The New Zealand Graphic AND LADIES’ JOURNAL. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1891.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 44, 31 October 1891, Page 536

The New Zealand Graphic AND LADIES’ JOURNAL. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1891.

A LADY writes asking why the monsters, who under the cover of a safe anonymity systematically vilify the fair sex in these columns, persist in that misguided course 1 Be it known to ‘ T.5.8.,’ who chides in so sweet and plaintive a manner, that only one such monster exists, or is procurable, and it is he alone—the ambiguous heading to these notes notwithstanding—who is guilty of the various strains which are emitted by this, the editorial lyre. So pathetic and earnest an appeal as that of our gentle correspondent moves the monster deeply, and she may be assured that to him her exhortations are much more telling than any of which General Booth is capable, even if supplemented by all the brazen-bands of the Universal Army. If his hard heart were susceptible of repentance, ‘ T.S.B.’ would certainly be the member of her sex who could best succeed in impressing the nether mill stone, for entreaty more tenderly couched than her’s never yet fell from lips or pen of one whom to know must be to But we are digressing.

Well, in defence the monster argues that * T.S.B.’ is inclined to take the fantasies of the literary mind rather too seriously. She may be one of the rare birds of her Sex who lives but to think sweetly of and act sweetly towards her fellow-men and fellow-women, and possibly may be of the Caledonian temperament, which is inclined to regard jokes and caricatures in somewhat too matter-of-fact alight. She is also clearly of the passing school of women, who are inclined to take for gospel all that has been taught by the previous generation, not recognizing the fact that in this feverish age a whole Hood of new ideals is breaking in upon the mind of mankind, and that the men and women of the future will not be as the men and women of the present or the past. The transition is, no doubt, painful to many, but the changes are in reality superficial, for the reciprocal feelings of the sexes must ever remain essentially the same.

And moreover, ‘ T.S.B.’ must be sensible of the fact that the practice of pouring treacle indiscriminately down the backs of the ladies and licking the dust from ofl their shoes has become so common that there is an imminent danger of lovely woman imagining that she is of more than human clay, and withdrawing herself, like the Princess Ida, from the society of imperfect man, which is a prospect quite too utterly intolerable for the basest of these inferior animals to contemplate. Hence the necessity of showing woman that she is human, so that she may be kept down to earth, if possible, on a level with those who have no sort of anxiety for the companionship of angels. To encourage such an exaltation were to greatly increase the natural bashfulness of man and make more difficult proposals of marriage.

Besides, the average woman does not want to live in an empyrean of her own, and she can always find plenty among her acquaintances on whom she can enjoy fitting the general strictures in these columns which ‘ T.S.B.’finds so mortifying. No general remarks have a particular application, because no one person has in themselves all the vices or failings of a whole class. As an artist may use a dozen models out of which to extract a type of beauty or ugliness in which none of these models is recognisable, so litterteurs write of the collective tendencies of groups of individuals ; but it were folly to imagine that any particular insinuation is intended. We all grow dyspeptic occasionally and grumble at our cook, and no matter what sort of weather we are having it might always be appreciably improved, but we can’t five without cookery, and we can’t live without weather, and men can’t live without women, and men feel still better assured that women can’t live without them, and ‘ T.S.B.’would never have taken the trouble to complain

if she did not fear that possibly these notes might achieve the impossible feat of making man love woman less. Indeed, they do not, they make man love woman more. They have provoked her letter, and thus, unintentionally added to the flames of an already too susceptible heart. However, with a promise never never to offend again until the next time we conclude with the assurance to ‘ T.S.B.’ of our best intentions and thanking her for her kindly wishes. In the visitation of General Booth we have got a * lion ’ of the first magnitude, and of a brand new pattern. Most • lions ’ only vouchsafe to do a remunerative roar in these distant and benighted regions when their popularity has somewhat waned in the centre where their reputation was achieved. But the General, though full of years, is among those whose glory blossoms in the autumn of life, and never yet has his fame reached a higher point than that which it has enjoyed during the last twelve months. Thanks to Mr Stead’s trumpet and the subordinate instruments which diffuse the knowledge of Salvationism to the posting winds, General Booth has, after years of toil, caught Englishspeaking humanity by the ear, and to those who look deeply into the tendency of events, he bids fair to serve as an important factor in binding that race together with the moral bonds which must inevitably precede political union.

There are three aspects about the Salvation Army which tend to limit its usefulness. The first is its theological dogmas, the second is its vagaries, and the third is its despotic form of government which excites the suspicion of those who believe in free thought and free government. There are, however, two features about it which, in the eyes of many who believe in the destinies of our race, should prepossess-them in its favour quite irrespective of its religious aspect. First it is social-democratic, and secondly it is typically English in its doggedness and the robustness of its methods. In this way it is viewed by Continental nations, who regard Salvationism as another evidence of the ‘ craziness ’ with which migratory Englishmen are possessed when they are seen scrambling over the Alps or the Carpathians and courting hardship or adventures which seem little likely to yield substantial profit to anybody.

It is not curious that in these bellicose days, when the superfluous energies of Continental peoples are absorbed in the perfection of their enormous standing armies, the superabundant life of the English people should have taken a military form in pursuit of an eminently pacific and charitable object. The English people have been exceptional from their neighbours in the respect that whatever fighting they have done has been more or less voluntary. The position of the British Isles is almost impregnable, and only once in 800 years (on the occasion of the Spanish Armada) has a war been thrust upon England at her own doors. All else have been undertaken by her children in the gratification of their desire for adventure, expansion, and power. Henee the naturally warlike instincts of the race have not been specially stimulated by ever-present danger of attack, and yet in battle for purely aggressive objects the English have shown themselves on other people’s territory as being the most indomitable and successful.

And as the British Empire expands with the overflowing energy of its people the ideal of Englishmen widens, the pride of the race deepens, while underlying all is the patriotic belief in the might and majesty of the great British race, and in its destiny as the harbinger of the best fruits inherent in our modern civilization. If this Salvationism be the revivified spirit of Christianity radiating from London as it did formerly from ancient Rome, history is doing no more than repeat itself upon a gigantic scale. The present mission of General Booth seems to form part of this general movement. He is the Ecclesiastico - Secular Pope of these modern days, helping to weave an additional strand in the chain of Britannic solidarity. If he can only give us security that the process of purification and reclamation shall be thoroughly carried out in respect of his converts previously to precipitating them upon these shores, his evangel ought to be regarded with favour. The autocracy of the General is, we believe, of a harmless character, and the infusion into New Zealand of a gentle stream of respectable hard-working English settlers can scarcely fail to add to the wealth and stability of this community—perhaps the most truly English in the world.

Quacks and the vendors of patent medicines reap a rich harvest from fools on whom disease, chronic or transitory, has laid its hand, and in this, the period of her relapse, it looks as if fools would in their desperation do irreparable injury to the constitution of New Zealand. The latest nostrum of these reactionaries is to sell the national railways to a syndicate. We read that of old, during times of famine, starving wretches were willing in their dire need to sell their offspring and themselves into slavery, and even to affix the brand of servitude upon those of their progeny yet unborn. And so, in a lesser degree, these individualists are seeking to beguile their thoughtless countrymen into the deliberate renunciation of one of those advantages this young country has gained by virtue of its seclusion from societies which have been experimenting upon themselves for our benefit.

There has been a terrible denunciation of the borrowing policy in this land, and it was not unmerited. There was no necessity for discounting the future of posterity because this generation wanted to grab all in its own lifetime ; nor was this originally the idea with which that borrowing policy was initiated. The chief object was to open up the inaccessible lands of New Zealand to settlement, but personal jobbery and local selfishness spoiled the scheme, and led the lines of railway where their usefulness is neutralized by competition with the water-service. No better plan for squandering the public money to the least advantage could have been devised, and the present crisis is the consequence.

But now the same school of politicians who have got the country into this mess are insidiously endeavouring to tempt the people to take a retrograde course. After having saddled the country with a national debt for national purposes, the idea of these schemers is to persuade the people to sell the public works made at such vast expense in order that the interest on this debt may be paid. ‘ See,’ say they, after having done their best to make the railways abortive, ‘ what a failure nationalization is. Let only individualism have a chance. Sell the railways to a syndicate, and you will soon see yourselves relieved of the burden of your debt.’ This is nothing more than the insidious advice of the money-lending lawyer to the young heir. There are plenty of unopened lands in New Zealand yet, of which individualism will be prompt to take hold, if it can only get control of the carrying system. It has already been allowed to insert the thin edge of the wedge in the case of the Midland Railway, and now it openly aims at demolishing at one fell swoop the sole advantage which the people have obtained by borrowing. This advantage is the control of its own soil. When one sees the sacrifices European peoples make for the sake of the national life, the enormous amounts they yearly sink in armaments, it is surely a small price to pay an increased taxation for the privilege of owning one’s own territory. The Australasian colonies have by keeping possession of their railways taken a step in advance of even the United States. There the fatal error has been made of allowing railway syndicates to gridiron the country, and the result is a growing complication between the interests of the Federal Government, of the individual State Governments, and of these monopolist railway corporations. The names of the statutes passed yonder in the effort to control these octopuses which are slowly enveloping the body politic with their tentacles is legion. In their fear of strengthening the Federal Government by nationalizing the railways, the individual States have delivered themselves over to the tyranny of the individual speculator. We are now being asked to do the same thing. Better by far repudiate. The present generation has no right to curse posterity with institutions which, as they promise in America, may conduce to civil war and the rending of the community. Honour may be a fine thing, but when it is used as a stalking-horse by selfish persons to promote their own ends, it should be viewed more critically. There is, however, no necessity to repudiate. The country can preserve its liberty, and its honour as well, if people will only be patient. New Zealand is not likely to be foreclosed upon, and with time and a judicious system of land settlement she is bound to recover. Until that time let her people defray the deficit, if any, by increased taxation. So surely, however, as the country in a moment of irritation sells its railways to a syndicate, so surely will the day arrive when that syndicate will be howling about the confiscation of its vested rights, and an angry people be decreeing the destruction of the yoke they have forged for their own necks.