THE WEEK, THE WORLD AND WELLINGTON

Wanganui Herald, Issue 12856, 18 May 1912, Page 3

THE WEEK, THE WORLD AND WELLINGTON

j BY FRANK MORTON.

I j Things in the city have a tendency to bnguaen juet now, and matters generatty seem to lie brisker than they were. Places of amusement arc doing excellent business—all of them, tor such purposes, the Wellingtonian always seems to have money to spare. Picturetheatres are main ply mg remai.-uauiy, but ail-are thriving. They are, indeed, thriving so well that Stiggins, horribly upset by these evidences of enjoyment, is sure that there must be something wrong, and clamours loudly for a censorship. I often wonder what a good ' thorough censorship according to the Hliggi-us desire or ideal would be like, and what the average attendance would bo, if some picture-show could be ordered and arranged to the liking of Stiggins. The talk of the necessity of censorship is absolutely without warrant. I happen to like picture-shows, being a person of simple tastes; and I have never seen a picture yet that any sane and reasonable man or woman could possibly have objected to on moral grounds. Some of the sensational pictures may be injudicious when young people see them. But who shall say that the law has any right to prosecute or ban pictures on such a ground, if tho right exists, it must at any rate bo consistently applied. We must sup- , press, not merely sensational biograph pictures, but all sensational literature : —under which heading would fall all boys’ papers now published. The mere suggestion is preposterous; for the pub- i lie has the remedy in its own liands. i People who dislike injudicious pictures can -withhold their patronage. People ! who do like injudicious pictures, can i fairly claim to have (within limits of ordinary decency) whatever fare they | ohooso to pay for. When any picture j goes beyond the limits of decency, the I police has full power. 1 know most of the picture-managers rather well, and 1 am sure that they have no desire to introduce or condone indecency. They know, for one thing, that the public of New Zealand would not stand it, and it is their business primarily to give the public what the public wants. THE BIG SCOUT. As an attraction for next week we are to have a lecture by Sir Rolvert Baden-Powell. He is somewhat unfortunately advertised as the Defender of Mafeking, and most of us feel that the less said of Mafeking the better. The Mafeking business was the outstanding farce of the South African War. At Mafeking the fake-correspondents had their Paradise, and they spoke as one man with the voice of Munchausen. Sir Robert will doubtless be very glad if the time ever comes during his life when the Mafeking affair is forgotten. It is as the founder of the Boy Scout movement that Sir Robert can properly command attention and respect. He is himself a great scout, and the great British authority on scouting. His Boy Scouts have done- great things, and been a-a»l; influence fer good, it as by reference to"them that Sir Robert may most pleasantly bo remembered. I have not seen this soldier for many years. On the one and only occasion of my meeting him, he was still a youngish man, and had just returned* from Boluchiistan, where he was understood to have made some considerable success in private theatricals. In the rather languid person that I met no one would have suspected the mind of a scout or the founder of anything. Since then however, Sir Robert has justified himself. A NASTY MATTER. We have hud a remili !er cf -i verv bad business that was infamously notorious some years ago. To-dav, the Supreme Court granted a decree to Alice Coiiiiighani, who sought to divorce her husband Arthur Couingham. So far she has succeeded, though a cros---suit is pending. There acre the principals of the notorious case of Coningham v. Couingham, which disturbed Australia and caused endless bitter feeling a number of years ago. T was in Australia at tho time, and followed the proceedings closely. 1 have always regarded tho case as a disgraceful and heinous conspiracy to wreck the reputation of an eminent and admirable priest. I was convinced at the time, as virtually everybody is convinced now. that Dr. U’Haran was absolutely -innocent of the charges levelled against him. There -is no man more defenceless than a priest of Roma, when any charge of that kind is launched. The prief :.s arc celibates, at; 1 they have by the circumstance of their calling to be in the confidence of many women. So that the notorious oase of Coningham v. Coningham was a peculiarly hateful c:»ai. All flesh ’s grass; but men have -an instinct in euc'i matters when they happen to know tho man accused. I knew Dr. O’Harau, and I knew that ho was not guiltv. But, apart from such knowledge, the evidence against him was worse than dubious, and at all points utter'v unconvincing. In matters such as th : ■ no man on earth is safe; because when a.>y woman choo«es to make a cha tie mob of men is always ei'.-'or to oe' tvo the slander and proportiouairlv slow to accept the truth. PLUXKET AXD PROSPERITY. In London, Lord Pliinket, whom you j may remember as a one-time Governor I of ours, has made a statement that has rather incensed organised Labour-in this happy, happy laud. He said, in effect, that in Xew Zealand people could make an exceedingly good livelihood and put by a handsome competence for their future. Labour yells dismally that this is not so. •Strictly, Lord Plunket was wrong; essentially, he was right. Any man of intelligence and character can live well in Xew Zealand, and many men can save if they wish to. But I count life by enjoyment, and -not by shillings hoarded in a bank. If people do -not save, they live on a far higher scale than they do in tho congested centres of the old world, and other conditions make life more genial and easy to them. If they find that the cost of living is high, and the margin left for economy small, they havo only to blame the rapacity of such combinations of Labour as lie docilely under tho professional agitator’s thumb. Xext in the scale of blame or responsibility must come our perfectly idiotic itch of law-making. There | would be more security of industrial peace, if we had an occasional period of legislative rest. All tho same, New Zealand is a good country and a fat country. Despite all that Labour can do and still tries to do, an honest worker can still live very comfortably here. ( DISCIPLINE. j | The fact is that New Zealanders hate I disoipliine, and New Zealand women workers hate it with a peculiar intensity. Juist tho other day, in one of the offices I am connected, we had a little girl who was a sort of junior typist. She. resigned, because she, or her mother, objected greatly when she was sent oh some slight errand to the post- | office. She was a typical New Zealander.

■ Now, ■reasonavule disci►lIOe, this foteimiimutflon to render rn.lv

perfunctory and.grudging service to an employer, is a bad thing. D I serve a newspaper as a member of its staff, and the editor bids me go to the Magnetic Pole or the Mauritius, I k;i; . t at -he is quite within his (rights in -giving mo that order. I never could dream that f was a sort of superior of my chief, a creature to be cajoled and coaxed and treated with a calculated tenderness. I give courtesy and demand it; but I am not fool enough to think that the man who pays me my wages has not an absolute right to order my services. I never could be silly enough to say to the sub-editor, “ You be hanged! I am responsible to nobody but the managing director.” If I did say that, I should soon find myself on the cold hard paving-stones or in the unpleasant ditch, and I should deserve nothing better. But as a people wo hats discipline, and are unconscious of the inherent nobility of work. There are no menial tasks, if a man or woman works honestly, and the worker who considers any man’s work derogatory is a traitor And an ass. However that be, the hospital (squabble at Auckland is a hideously undignified and deplorable thing. The members of the Board of Inquiry -are wrangling and squawking like a lot of spoilt children, and the public so far has -no certainty of getting anything better than a mouthful of mud. My own experience in other cities is that the laymen on hospital boards are generally consistent blunderers and a continuing nuisance. Knowing nothing, or motiving much about the scientific side of hospital work, they are stumblingblocks and hindrances. I knew' one member of a hospital board who had an obstinate conviction that modem sanitary appliances caused typhoid fever. I knew another who was “opposed l to operations on principle.” It is unfair and ludicrous that medical men of standing should be liable to tho ignorant interference of muddlers of that type. Hospitals should be managed and controlled solely by experts. Democracy is responsible for a terrible lot of folly and sheer humbug.

FACTORIES AND FARMS. Aga’n we have the constantly occurring outcry that there is a great shortage of available labour for the factories and the farms. It is so grave a matter that the very existence of certain manufacturers is imperilled. The woollen mills all over the country cannot get the labour they need. They want young people, and they must have young people. They cannot employ much adult labour, because adult labour grows costlier every year, and the cost ot it could only be met by increased duties, increased duties would mean prohibitive prices locally and still more inflation of the cost of living. If it were possible that this thing could go on as it lias been going, in a few years’ time we might quite possibly have men drawing £2O a week, with urgent need ef £2l to keep hotly and soul together. The crass stupidity of the average labour union lies in the fact that it gauges ail things,by reference to mere number of shillings and pence ;,sq that when it wagpsjv*«hilhi«s a week, it is not at all concerned to (recognise the f;u t that the cost of living has mounted another soven-and-sixpeiico. Meantime, what is to bo done for tho factories and the farms? Our woollen industry is admirable. New Zealand mgs, to take one instance only, are -absolutely the finest in the world. Are wo to .stop making rugs, because tho mills cannot get labour, and the unions object to any thorough scheme of immigration p That is what it is coming to. When Mr. Sedgwick brought out his sturdy company of English boys for the tanning districts, the labour unions yelled derision and squealed abuse. Weall need servant-girls, and wc Can’t got them, even though we are willing to pay tar more for their services than we can reasonably afford. 1 honestly believe that if ten thousand useful domestic servants arrived in Now Zealand tomorrow, they could all bo at work in comfortable homes within a week. But the effect of that might bo that pretty soon housemaids would have to work for something under a pound a week. “Heaven forbid!” yells organised Labour. “tar Ik-iter that there should not Ive another domestic servant brou.'ht to the country! ”

I see that an American breeder is arranging to .introduce mules to New Zealand. Doesn’t it strike yon that wo might with manifest advantage export a few?

GARDENS. A good \V angnnootUK) I know (not to be coufoundt-d with your typical Wanganui sauce) writes me a paean of exultation nil about his garden. He walks among the springing cauliflowers and sapling baobabs and uplifts his gentle soul in song. He has video* of a not distant day when he will be aide to woo Aretinnu with his owfti gillyflowers. After a little, ho will be able to grow for himself vast quantities of simpering marigolds and insolvent vivid roves. He s!i;d! behold the crow domesticating in his own vinery, and hear tho song of the hedgosparrow among tho spanach his own hands have tended. He’s quite cocky about it. He talks already of lolling on a divan and gazing masterfully at -a parterre of tulips. Ho really begins to consider himself a harlicaitnioqt. There is a creeping disease of horticulture. He’s caught it. I only decline ta sympathize with him because he s so dashed conceited about himself, viewed as a progenitor ot vegetables or industrious wet-nur.se of heliotrope in tlio bud. \\ ho is he, that he should affect ,1 m »napply of oleanders and nasturtiums?

I’ve had the creeping malady of horticulture myself. 1 have planted roots of sago and chives beneath my windows, and seen them .solemnly wither in the sun. I have grown variety of weeds from seeds sold in illuminated packets and labelled with sounding names. 1 have even experimented, and tried to cross parsley with artichokes.. Once this mania seizes you, your goose is cooked. I know what it is to get up in the middle of wet nights of bluster to chase whole courts of feline love from the tomato-bod or shoo a belated caterpillar off the rhubarb. 1 have spent nights of sleepless anxiety, suspecting that the moths were busily biting my early turnips. Once 1 tried very hard to grow a bod of garlic, it wouldn’t thrive. So I rooted out the whole litter of potential fragrance and threw it into tho of a dairyman who happened to live next door. For three weeks he raced round the district with his gun, looking for the fellow' who had gm licked his cows, and all the babies round about had loud breaths and the windy spasms. I didn’t say anything to him, but in my heart I felt that I nas innoceiiit. I had, indeed, somehow got an idea into my head that cows rather like garlic. I admit that cows I j l lO rather flat of my department, which j is horticulture; and I am sorry that I diil not trouble to consult some good book- which would have told me that cows that cat garlic cause milkmen to say improper things mid dimpling babies to breathe mal-odomr-ly through Die shrinking night. When you have a lot of garlic to dispose, you should boil it with cow-beef and give it to the dog. J hen the useful beast will be a sure discouragement to hawkers, and you won’t have fly or caller about the place for weeks. I once saw a lamp-post fall flat whon & dog full .of gaphe breathed, ion it . THinti iiliA ... j.t .Ai . ; .s

the owner of the dog for damages. The owner pleaded that the dog had stolen the garlic from a fruit shop, and he didn t know: further, that he was a very small dog, without sufficient capacity to swallow' garlic enough to do sci ions damage to municipal property. Ihe d-og was thereupon brought into court for the magistrate to see. The clock stopped, and two constables fell sersOiess. One of them did mot recover, and his two widows sued for compensation. The matter is. I believe, stri before the Arbitration Court. They teak away the fallen lamp-post and put up a rubbish-bin in its place. The bin | ! s '.N’-uad in tho base and solid. I don’t j believe that there is a dog big enough to breathe it to the ground. But if | yon arc a man of small moans, when you are in the mood to give your dog vegetables, you’d better stick to geran.uni!s - This is a useful herb, and : should always ho boiled in two waters ami served very hot. j