TOPIC OF THE WEEK

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue V, 4 August 1894, Page 98

TOPIC OF THE WEEK

CONCERNING Mr Ward’s Budget there has been a prodigious amount of talk during the past week, and it is probably fated to be the staple subject of conversation for a considerable time to come. It is not without envy that we have regarded the almost superhuman achievements of our daily contemporaries in pronouncing judgment on the Statement within a few hours of its delivery. There is something very inspiriting in the fact that we possess men in this colony who can—within the hour—declare authoritatively what will be the result of proposed legislation for which there is so far as we remember neither precedent nor example. Leader writers, we know, have exceptional powers in predicting futurity, but even under cover of the editorial • we,’ it might have been imagined any man would hesitate to give a sweeping opinion one way or the other on one of the most remarkable Financial Statements ever submitted in New Zealand or elsewhere. Such, however, was not the case. We were told on Wednesday morning by the Government organs that Mr Ward was about to land us safe in the lap of permanent prosperity in something less than no time, while the Opposition organs thundered forth fearful prognostications of the eternal ruin that will overtake us directly Mr Ward gets fairly started on his mad career. That the schemes of the Colonial Treasurer are daring, and daring to a somewhat startling degree, even the warmest adherents of the Government do not deny. The wisest of Government organs have indeed, after their first outbursts of unstinted approval, realised that their best policy, as friends of the Colonial Treasurer and his ideas, was in soothing the fears of the nervous, and assuring the world that, rightly considered, Mr Ward’s proposals are neither extraordinary nor extravagant.

The principles involved in the larger questions of the Budget are of such importance, and the stake at issue is so momentous, that a few old-fashioned folk who like to think before they speak may surely be pardoned for refusing to pronounce for or against before the matter has been more thoroughly ventilated and discussed. The curse of superficiality is so universal in these days that we are in considerable danger of showing too great a contempt for its pitfalls. It appears to us a perfectly monstrous thing that the most responsible members of Government and Opposition should have allowed themselves to be interviewed on the Budget almost before the delivery was completed. 1 hat the Government would support and the Opposition oppose whatever Mr Ward said was in the nature of things under Party Government, but there is something almost grotesquely indecent in the manner in which certain politicians rushed into print and aired their necessarily ill-considered and immature opinions on matters of such magnitude and importance. Belief in the judgment of these politicians is manifestly impossible, for the very fact of this readiness to ‘blather’ to the first reporter who chanced their way, without the smallest interval for reflection, is clear proof of the absence of the judicial faculty.

In the street and in club land discussion waxes warm. The question of cheap money for farmers appears to meet with most opposition, not because it is considered * too advanced,’ though of course there is a very large section of society that holds that view, but because, admitting the theory to be a good one, there will be insuperable objections to its working in practice. The one question on which almost everybody seems agreed is the minor one of the tax on fruit. To us, certainly, this proposal seems extraordinarily ill-advised coming from a Liberal Government. In a sub-tropical colony like New Zealand, cheap fruit is so great a desideratum that one cannot conceive of any circumstances under which it would be advisable to put up the price by duty on imported fruit or any other means.

The plum crop in New Zealand was last year an almost total failure, but thanks to the excellent steam service brought about by the rival companies, imported fruit was plentiful in quantity and excellent in quality. The object of our legislators of both parties seems to the uninitiated to be endeavouring to see how much taxation the colony can possibly bear. We hear first from one side and then from the other (as they are alternately in power) of the wonderful capability of the colony to bear taxation. Each succeeding Ministry makes a tremendous show of lifting off some insignificant straw or other to a terrific accomoaniment of * blow ’ and self praise, and each one quietly, but firmly, presses some new and weighty burden on the strained shoulders of the unfortunate taxpayer, assuring him at the same time that it is really wonderful how he bears it. A tax on fruit will be a very serious infliction, and one which we hope will certainly not be tolerated. As it is we have a duty on colonial wine, which makes Australian claret and hocks cheaper in London than in this colony. We were in hopes that the wisdom of allowing the lighter classes of wines from Aus'ralia would have recommended itself to the Government, but evidently the wind is in the other quarter, and the hopes that we might become a wine-drink-ing instead of a beer and spirit-drinking colony will not be realised for some time to come. A very profound sensation has been created by the death of little E. H. McCullough, son of the manager of the Auckland branch of the Bank of New South Wales. The verdict of ‘death from poisoning,’ given by the jury, was accepted by the coroner, but it is scarcely likely the matter will be allowed to rest where it is.

The case is one on which for obvious reasons it is impossible to say much at this juncture. The evidence is extraordinary, and merits the most careful attention of persons willing to entrust their health, or the life and death of those near to them, to men who do not hold diplomas or credentials of any sort. We are not prepared to say that herbalist’ —and other non qualified practitioners —in general or particular are necessarily dangerous members of society, but there is—and we cannot too strongly emphasise the point—a very real and a very terrible danger in the ranks of these persons being under no proper control. If a man believes in herbs well and good, but let him prove that he is duly qualified to deal in them. * Purely vegetable ’ is the title placed on half the patent medicines and quack nostrums in existence. Presumably the persons who make up these * medicines ’ desire us to believe that anything purely vegetable must be innocuous. It would almost seem necessary to remind people that aconite, prussic acid, nicotine, etc., etc., are purely vegetable.

Time after time in these columns we have drawn attention to the fallacies of Prohibition, and to the fact that the platform prohibitionist is about the most mischievous enemy of temperance in existence. Mr Isitt, who is now in Auckland campaigning, will doubtless do the true cause of temperance, with which we sympathise, as much harm as he has done elsewhere. Mr Tsitt’s recent campaign in Sydney is alluded to in scathing language by the local papers. Says one smart writer in a vigorous editorial : —

‘ The weakness of the Prohibition case has recently been illustrated in Sydney by the Rev. L. M. Isitt. It is easy to pile up blazing rhetoric about the evils of drink. It is easy to tickle the ears of the groundlings with coarse witticisms and coarser sarcasm. But it is hard to compose a consecutive argument which deals with every fact and answers every objection. It is hard to see truth steadily and see it whole, when one is earning a good living as a paid advocate of a single side of truth. Men of the Isitt stamp, even when they know better, will always choose ease, and shun difficulty. They will always prefer to fool fanatics to the top of their bent, lather than try and convince reasoning men. That is precisely what the Reverend Isitt did. His lectures were excellently calculated to charm emotional ignorance and disgust critical intelligence. He never supplied a fact where he could substitute a sounding phrase ; he never arrayed an argument where he could introduce clap-trap invective. Even when he spoke the truth he suppressed the side which did not suit him. He told his audience that at the medical conference in Holland last year, the Dutch doctors advocated total abstinence. He did not tell them that the British section, through its president, Dyce Duckworth, spoke in favour of moderate drinking. He said that the fact that the Prohibition States in America had not altered the law showed that they were satisfied with its effects. He did not say that of seventeen States which have

tried Prohibition, ten have abandoned it, and in the others the law is a dead letter.

‘The craving for intoxicants is natural and universalThe ability to manufacture intoxicants marks the great division between man and brute. Once evolution progressed so far that the prehistoric ape-man learnt how to make a ferment, the rest was easy. Civilization followed as a matter of course. And all through history the nation that loved its liquor was never beaten except by the nation that loved its liquor better. Rome, founded on wine, conquered the world, and fell partly because, after the introduction of Christianity, the quality of the wine deteriorated ; while the heathen Gothic beer was unadulterated and strong. The golden age of England was the beer age, the age of Elizabeth, the age of Drake and Shakespeare, when tea, coffee, and cocoa were unknown, and men, women, and children drank humming ale continuously. Scandinavians are to-day the biggest and strongest men in Europe—also the most drunken. Germany is the strongest military nation, with the most enormous beer consumption. Tn fact the world has never been sober since the dawn of history. If there were any truth in the eloquent pictures of diseased livers at which teetotallers groan, the race would have been extinct long ago. And English medical men are now beginning to find out that districts where tea and sop predominate show a yearly loss of vitality, while the brutal beer and meat consumer dies a centenarian with thirty-seven children.

‘lt is no use urguing that if Australia gave up drinking she would save every so many millions a year. If she gave up food and clothing and went to roost in a tree every night she would save ever so much more. But she is not going to do anything of the sort. A purely vegetable existence may satisfy the apostle of the Pump, but it is far too languid and uninteresting for a young and lusty nation, which means to eat its bread with joy and drink its wine with a merry heart, and live joyfully with the wife whom it loveth all the days of the life of its vanity. Drink is a natural instinct, and the desire of morbid zealots to suppress it is of a piece with the unwholesome sanctity which refrains from marrying and washing itself and paring its nails in order to keep the carnal man under. The world is gradually learning that the carnal man cannot be kept under ; that natural instincts are right, and need only regulation in the light of experience. We have too long crucified the flesh at the bidding of bigot creeds ; and monasticism and asceticism, in blighting life, have strangled progress. Luckily, human nature is elastic, and human appetites are crushed only to rise again. “ Well,” murmured one, “ let whoso make or buy My Clay with long Oblivion is gone dry; Bat fill me with the old familiar Juice, Methinks I might recover by and bye.” ’ Arbor Day is here again, and it is to be hoped, will be duly celebrated throughout the colony. It is of great importance that young New Zealanders should be taught the practical value of trees for timber, their mithetic value for beauty, and their nominal and actual value for shelter and rain attraction. All this can be inculcated into the retentive minds of children as they plant, each its little contribution to the future arborial wealth of New Zealand. Bush is being felled rapidly, and cleared land is taking the place of the beautiful primeval forest. Though the settlers cut down trees very freely, they are not so eager to plant them, and a treeless country would be a desert too deplorable to contemplate. Let us, therefore, urge our School Committees, Boards of Education, Minister of Education, or whatever complicated machinery is required to be set in motion, to insist upon all the children in New Zealand planting, at least once a year, a shrub, bush, or tree for the good of his country. I notice that the Epsom (Auckland) School Committee intend presenting a pretty little card to each child in memory of the day. Perhaps the money might be better spent in giving a prize for the best-tended tree at the end of a year, which would encourage the children to look after and take care of their plant, instead of putting it in the ground and letting it grow or not as it pleases.

One hears very much about the prowess of the old school of jockeys and their relative superiority to our modern horsemen. But is there any standard test to which the question can be referred? It is doubtful. With jockeys as with horses in different eras there is no absolute criterion available. Men who have seen the foremost riders of other generations may be credited with some authority, and it is interesting to know the opinions, say, of an expert like H. Custance on these debatable points. Few men, if any, really surpassed Custance himself, and as an all-round man where is the compeer of that hearty little personage who is yet among the most active of our turf officials ? He himself rode three Derby winners, Thormanby, Lord Lyon (winner of the ‘ triple crown ’)and George Frederick. We haveample proof, moreover, that Custance has been a most acute observer of men and things, and with a rare sense of humour he yet sacrifices nothing of the critical faculty to mere story-telling. In speaking of some of the older horsemen and their distinctive styles as compared with our modern

jockeys, Custance told me that the three most accomplished professionals riding in Ladas’ Derby—viz ,J. Watts, M. Cannon, and T. Loates—lose little in comparison with the old-time men. Indeed, the trio seemed distinguished very mnch above their fellows, and this point leads to the fact that there are, nowadays, so few really good riders, whereas twenty years ago there were so many with very little difference between them. One could, indeed, have picked out some fifteen men of the period just mentioned, none of whom fell below a very high standard. In seeking a reason for this condition of affairs speculation may well be wide of the mark. In a group of contributing causes one stands very prominent, and is applicable alike to certain marked changes in modern men and horses—viz, the preponderance of short distance races over those on longer courses nowadays.

How riders of the old school would envy the emoluments of their successors ! £5OO a year was regarded as a retainer of the largest amount, unfrequently beard of twenty-five years ago. The mere fees decreed as obligatory by the Jockey Club still remain the same —five guineas for a win and three guineas for a loser. The jockey of the former period considered himself very lucky if he recovered even half these amounts due him, for at that time Messrs Weatherby did not effect payment under the penalties to owners that are now entailed. It is common knowledge that certain modern riders pay in«ome-tax (what do you think of the test ’) on £6,000 a year.

From Wellington a correspondent who is very much in earnest writes :—

It has been frequently remarked that one of the curses of this colony is the love of gambling, which is displayed by all classes of the community on every possible occasion. In Wellington, some of our legislators have made a brave attempt to check this debasing crime by various suggestions anent the totalisator and kindred popular institutions. Strange as it may seem, some of the most fashionable women in the Empire City are endeavouring to undo all the good that their country’s representatives are hoping to achieve, by introducing a mosti nsidious and attractive form of private gambling. I refer to the new roulette parties, of which —so sheep-like are we colonials—an epidemic is sure to spread throughout New Zealand, absorbing or displacing the rage for progressive euchre, which at present is all the fashion. Are our wives, mothers, and sisters thinking of the awful moral responsibility they, the givers of and assisters at these alluring roulette games incur ’ Are they prepared to find that they have openly encouraged the members of their own family, and alas ! other people’s too, to spend their money in'gambling—gambling which will certainly be followed by its inevitable consequences ’ The father uses up his spare cash, sells shares, insurance premium, adopts any mad method which presents itself to his mind of raising money for his desperate infatuation—cash fails, credit is called in, then the crash comes. Wife and family, innocent young children, all have to suffer for the bankrupt’s folly. Maybe the wife with her silly desire to be ala mode and give the fashionable style of gambling party, has brought this disaster upon herself. But why should she also involve the poor babes in the disgrace and discomfort, the heartbreak and heaviness which falls to the lot of the gambler ’ I can fancy some gentle maiden, betrothed to a young fellow who is steadily making his way in the colony. The siren who prepares a roulette table for the evening’s diversion, coaxes him into ‘just one game to show he does not consider himself so much better than the rest of the party.’ He plays—for civility’s sake, first; then for the love of it. For, surely, there is no fascination so deadly as that of gambling. There is the usual story. His employer’s money disappears, so also does the young man. Weeping, the maiden bitterly reproaches the fair cause of her lover’s ruin, and demands him back, steady and hard-working as before he played the first fatal games.

Is it any use to appeal to the common sense, the humanity, the purity, the gentle nobility of womanhood, which we all venerate so much, and implore her to stretch out saving hands to her fellow-creatures, to stand forth as one who would lead onward and upward, as one who would call forth all the better and higher qualities in man’s nature, would be, in fact, his guardian angel, rather than as one who voluntarily places fresh temptation in man s way, and keeps him on the bare flat of moral mediocrity.or worse still,draws him down to his lowest level ’ This power, O women of New Zealand ! is in your hands You can do more to check the gambling spirit of the age than any legislator of them all. It is a fearful responsibility which rests upon yon. For your influence, rightly or wrongly used, you will one day give account. Are you going to give it with hopeful joy or despairing remorse ’

TiiKever-interesting— to a sect ion of thecommunity— topic of broken engagements is again being discussed in London. The World was saying lately that in all sober seriousness, and without a touch of cynicism, it can be argued that the new wisdom is superior to the old in the matter of broken

Engagements Undoubtedly (comments a society paper) it is wiser to cancel an engagement than proceed to a marriage that promises to be as unsatisfactory as it is irrevocable ; but I still bold the opinion that young people should ascertain their own minds, or at least weigh the pros and cons very critically before they take the first step, to retire from which means placing ope or both in an unpleasant position. • A light flirtation over the mayonnaise and champagne of a house-boat luncheon, a volley of badinage on the happy altitude of a four-in-hand, an after-dinner stroll in the summer twilight beneath the trees may suffice as causa causans of a formal addition to the list of matrimonial fixtures.’ Of course an engagement entered upon as lightly as this is as lightly severed without any suggestion of broken hearts, but the obvious reflection is that the young couple would have been all the better for a little forethought. For these announcements of marriages being ‘oft,’ which have appeared with too much frequency of late, are, in most instances, brought about through thoughtlessness rather than heartlessness. For all that, they are regrettable as being likely to cause uncomfortable feelings, not only to Romeo and Juliet, but to their parents and other relations. Idle tongues are set wagging, any amount of unfounded gossip is chattered over the teacups without rhyme or reason, and a comparatively simple matter gets magnified out of all proportion, no one apparently choosing to think of the real reason for the severance.

From Wellington a correspondent writes, enclosing the following clipping which he thinks will prove of interest and provoke some discussion amongst readers of the GRAPHIC. The cutting reads as thus : ARE WOMEN CLEANER THAN MEN ’ To the Editor of the Pall Mall Budget: Sir, —ln these days, when women are asserting themselves, and * The Revolt of the Daughters,’ ‘Hedonism, and other nasty suggestions are dished up in leading magazines for our edification, may I be allowed to ask the question why women do not bathe more ? I inclose you some statistics extracted from the annual report of the public baths of a West End parish, which entails a loss of over £5,000 a year to the ratepayers. The totals are for swimming, and first, second, and third-class private baths. In each case the return is for the year ending March 25th : Year Men Bathers Women Bathers

I may mention that the baths are splendidly equipped, and are up to date in every way, and easily accessible to a dense population.—l am, your truly, A London Vestryman.

‘ What do you think ?’ asks my correspondent, and proceeds to give his own opinion as follows: —‘ These figures prove conclusively what I have always asserted that women are not so clean as men by fifty per cent. It is so in London, and I am positively certain it is the case in Wellington—all over New Zealand, in fact. What is your opinion, Mr Editor 1 Please do not publish my name if you use my letter and the extract, which please return.—E H.K.’

The question is, to say the least of it, a delicate one, and having declared that he thinks New Zealand women are not so clean as men ‘by 50 per cent.’ my correspondent is not unnaturally somewhat nervous about discovering his identity. At the same time he invites us to state our opinion, and leaves us to bear the pains and penalties that may follow, without the moral support of his name or the physical support of his arm. Conviction as well as prudence furnishes our reply. In these colonies it is about six of one and half a dozen of the other ! In the virtue of cleanliness men do not—so far as we have noticed—excel women at any rate. At the same time there are possibly people who, like my uncourteous correspondent, have strong opinions on the subject. We shall be glad to afford space in the Graphic to champions of either sex who desire to give judgment for one side or the other.

1889 .. .. 56.400 .. 10.104 1890 .. .. 67.186 .. 11,843 1891 .. .. 77,905 .. 11.583 1892 .. .. 81,973 .. 11.584 1893 .. .. 89.449 .. 14.327 1894 .. .. 105,258 .. 14,540