CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 249, 27 February 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

MAKFNfI A XOIRF.. During the past few days there have been several proofs of Hie contention that a man of small parts and without any outstanding qualities may shout himself to eminence or at least notoriety. The importance attached to mere noise by some people is sbown by the wide circulation of a message which describes with requisite detail the unmannerly conduct of a member of a board in the South. K\cept that tliis particular member is in a constant state of explosion, lie is quite unimportant, and his more i or less public career could be squelched in three months by taking no notice of him. Peter Rowling is a celebrity, and naturally he desires all the publicity he believes he deserves, and so the misguided pressman chases him and insists on decorating him with the halo of publicity. Without this insistence and 'l'efer's capacity for making himself lie:-, rd. Peter could not be eminent. Tt is slid vu that this gentle person goes back (o .'iiistral'm- to foment strife, and he has -aid that the strike which he hopes to .net iu motion "will be of greater mag- I

nitudc and more complete than the one of twelve months ago." Mr. Bowling said further that "if he were wanted" he would come back to New Zealand to organise in connection with the general elections. But there are no indications anywhere that persons of the Bowling class are requisite and necessary for the. political health of this country. Arrogant, blatant agitation is no better for us than for Australia. A greater person than Bowling was one Mann, also an apostle of noise and the four-hour day. The tumultuous Tom talked himself into favor in New Zealand and talked himself of it. When he had got all that could be obtained from his homy-handed brethren, he faded away and gave New Zealand "what for" elsewhere The outside agitator who comes to this country to make a noise assumes that we are too ignorant to make a noise ourselves, but one has only to glance at the files for the week to notice that both Dunedin and Wellington hive political Bowlings whose sole busines in life to be heard.

ADVERTISING NEW ZEALAND. A contemporary, writing on the necessity for using the Coronation to advertise New Zealand, mentions with perfect truth that the Dominion could support a population of ten million people. It will probably support three times that number in the centuries to be, but one doesn't dare to name the possible color of the then New Zealander. But there are (hose who affect to believe that something dreadful will happen to this country if it welcomes occasional drafts of English boys—Sedgwick and otherwise. The Wellington Provincial Executive of the ■ Farmers' Union, in a recent resolution, suggests that the Hon. J. A. Millar has no conception of the demand there is for farm labor in this country, and begged him to permit the continuance of the Sedgwick scheme. The respected contemporary to which we refer desires New Zealand to be advertised in London. Here is a chance to advertise it. Let the public of Britain know that English boys are not welcome, that there is no definite scheme of emigration, that sections of the community see trouble in every artisan who arrives, and that there is actual antagonism to many means for gaining population. The only Teason why we should advertise in London is to obtain population. We already do all the business that can be done by the people who inhabit this country. We have a larger market than we can possibly supply, but a country that could increase its productiveness fifty-fold with the necessary people to push it along. Fifty boys or so are "neither here nor there," but the principle of handicapping any enterprise that will help New Zealand to gain people is mischievous and destructive. The only value a Dominion Coronation display in London can have is to call attention to the fact that New Zealand is a country that offers special chances to settlers. It was not a question of getting extended markets for our produce: we already have markets enough. It would not assist New Zealand to have an orator like Sir George Reid in London to tell the Englishman to roll his swag and go to the Dominion if the advice of the orator were not backed up at this end. Canadian Ministers do not hold up their hands in horror at the idea of a fresh batch of boys going to,the great Dominion. They not only say "Let 'em all come!" but shower inducements on them. As we have said, the Sedgwick boys, or any other kind of boys, will soon be men who will not owe allegiance to any organisation and who will take their independent places as adult New Zcalanders. Any person who quarrels with the introduction of potential citizens who will not only bear part of the national burden but who may be called upon to help in returning New Zealand as a white man's country, "sees through a glass darkly."

BRITON AND AMERICAN. The reprimand which was administered to Commander Sims, of the United States Nary, for his "injudicious" remarks in London early in September, seems to have been a very mild affair. The officer had said that in time of peril Great Britain could "count on every man, every dollar, and every drop of blood' in the United States, and President Taft wrote that American officers should avoid "invidious comparisons," which might embarrass the Government in its foreign relations. An "American exile," writing to the London Times, says that while the offence was obvious, he believes that Commander Sims expressed the feeling of the United States Navy. Several years ago there was a big public gathering in New York, and on that occasion a naval officer made remarks that were received with prolonged applause. "He told us," writes the correspondent, "that he had been in Manila when the Germans undertook to show Admiral Dewey how the port he had conquered ought to be governed. Things were near the breaking point when Admiral Chichester took his British fleet over and propped anchor alongside the American. Nothing was said. No message was sent to the Germans. But everybody understood why the British had come and what they were prepared to do, and it was this British fleet which made it clear to the Germans that Dewey was master in Manila waters." The officer proceeded to remind his hearers of an occasion when two armed boats' crews, one British and the other American, lay off tlve pier-head in a South American port, under orders not'to land, and watched some American officers fighting for their lives with a body of "Dagos." Presently the midshipman commanding the British boat shouted across to the American: "I say, Jack, if you'll let your men go, I'll let mine." And in a few minutes the two crews were fighting side by side. The officer added that he sometimes imagined a day when in the face of hostile fleets a friendly greeting would pass between two admirals, one British and the other American. The correspondent of the Times is quite sure that the American Navy would like nothing more than a chance to "lend a hand" in the settlement of an AngloSaxon quarrel.