, the title seems an inspiration. If we must be ruled by bogus "Liberals," I should prefer to sco Sir Joseph at ths head of their: Better the devil we know than the devil we don't know. In Sir Joseph there is a frankness that I admire. Though our leading democrat and the special patron of the working man, ho has frankly accumulated titles, and the other day frankly blazoned them on foundation stone which, frankly speaking, he had no business to lay : —" The Right Hon. Sir Joseph Ward, Bart., P. 0., K.C.M.G., D.C.L., LL.D., Prime Minister." But this appetite of titular distinctions admits of the excuse which counsel urged for the man who had been accustomed to chastise his wife with the poker. " And after all, m'lud," said he, " it's an amiable weakness."

Like most things sublunary, the Chap-man-Alexander Mission lies open to criticism. But I am not disposed to encourage criticism. Here is a correspondent who would fill half a column; I allow him half a dozen lines : Dear " Civis," —Dunedin .and ita people must bo well on the broad track that leads to perdition. Years ago the Torrey-Alexander Mission discovered that the local clerical harvesters had

done their work so badly that there remained many sheaves to be gathered in. Then came the Henry-Potts harvesters; they went over the' same ground and gathered in more. Now wo have the Chapman-Alexander Mission, and the same thing over again.— etc, etc Quite true; it is the same thing over again. And in the same way the same people flock to it. The missioners can tell them nothing that has not been told before. No doubt they tell it with fervour and an American accent, brightening it up with a few new stories, giving it a swing by emotional doggerel set. to dance measures. Is it for these poor reasons that the Dunedin people gather by thousands? Gather they do; and excitement (the German " schwarmerei ") comes with numbers and crowding. The same mission service in a country schoolroom, with three old ladies, a man, and a boy, would fall flat and -achieve nothing. But, all things considered, particularly the staleness of the mission programme, the fact that numbers and crowding and excitement can be had in this intelligent town goes to show how ineradicable is the religious instinct. It exists, it is capable of waking up and taking charge. Viewed philosophically, then, the Chapman-Alex-ander mission is an interesting phenomenon. It witnesses to a universal religious consciousness. And I would gently point out to those people who are attacking it in the newspapers that their irreligious zeal is itself a kind of religion—a perverted instinct, the religious consciousness standing on its head.

The Women's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U. for short) shows to advantage in the picture pages of last week's Otago Witness. Photographed in session, it looks to be a sanhedrim of our maternal ancestors and maiden aunts. I wouldn't quite say that so venerable and amiable an assembly could do no wrong • but at least it is beyond criticism. During its annual Parliament just ended the W.C.T.U. solved by resolution and in short order all the political and social problems it could think of. This done, its members dispersed, but not without providing for the care and custody of human affairs till they meet again. Departments were mapped out, superintendents appointed: —Evangelistic. Mrs A; ditto Maori, Mrs B; purity and moral education, Mrs C; literature, Mrs D ; the press, Mrs E; medical temperance, Mrs F; legal and parliamentary, Mrs G; backblocks, Mrs H : good citizenship, Mrs I; narcotics, Mrs J; unfermented wine, Mrs K; notable days, Mrs L; peace and arbitration, Mrs M ; military camps, Mrs i\ ; and so on, through all the letters of the English alphabet and beyond. National defence, a vexed question, has at last been put on a proper footing. Until he is 21, young New Zealand is not to bear arms or undergo military training unless he likes it :—no compulsion. .that or course. Military offences by members of the Defence Force shall be punishable only at civil law. The officer commandinn must hie him to the nearest magistrate's court and take out a summons. Even in war time (should there be a war, the W.C.T.U. not having completed its arrangements for peace and arbitration) military offences must stfll go.to the civil courts. Refusing duty in presence of the enemy, or found asleep on sentry-go, the protege of the W.C.T.U. will stay proceedings by appeal and refer the flabbergasted O.C. to his lawyer. AH this is interesting. Probably the W.C.T.U. wouldn't know the breech of a gun from the butt, or a cartridge from a Christmas cracker. But it means well.

Another military reformer presents himself in the person of Colonel Bell, of the Waikato Regiment, said by the newspapers to be not only a good soldier but an original promoter of the Defence Act. Fancy uniforms, consisting 1 of frock coats, yards of gold lace, cocked hats with feathers (which looked very pretty on a lady, but made a soldier look effeminate and ridiculous), must be swept out of existence with many other customs that had been handod down from the dark ages. This is sad news. Fancy uniforms hare their use. A smart soldier likes to look smart. Plain khaki for camp and field, but on State occasions and for the public eye let us have a little colour. Personally I am for scarlet and gold (where it can bo had), and certainly would concede to a general officer in review order his cocked hat an<] feathers. Applied all round, Colonel Bell's principles would reduce life to a drab monoto.ny. Not only should wo imitate the asinine absurdity of the Federal Parliament in abolishing Mr Speaker's wig, but should unfrock the judge on the bench and the parson in his pulpit. Gentlemen of the long robe, of the Geneva gown and bands, of the cassock a.nd surpljce, are all alike chargeable with " custoins handed down from the dark ages." Running amuck in this new and crazy "clothes-philosophy," where are we to stop ? Not before we reach Carlyle's satiric red actio .id absurdum—a naked Duke of Windlestraw addrecsing a naked House of Lords. In the strain and stress of actual campaigning the soldier puts duty before decency, like Mr Chips. At times lie thinks himself lucky to have any clothes at all. Wellington, a born aristocrat as well as a great soldier, was content on occasion to march at the head of a mob of ragamuffins. In the punctilios of dress he was lenient to a fault. These were matters about which in his own phrase—he " didn't care a twopenny damn." Here is a passage from Grattan's book, " With the 88th in the Peninsula":— Provided we brought our men into the field well appointed, and with 60 good rounds in their pouches, he never looked to see whether our trousers wore black or blue or grey. Scarcely any two officers dressed alike. Some wore grey braided coats, others brown, some liked blue, many from choice or

necessity stuck to the "old red rag." We were never tormented with that greatest of bores on active service, uniformity of dress. Picton at Vittoria led on his " blackguards " —as he affectionately called them —in a blue coat and round "bat, flour filing a riding whip; at Quatrc Bras he fought in a belltopper. As to Wellington's personal habits, I shall be forgiven a quotation from Professor Oman: Wellington hated show of any kind; after the first few days, of his Peninsular command he discarded the escort which was wont to accompany the Com-mander-in-chief. It was on very rare occasions that he was seen in his full uniform. The army knew him best in the plain blue frock coat, the small featherless cocked hat, and the short cape, which have been handed down to us in a hundred drawings. Not unfrequently he would ride about his cantonments dressed like a civilian in a round hat and grey trousers. He was as careless about the dress cf his subordinates as about his own, and there probably never existed an army in which so little fuss was made about unessential trappings as that which served in the Peninsula under Wellington. Nothing could be less showy than its headquarters staff—a 6mall group of blue-coated officers, with an orderly dragoon or two, riding in the wake of the dark capo and low glazed cocked hat of the most unpretentious of chiefs. It contrasted in the strongest way with the plumes and gold lace of the French marshals and their elaborately ornate staffs But as P.M. the Duke of Wellington on parade in Piccadilly, the old Peninsular campaigner was' primmest of the prim. And as Commander-in-chief at that latter time he would have been for commending a subordinate of Colonel Bell's opinions to an interview with the provost-marshal. Dear " Civis," —Would you oblige your readers by giving an authoritative opinion upon the following? I have, within the last 12 months, heard the word " recognise" pronounced " reconize" or " reckernize " by the following persons —A High School dux, who is also a B.A. and several other "things"; a King's Counsel (not necessarily of Dunedin); the wife of a stipendiary magistrate (ditto). Now, are these persons right, as one ought to expect them to be, or is my dictionary wrong? The "g" is certainly sounded in the Latin and Greek words; why not in the English? A Master of Arts, who is a prominent public speaker, frequently talks of " breadth and heighth," and aotually argues that " by usage" it is correct. A professor, when addressing his audience, several times referred to the ".Antartio" expedition ; and on my asking another professor how a .man of " many degrees," and one of our teachers, could possibly make such an error, ho paralysed me by remarking quietly, "But it is Antartio, is it not?" Words failed mo. Please tell us why this is thus. Can we wonder that our younger generation mispronounce words such as "supple" and "collie." saying "soople" and "coollio," when our leaders of light and learning lead us so astray?—l am, etc., COGNOBCO Against men of light and leading when in this condemnation must be alleged defect of ear. Their case is that of the singer who doesn't know when he sings out of tune. A preacher well known in Dunedin used to say " lah " for _" law "—the " lab. of Moses.'' A dialectic peculiarity and of no consequence; but probably his own "law" and the "law" of other people sounded to himself identical. We have readers of " the dily piper " who suppose themselves to be reading like other folk the daily paper. They never hear the difference. Now defect of ear in this form is defect of education. The offenders specified by my correspondent were not congenitally incompetent—predestinated to their ignominy. They had never been taught to listen with discrimination to the utterances of their own vocal organs. Schools and schoolmasters, right and left, lower and upper, have much to answer for. Civis.

• Addressing the Chamber of Commerce last week (says our Wellington correspondent), the president (Mr H. O. Tewsley) remarked that when be last addressed the chamber he indicated that, in his opinion, there were clear evidences of a change in the factors in political life in this Dominion, and that an increasing power to be reckoned with would be organised labour. "If we are to continue in the van of progress," Mr Tewsley went on, " wo must keep ourselves abreast of the changing conditions of life and adapt our surroundings to those necessary modifications of the line between capital and labour that tho experience of the Old Land to-day is so amply demonstrating. In this new country the possibilities of rapid equitable adjustment are much greater, and labour, owing to the buoyant systems of trade, had been settled to secure many advantages that capital could ill concede. Might I venturo a noto of warning that this continuous pressure will inevitably result in less productiveness and that tho undoubted hostility to capital that has evidenced itself in some directions, stimulated by individuals who are not real friends to Labour, will to :nuoh to discourage industry and enterprise, and result in a gradual but sure stoppage of tho fostering of manufacturing and a return to the importation of many requirements from outside sources." At the meeting of the Waikouaiti County Council last week the following motion was passed—" That this council offers tc tho Hon. T. Mackenzie its hearty congratulations on his being raLeed to the Premiership of New Zealand, and also wishes to place on record its appreciation of his great services to tlio Dominion as Minister of Agriculture.'*

The Southland Times says hint the labour trouble is at present givi :g Southland farmers considerable cones''h, and a general shortage of men i/ reported throughout the province. Thi is partly aooounted for by the general r-Osh that is being made to save the stuff, •out there is in any case a shortage of men. There has

boil) trouble iii some in^-- r ;ces in regard to the wages that are being paid, and cases have been reported where, in connection with threshing mills, the whole of the men have left in a body. In seme instances farmers and their families are doing the work themselves.