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Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3346, 15 November 1871, Page 2

It has been often enough the fashion to talk of the " good old times," but the present age has fallen into other ways of thought, and looks upon anything having relation to past days as antiquated, heterodox, and foolish ; we see everywhere old institutions which have helped the progress of the greatest nation on earth ridiculed as absurd. Nobility, that is the advancement to honor of the most worthy, is scoffed at, and the ancient council of barons, which, by checking the two sudden impulses of the Lower House, have before now caused it to turn from a dangerous leap, held up to obloquy because it desires to keep up some of those traditions which have made England the example of the world, and to interpose between the constitution as built up by our forefathers and the chances of com munisvn. It is the same with sumptuary laws regulating costume. It is easy to see how this comes. Long ago it was the fashion to exhibit in ridiculous colors the yellow-livered Nabob, who returned from India with lacs innumerable, and ostentatiously paraded his wealth before his poorer neighbors ; and, when wealth accrued from other sources than those flowing from the shaken pagoda tree, the vain efforts of the vulgar parvenu to wriggle himself into polite society were no less the theme of satire. That in this there was an intense amount of snobbery ; that the jeerers were only too delighted at being asked to partake of a retired Indian Collector's curries and Madeira; that many of the men who met with nothing but cold looks, because they were the architects of their own fortune, were every bit as good as those who turned the cold shoulder on them on the score of ancestry ; all this id too true. But we have reached in these days a worse kind of snobbery — that of wealth, which, however acquired, tramples down in the mire all holding no good balance at the bank, and turns up its nose at what it calls "poor gentility," and this gave rise to a wrong spirit of emulation on the part of the poorer section, which merited the same name.

It is some years since London was astonished to find a gifted author emphatically announcing that each and every one who had pretensions to what is termed society beyond his or her income was a snob. It is some years since the voice which taught these lessons, which in plain English inculcated, under a vein of keen satire, the beauties of a homely life and the guilt of shams, has been hushed in the repose of death. But so true are the words which issued from those lips that, reading them now, we seem to think that they apply to us We are about to speak strongly, and we fear that tr.any will consider us injudicious in raising such a subject, but we consider that, as journalists, it is our duty to direct attention, not only to subjects of political or public morality, but also to those of homely life. And we would try not to be understood to attempt in the least iota to cast a shadow of a blame on a family which in both its public and private position has, since its arrival in New Zealand, done so much towards engendering kindly feelings amongst all, and to make itself endeared in every place it has honored by its presence. We merely wish to point out to many of the recipients of its hospitality, that for some years past there has been in New Zealand a feeling that, because one man can afford to do a certain thing, the other is bound to do the same. We speak in all due deference, but we must ask the majority of our readers, men whose incomes are on a small scale, and who have families to provide for, whether the expense attending parties is at all commensurate with their means. It is a light thing to talk about going out : but then there come the dresses, the gloves, —possibly the old coat is getting shabby and another has to be procured ; then come the cabs, &c, &c, and money which ought to be put up for Tommy's schooling, or Jenny's governess, goes off madly. Then it is incumbent on everyone to show themselves once a week at Government House, and no one considers that A's being worth £1,000 a year and being able to afford it is a reason why B with £300 should not take care that his wife is as well turned out on those days as Mrs A. Indeed, would not Mrs A jeev at the poor Bs if they did not put in an appearance? And bo the end will be that we shall have in the course of time a set of " shabby gentility," coarsely dressed on

other days, but resplendent at church and receptions. Were we to mention the old fable of the ox and frog we should be laughed at, but we nevertheless must record our opinion that there is among us too much of the ambition not to be, but to seem, equal with our wealthier neighbours. Sumptuary laws had but little effect in olden times, however rigidly enforced; and where Thackeray and writers of his stamp failed, with all their wit and earnestness, to change the code of manners in England, we cannot hope to succeed. But we remember years ago how colonial people were measured at home by the fact of their going to "government house." and we fear the same guage is applied now. Not for a moment do we wish to arrest the spontaneous wish to pay [respect to the representatives of Her" Majesty, in themselves a family whom the colony is proud to possess among its inhabitants ; but we suggest a little more quietness ; a little more accommodation of ways and personal means, and a good deal less of that form of snobbery which overlooks the differences of income, and scruples not to use every means to equal in attendance on every occasion and in elaborations of costume the wealth it wishes it could attain. Letnot ladies think that we write for them only ; men are just as bad ; and to both sexes we try to give a j mild, and, we trust, a not_ thoroughly ' unprofitable caution ; it is not our desire to wound, but it is part of our public duty to hold up for reprehension, social errors and failings which may have an important bearing on our happiness as a people. It is a pity to see a colony fall so rapidly into the errors of the mother country. It is sad to note the free manly life of our colonists being choked with the conventionalities of old world life, and the means by which they could found a home and leave a heritage for their children frittered away in ruinously expensive habits. Retrenchment in public expenditure is a favorite phrase at present ; retrenchment in private expenditure is a less grateful theme, and the duty of advocating it a very ungrateful one. Let us hope, at least, that our remarks will be not misconstrued, but received in a proper spirit and accorded a fair consideration.