The Otago Witness WITH WHICH IN INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (TUESDAY, JULY 5, 1921.) THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3512, 5 July 1921, Page 35

The Otago Witness WITH WHICH IN INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (TUESDAY, JULY 5, 1921.) THE WEEK.

“Nunquam allud natura, ai'.ud sapientia dixit.” —Juvenal. “Good nature and good sense must ever join ” Pope. It is symptomatic of the times that interest in the proceedings The Fight. of the Imperial Conference, the Coal Strike Settlement, the Irish Turmoil, and even the Third Test Match was completely overshadowed by the tight for the AYorld’s Champion ship between Jack Dempsey and Georges Cai'pentier, which has resulted in the victory of Dempsey. ‘‘Rut a stop to boxing for money,” said Mr Bernard Shaw at the end of the ‘‘Note on Modern Prizefighting,” which forms the appendix to “Cashel Byron's Professor,” ‘and pugilism will give society no further trouble.” Mr Shaw, writing in 1882, pointed out that in the sixties prize-lighting was supposed to be dead, “to have died of its own blackguardism by the second quarter of the century” ; hut in the eighties “many apparently lost causes and dead enthusi-

asms unexpectedly revived: Imperialism, Patriotism, Religion, Socialism, and many other things, including prize-fighting in an aggravated form, and on a scale of commercial profit and publicity which soon made its palmy days insignificant and ridiculous by contrast. A modern. American pugilist makes more by a single defeat than Crabb made by aii his victories.” The commercialism of prizefighting which Mr Shaw so sharply criticises is illustrated in the fact that a purse of 500,000 dollars was provided for the Dempsey-Cai-pentier fight, and this altogether apart from the colossal betting transactions on the fight. In addition to this commercialism, Air Shaw indulges in an ingenious argument as to the real reason for the revival of interest in prizefighting. 1 In 1882,” he writes, “prizefighting' seemed to- bo dying out. Sparring matches with boxing gloves, under the Qneensberry rules, kept pugilism faintly alive; but it was not popular, because the public, which cares only for the excitement of a strenuous fight," believed then that the boxing glove made sparring as harmless a contest "of pure skill as a fencing match with foils. . . . Consequently the inteiesfc in the annual sparrings for the Queensberrv Chanmionshipa was confined to the few amateurs uhot had some critical knowledge of the game of boxing, and to the survivors of the generation for which the fight between havers and Heenan had been described in liie limes as solemnly as the University Boat Race. In short, pugilism was out of lasmon, because the jKilice had suppressed the only form of it, which fascinated the pub.ic by its imdissembled pugnacity. All that was needed to rehabilitate it was the discovery that the glove fight is a more trying and dangerous form of contest than the old knuckle fight. Nobodv knew that then; everybody knows it. or ought to know it, now. And accordingly pugilism is more prosperous to-day than it has ever been before.” The prosperity of pugilism to-day is sufficiently indicated in the preparations made for the DcmpsevUarpentiev fight at Jersey City, New \crk. A thousand police and a thousand firemen were on duty in the fight area, and every precaution was taken for the handling of the crowd of spectators, who paid approximately a million and aquarter dollars for their seats. The hotels of New York were crowded with visitors from all parts of the world, and representatives of 700 newspapers were in attendance to flash the news of the fight all over the world, and to write up the details in racy style to satisfy the longings of hungry readers everywhere. It is interesting to contrast the newspaper reports of this fight between Dempsey and Carpentier, in July, 1921, with that contributed by William Ilazlett to “The New Monthly Magazine” of the fight between the Gas-man and Bill Neate in December, 1821. Two or three sentences from Hazlett’s vivid description go to show that the world has not altered very much in spirit during the last 100 years’. “From this time forward,” said Ilazlett, describing the progress-of the fight, Hickman being the Gas-man, “the event became more certain every round, and about the twelfth it seemed as if it must have been over. Hickman generally stood with his back to me, but in the scuffle he had changed positions, and Neate just then made a tremendous lunge at him, and hit him full in the face. It was doubtful whether he would fall backwards or forwards ; he hung suspended for a second or two, and then fell back, throwing his hands iu the air, and with his face lifted up to the sky. I never saw anything more terrific than his aspect just before he fell. All traces of life, of natural expression, were .gone from him. His face was like a human skull, a death's head, spouting blood. The eyes were filled with blood, the nose streamed with blood, the mouth gaped blood. He was not like an actual man, but like a preternatural appearance, or like one of the figures in Dante’s ‘lnferno.’ Yet Ire fought on after this for several rounds, still striking the first desperate blow, and Neate standing, on the -defensive and using the same cautious guard to the last, as if he had still all his work to do; and it was not till the Gas-man was so stunned in the seventeenth or eighteenth round tfiat his senses forsook him and he could not come to time, that the battle was declared over.” Next to the fight conics the game, and Australia’s fine performThe Game. ance of 407 in the first innings of the Third Test Match recalls some of the glories of ancient English cricket, as set forth in that interesting reprint edited by Mr E. V. Lucas, under the title of “The Hambledon Men.” This comprises the well-known “Young Cricketer’s Tutor” of John Nyren, one of the nlayers of the celebrated Old Hambledon Club, and which was originaly issue? more than a hundred years ago. In his dedication of the book to William Ward, a famous cricketer of his day, Nyren writes: “I have not seen much of your playing—certainly not so much as I could have wished; but so far as my observation and judgment extend, I may confidently pronounce you to be one of the safest players I remember to have seen. The circumstance of your rising so much above the ordinary standard in stature (your height, if I recolect, being 6ft lin), your extra? ordinary length of limb, vour power and activity, to all of which, I may add. your perfect judgment of all points in the game, have given you the superior advantages -in play and entitle you to the character I have given. As a proof of its correctness, the simple fact will suffice of your having gained the 'longest hands* of any player on record. This circumstance occurred upon the 24th and 2oth July, 1820, at Mary-le-bone. when the great number of 278 runs appeared against yom Tintnc —108 more than any player ever gained; and this, be it remembered, after the increase of tho stumps in 1817.” Thus Ward’s 278 runs, a- hundred years ago, compares favourably

with Macartney’s 115 in the Third lest Match. Some remarks on cricket, made by diaries Conden Clarke in his introduction to Nyren's “Young Cricketer’s Tutor,” are applicable to a day when England is failing to hold her own with Australia: “Of all the Englith athletic games, none perhaps presents so fine a scope for bringing into full and constant play the qualities both of the mind and body as that of cricket. A man who is essentialy stupid will not make a hue cricketer; neither will he who is not essentially active. He must be active in all his faculties—lie must be active in mind to prepare for every advantage, and active in eye and limb to avail himself of these advantages. He must he cool-tempered, and in the best sense of the term, manly; for he must be able to endure fatigue, and to make light of pain, since, like all athletic sports, cricket is not unattended with danger.” In view of the criticism to which some phases of Australian cricket have been subjected to during the playing of Test matches, it may be noted that Nyren, writing a hundred years ago, foretold the destruction of cricket owing to the introduction of round-arm and over-arm bowling. “I conceive then,” he wrote, “that all the fine style of hitting must in a very material degree cease, if the modern innovation of throwing instead of bowling the ball, be not discontinued. I am aware that the defence which has been urged on behalf of the throwing is that ‘it tends to shorten the game, that now a match is commonly decided in one day which heretofore occupied three times the space in its completion. This argument, I grant, is not an irrational one, but if the object in countenancing the innovation extend solely to the curtailment of the game, why not multiply the difficulties in another direction? Whv not give more room for the display of skill in the batter? ... If the present system be persisted in a few years longer, the elegant and scientific game of cricket will decline into a mere exhibition of rough, coarse horseplay.’’ Happily, the prophecy has not come true, but recent events indicate that there are difficult days ahead in the development of the modern game of cricket. Responding to the public presentation made to him at the close The Play. of his Shakespearean season, Mr Allan Wilkie paid a high compliment to Dunedin when he said: “Speaking from wide experience, I do not know of another town in the world of 60,000 inhabitants to which I would care to take Shakespeare for a season of 16 nights with any hope of success.” This remark lends point to the suggestion made by Mr Statham that the Government would do well to officially Tecognise the rendering on the stage of Shakespeare's plays as part of the educational curriculum provided by the State. ‘‘lt had been said,” declared Mr Wilkie, “that the Empire was held together by the bonds of sentiment, and these plays of Shakespeare had done more to federate the people than all the Acts of Parliament ever devised by the mind of man.” Thinking along this line, the Minister of Education may fully consider whether the encouragement of the staging of Shakespeare’s plays is not likely to do more for patriotism and lovalty than anv mechanical insistence on tile taking of the oath of allegiance, on the automatic saluting of the flag and singing of the National Anthem. Mr Alan Wilkie has let it be known that it is his ambition to do what no actor-manager has done for the past 000 years —viz., to produce the whole of the plays of Shakespeare; moreover, he has expressed a preference for the dominion as a favourable field for the experiment. Under present arrangements a period of 15 months wil elapse ere he brings his company back to Dunedin with a fresh repertoire of Shakespeare’s plays ; in the interval Mr Parr may perhaps be persuaded to consider the project of offering Mr Allan Wilkie such a guarantee against loss in his laudable enterprise as may induce him to concentrate his efforts on educating the young people- of New Zealand in the truths and beauties so eloquently enunciated by the genius of Shakespeare.

Colonel M'Donald has given notice of his intention to move the following resolution at the next meeting of the committee of the Dunedin Returned Soldiers’ Association:—“That the Canteens’ Board, which was recently set up by the Government, be requested to furnish this association with a duly audited report and balance sheet of the receipts and expenditure connected with the Canteen Fund.’ which is estimated to amount to £80,000.” A Press Association message from Auckland states that attention is drawn to the fact that in the preliminary notices issued by tlie Commissioner of Taxes under the Land Tax Act the supertax was stated to be 33j per cent., whereas tbe Finance Act of last session prescribes the same rate as under Ihe Act of 192 C - namely, 50 per cent. The question raised is: What statutory authority exists for the alteration? On Friday morning the Hon. D. 11. Guthrie (Minister of Lands), accompanied by Mr H. D. Tennent (repatriation office) and Mr E. F. Duthie (of the Moa Seed Farm Committee), left Dunedin in a motor, with Mr A. W. Mulligan (the Minister’s private secretary) to pay a visit to the Westons t Settlement, between Ettrick and Roxburgh. The visit was purely interdepartmental, and concerned the future control of the seed farm. An Auckland Press Association telegram says that the £IOO,OOO worth of bonds offered by Ihe Farmers’ Union Trading Company of Auckland has been over-subscribed. Arthur Herbert Greening was charged at the Police Court on Friday morning with failing to account for £25 paid to him on behalf of his employer, Mr J. M. Samson, of Dunedin (says an Invercargill Press Association message). It was stated that other charges are pending. The accused was remanded for a week.

The Arbitration Court refused application by the Carpenters’ Union and the local bodies’ labourers for tbe May bonus (says an Auckland Press Association telegram). The grounds were not stated, but it is understood that they were those given by the court at Wellington. The Chalmers Licensing Commmittee, at ar. adjourned meeting held in Port Chalmers on Friday, and presided over by Mr 11. Y. Widdowson, S.M. (chairman), dealt further with the application made at the annual meeting by- Simeon James Ballantyno for tile renewal of a license for the Railway Hotel, Mosgiel. Mr Brugli suggested that the license might be granted and a transfer arranged for, but the committee did not fall in with the suggestion. The meeting was adjourned for a fortnight in order that arrangements for a new licensee, a.s outlined by Mr Finch, might be completed. If such arrangement proved satisfactory the license would be renewed and a permanent transfer arranged. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Plunket Society (says a Press Association telegram from Christchurch), Dr Truby King, referring to maternity mortality, said the fact was that the maternity mortality rate in New Zealand was six per thousand. That rate was infinitely higher than it should be, and it could be reduced by cnehalf, if not by one-third. He could -iy with conviction that it cou’d be brought down to one-half, and he was confident that with proper care it could be reduced to one-third, because we knew the factors at fault and that the essential causes wcie ignorance,, carelessness, lack of proper cleanliness, and what might be termed meddlesome midwifery. Dr' John Guthrie, jun., speaking on behalf of the British Medical Association, said that though maternal mortality might sometimes be due to carelessness on the part of medical men, there were various other possible sources of puerperal septicaemia. In his own experience as a medical man extending over 18 years he had known cases of septicaemia in which the function had been perfectly normal and natural without any interference of any kind. All cases were not due to “meddlesome midwifery.” In 2 per cent, of the cases in the. maternity ward of the Christchurch Hospital at all times the patients carried with them seeds of such trouble in the form of some pelvic infections. Dr Truby King said that Dr Guthrie must have misinterpreted his meaning, which he himself had probably conveyed in loose terms. He had intended no reflection on the medical profession. By “ midwifery ” he meant, to include women who attended on mat ernity cases both before and after birth, and he had been speaking in a broad sense only. He knew that the members _of the medical profession were to be relied on to do their utmost in the great work, but they must have the backing of the nurses and more particularly of the public if the society were to succeed in its objects.

The official assignee, Mr W. W. Samson, reports that the number of petitions in bankruptcy filed with him during the quarter ended on June 30 last was three, as compared with one for the corresponding

quarter of last year. There are at presen t 12 bankruptcies in all unclosed. The total amount of assets realised last quarter came to £1833 15s Bd, and the total amount paid in dividends was £962 14-s Bd. For the same three months of last year the assets realised £B6l 11s lOd, and the amount paid in dividends totalled £624 15s 2d.

The Hon. D. 11. Gutlirie, in replying to the deputation from the Returned Soldiers’ Association, which waited on him on Thursday, made the statement that if a soldier settler was trying to get on and found himself in difficulties the Government would postpone the payment of his rent for six months, 12 months, 18 months, or possibly for two years. The settler would not be charged interest on his deferred rent, so that no charge would be heaped up against him, and at the end of the period he would not lose his rebate if the postponed rent were paid up to the postponement period. In some quarters this has been interpreted to mean that if a man at the end of the postponement period resumes the half-yearly payments of his rent while holding in abeyance his deferred rent, he will get the benefit of the customary half per cent, rebate allowed by the Government. When questioned specifically upon this point, Mr Guthrie replied that the Government could not do that. What it had undertaken to do -was to accept, the postponed rent in such instalments as the settler could reasonably be expected to pay. The Minister left for Wellington by the first express on Saturday. A great deal of secrecy is being observed By the Government in regard to the fixation of new prices for sugar. As a matter of fact the arrangements between the Colonial Sugar Company and the Government expired on Sunday (July 3), and from wliat can be gathered the Government has arranged to extend the contract for another 12 months. Opinions are divided whether the Government is really honest in its statement that there is to be no prohibition of the importation of Java sugar. A number of merchants have expressed their emphatic opinion that it is time that Government control of every kind ceased. One merchant frankly alleged that the Board of Trade was usurping the powers of the Government, and that the Board of Trade was really one man, although there are actually three men on it. If the statements made by some merchants are correct, the Government is laying itself open to criticism if it allows itself to drift further along the course it has allowed itself to pursue. Ilmv the Government, is to hold up the contract price with ihe Colonial Sugar Company, when merchants can bistort Java sugar at a very much lower price, is a matter which is puzzling most merchants. They state, however, that if Java sugar is brought in at a low price, the cost of paying for the Colonial Sugar Company’s product, which may not be sold, will really fall on the general public. A I ’rcss Association message from Wellington states that a return for the week ended Juno 25 shows that there were 5257 men employed on public works throughout Yew Zealand as comna red with on,.

ployed during the previous week —an increase of 229. Of the total number of 5257 men employed, 820 were men on -unemployment relief works, leaving a total of 4435 permanent employees. Captain S. Mallard, of the New Zealand Aero Transport Company, returned from Central Otago at the end of last week, and landed his Avro machine on the foreshore. An experiment in the building of earth houses in Auckland has proved unsuccessful, the climate, having been found to be unsuitable (says the Herald). With reference to the recent negotiations with the commonwealth authorities in the direction of having the embargo on the importation of potatoes from New Zealand into Australia removed, a reply (states the Journal of Agriculture) Juts been received from the Prime Minister of the commonwealth, in which ho states that it is much regretted that owing to Ihe nature of “powdery scab” it is impracticable to indicate the requirements which would secure the commonwealth against the introduction of the disease if the importation of potatoes from New Zealand were allowed. Ho adds that, in the interests of the potato-produc-ing industry of Australia, the Government, is unable to accept the risk of introducing the disease which the admission of potatoes from Now Zealand into Australia would involve. When the Hon. C. J. Parr, Minister of Education, was asked by a Christchurch Press reporter if he knew of any antiBritish or disloyal propaganda in the schools which should be checked by means of insisting on the teachers taking the oath of allegiance to the Empire, the Minister said : "Complaints have been made to me by parents that, in some schools, teachers have voiced anti-British sentiments, and that their attitude was not loyal to the Empire and their country. Happily there are very few of these cases, and a warning to the teacher complained of lias in each case, I think, been sufficient. I find, however, that there is a tendency for the mischievous propaganda, from which this country is by no means exempt at the present time, to affect even some of our young teachers. It should be a condition before a young teacher should get his certificate that he should take the oath of allegiance to the State whose service lie is in. It has been suggested that the test should be applied periodically. It may become necessary even to do this, but for the present I am averse, once a man has taken the oath of his allegiance, to impute a breach of his obligations. I think the teaching body is sufficiently sound that, once its young devotees have given their pledge, they will keep it.” “Should the test of loyalty, by means of the oath, be applied to all public servants?” the Minister of Education was asked. “Yes, I think so. Any man drawing public money ought to be a loyal servant of the State,” replied Mr Parr. Out in the Pacific, with no land, within a hundred miles, is Walpole Island. Three miles long, and half a mile wide, it rises abruptly 300 feet out of the sea. Captain M. C. Campbell, of the steamer Malaita, which arrived at Greymouth a few days ago with a cargo of guano, told an interesting story of the island, which until it was taken over by the Austral Guano Company three years ago, was uninhabited. To-day there are 140 persons on the island, including four whites. The majority are Japanese, and Loyalty and Solomon Island indentured labourers, working under a two years’ agreement. Every six months the Malaita visits the island, taking provisions and mails and returning with guano. Each visit is the signal for rejoicing on the island. In fine weather the Malaita steams within a hundred feet of the cliffs for loading. The guano is shot down in bags on to punts, to be transferred to the vessel. The Austral Guano Company are installing drying machines, and when they are in working- older they will greatly increase the output from the island. At present the guano Ts sun-dried.