TOPICS OF THE WEEK.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XVIII, 1 May 1897, Page 530

TOPICS OF THE WEEK.

•WAR! rpo what a small proportion of British humanity does -L the little monosyllable of three letters convey any adequate conception of the dread reality.. The man in the street uses the word, speaks about the thing itself, and contemplates its appearance as glibly and easily as if it were a game of euchre instead of one of life and death. He knows rather less about it than he does of any other thing that has not come within the circle of his experience. And the thousands, too, who would be offended if you classed their cogitations and philosophisings with the rash nondescript ideas of the man in the street—what do they know about war ? They can talk about it—we can all talk about most things nowadays—and be fluently rhetorical in the use of stock phrases denunciatory of its horrors—phrases made by men who had seen and tasted the reality, but it does not follow that they understand it. Ours is a generation that can scarcely be said to have indirectly known war. Britain’s little campaigns in Africa and Northern and Further India have doubtless made a few widows and orphans, but only in a very retail way, and except where the killed were officers, the sorrowing relatives belonged to a class that respectable British opinion takes little cognizance of. But even had there been bigger wars in our time than there have been, the chances are that Britishers would not have learned much. You see the Britishers have always had their battles fought for them while they remained comfortably at home, confident that come what might, they and their money bags were safe. They have never gone through the baptism of fire ; never with clenched teeth and pallid face advanced to what seemed certain death ; never looked on the unutterable horror of a battle field, much less tasted of it in their own persons; never seen the flaming cities and the hunger-stricken population, the terrible waste and destruction ; never heard the wail of the widows and the fatherless, and the brotherless, risingin one awful miserere to heaven. All that they know is the jubilant return of the troops to the fair land where war has never set its desolating feet, and the loud 7e Drum. The other side of the picture they have not seen. Everything, so to speak, has been cleaned up before John Bull's eye looked on it, the poor unsightly corpses have been buried out of sight, and the bloody swords wiped. Thus it comes about that your average Britisher, who has no particular money bags that seem threatened by war, speaks of it unconcernedly, and we colonials, who are perhaps more ignorant than he is in such matters, go a step further and hope there will be war, if only to vary the monotony of the evening newspaper. I heard more than one gentleman announce his supreme satisfaction last week when the news of the Turko-Grecian War was cabled to us. They actually looked inclined to rub their hands with glee at the prospect of what one man termed * a regular burst-up among the nations.’ Anything for a sensation is their motto. I scarcely think you will find that spirit in Europe, especially in those countries that in the present generation have known what war is, or have been taught the terrible traditions of it. You will not hear them shouting "To arms !’ with the lusty foolishness of our young colonials, who have an idea that the carnage of Europe would be a fine panoramic show for these colonies to enjoy gratis. Foolish young colonials ! do you imagine

you are to be on the tree list in the great European conflict ? You as much as anyone should dread it, for it'may mean disaster to these fair lands, and must mean no end of privation and sorrow to us as well as to all mankind. Peace to you and your cries ! TURK AND GREEK. OF course all the public sympathy is with the Greeks, and everybody from Mr Gladstone downwards execrates the Turks. As a fact the great majority of people know very little about either the Turks or the Greeks. Though quite innocent of any knowledge of Homer or the ‘ tale of Troy divine,’ the ideas they have of the men who are now struggling with the armies of Abdul the Damned are founded mainly on those poetical conceptions that have leaked through from the cultured classes—the classes which to some degree are conversant with the spirit which ‘ informed the columned Parthenon ’ and gave to the world the arts of war and peace. Now, whatever the ancient Greek may have been, his descendant is a very different individual. From all accounts he still retains his prowess in battle and perhaps did occasion arise, as may be the case any day now, he could, the present conditions of warfare permitting it, give us a modern edition of Thermopylae. But in all other respects he is a degenerate from that god-like race. Throughout the Levant he is known as a cunning, treacherous fellow with a minimum of principle in his composition. He was that in Lord Byron’s day when struggling to free himself from the Turkish yoke, and now when he has breathed the breath of freedom so many years he is not much better. Byron threw himself into the Greek cause with all the enthusiasm of his passionate nature. It was hard for him to believe that there did not slumber deep down in the heart of that pleasureloving subject people the indomitable spirit of its ancestors. But in the end he had to confess himself disillusioned. It was about the beginning of the third campaign against the Greeks that he arrived at Argostoli. He had raised about ,£12,000, which he advanced to the Greek Government for the relief of Missolonghi, and he was prepared to give his life into the bargain. But he soon found that he had formed a grossly inaccurate estimate of the insurgents and their oppressors. A few weeks after his landing in Greece he wrote :— ‘ I was a fool to come here. Of the Greeks I can’t say much good hitherto, and I do not like to speak of them, though they do of one another.’ I wonder whether the shade of the poet, revisiting the spot where ‘ burning Sappho loved and sung,’ would find the people much altered. I doubt it. As for the Turks, I don’t say that they are better than the Greeks, but I am not at all so sure that they are so much worse, as they are represented. I have known intimately people who have lived among them, and their verdict was certainly not the popular one. They found the people most kindly, even to the unbelievers, and my friends. I remember, would never join in any wholesale condemnation of a people they had found so agreeable. However, there is no uprooting popular prejudice, and I suppose the present day conception of Greek and Turks will prevail even if it is not the correct one. THE HAWKE’S BAY FLOODS. FAR above the distant sounds of battle which reached us from the East last week, and claiming our attention as a mere war cry never could, there came the wail of the distressed and destitute settlers of Hawke’s Bay. The catastrophe which has befallen them is of its kind the greatest in the history of the colony, and it is most improbable that any calamity of the same character and magnitude could have taken place in any other part of New Zealand. For that latter fact we should feel very thankful when we consider the enormous damage that is done to property and the loss of life that is incurred by floods in other countries —America, for instance. At the same time our comparative immunity from such visitations does not lessen one whit the sympathy which all must feel for the sufferers by the recent deluge. That fact should rather quicken the generosity of those of us who are not among the victims. The latter, let it be remembered, have in some instances lost everything, and in nearly every case the loss must tell very severely on them. Consider what it is to have your homestead destroyed, your crops ruined, and your cattle drowned, as is the position with some of the settlers. To replace these things they are, generally speaking, dependent on what aid the Government can afford them, and on the liberality of their fellow colonists. To these they have appealed, and I sincerely trust that the appeal will not be in vain. That our help is really needed we are fully persuaded, and I would suggste that among the various entertainments that are being got up for charitable purposes the needs of the people of Hawke’s,Bay should have some consideration. The Government have promised and will aid, but in view of the fact that they may be required to provide embank-

ment works sufficient to protect the inundated districts from a repetition of the deluge, I think the public might do somhting to alleviate present sufferings of the destitute people. OUR POOR SISTERS ACROSS THE SEAS. SURELY these islands we inhabit may claim to be for womenkind true Islands of the Blest—from a political point of view, at any rate. Look upon this picture of a National Council of Women, whose ‘ rights ’ have been gracefully ceded to them by the chivalric mankind of New Zealand, haughtily trying to wrest from this chivalric mankind some of its rights. Then look far back across the seas upon that picture visible lately in the British House of Commons, of a throng of anxiousfaced, agitated women filling the lobbies, imploring, entreating emancipation from the legal status of criminals, lunatics, and paupers; while, inside the sacred chamber, members amused themselves playing battledore and shuttlecock — metaphorically speaking—with the Woman’s Suffrage question. In that assembly of the nation’s chosen there were found but a few faithful and just men to lift up their voices in defence of the claims of the sex whom the anxious watchers in the lobbies represented. Against these faithful and just few were arrayed a crowd who flouted and jeered and sneered and absolutely refused to consider the matter, except in a spirit of shocking levity. As a lady friend remarked, speaking to me the other day of this farcical debate on the second reading of the Franchise Extension (to Women) Bill, ‘ Each of that jibing crew shewed himself a man, every inch of him,’ but she certainly did not mean the phrase to be understood in its usual complimentary sense. Oh, no, quite the reverse. For the man or woman who considers the proper mental attitude of the masculine towards the feminine sex to be one of grave reverence, that debate must have made truly painful reading or hearing. Why, for all the cant of to-day about the equality, if dissimilarity, of the sexes it was quite evident that the overwhelming majority of the House regarded women in general (whatever their feelings might be towards particular members of the sex) very much as Nora’s husband in ‘ A Doll’s House ’ regarded his wife—they were playthings, children, interesting little creatures with pretty or amusing ways, that quite repaid observation. But as to giving the cleverest and most erudite of them the vote that may belong to the stupidist and most illiterate of men—why, who could but smile at the thought of a little child gravely desiring to be allowed to deliberate in weighty business matters ? Alas, for the rarity of chivalry in this year of grace ’97. In the assembly of the elect of the British Isles (the men’s elect) nothing but applauding roars of laughter punctuated the speech of that wicked and witty Mr Labouchere while he jokingly demonstrated to his fellow members how preposterous was the notion that women could make a reasonable use of a parliamentary election vote. He used stale arguments against Female Suffrage and made the stale assertions about women that men always do make when they want to prove incontrovertibly to themselves and to others the superiority of their own sex. But Mr Labouchere’s wit has a knack of disguising the staleness of such arguments and assertions. His speech was very enjoyable and profoundly convincing to those whose opinions on the subject in question were already in perfect accord with his own, though to those who have not the latter advantage it would scarcely seem a convincing proof of women’s illogically emotional nature that a silly girl canvassing at an election should have asked him if he ‘believed in love.’ Mr Labouchere throughout his funny speech was always quite courteously disrespectful to the poor, unenfranchised sex, and did not fail to refer in properly orthodox fashion to the irresistible charms of the ladies then in waiting in the lobbies. He was followed by a heavy military man, whose indignation at the insolence of women desiring to have the franchise was evidently too great to let him remember his good company manners, for he rudely reversed Mr Labouchere’s compliments to the personal attractiveness of the ladies in question. Ah, had we that boorish military man out here in our chivalric little colony, I would—yes, I would deliver him without pity into the hands of our National Council of Women to be legislated for by that august body as it pleased. But there is one thing in Mr Labouchere’s speech, besides his courteous jibes at womankind, which we New Zealanders will find difficult to forgive him—he distinctly stated that he would not learn of us. He said that the British Parliament was the mother of parliaments, and it was not going to be taught to suck eggs by the little New Zealand legislature. This frame of mind in the British Parliament—if Mr Labouchere is its correct exponent-is truly lamentable. Ab, what a petty, jealous spirit is shown there ! Let the British Parliament read the Scriptures. There it will find that wisdom generally proceeds Ironi babes and

sucklings, and may it not deduce from that truth the incontestable fact that the youthful legislature of New Zealand has much to teach it if the other will but learn. The New Zealand legislature is not unduly puffed up because of the wisdom that has been vouchsafed to it, and therefore it will not grudge other less fortunately gifted Parliaments benefiting by its example. It might also remind the haughty British Parliament that young though it may be, it is older than the British Parliament in that one experience which the British Parliament declines to earn for itself—the practical working of the Woman Franchise. I say advisedly ‘ declines, ’ for every sensible person knows the true worth of the carrying of that second reading of the Extension of Franchise to Women Bill —knows that the House of Commons has not the remotest intention of passing the measure, and that the Bill has got as far as it will ever get. And, in conclusion, I indignantly tell the House of Commons that the New Zealand Legislature could never, never have been guilty of such an act of refined cruelty as Her Majesty’s faithful Commons perpetrated in their treatment of that essentially modest little Bill. They treated the poor thing much in the same way as a cat does a mouse, and, with derisive kindness, let it pass triumphantly the first reading and the second reading because they are so immovably resolved to ultimately pounce upon it and crush it out of existence. This treacherous leniency has led many not overwise people to cherish false hopes concerning a third reading. Infinitely preferable to me, therefore, is the conduct of an open enemy, like that of Sir William Harcourt, who plainly showed a bull-dog desire to kill the Bill there and then and have done with it. He also let it be plainly seen why he wanted to kill the Bill. He was mortally afraid ot women getting the suffrage, since in the United Kingdom and Ireland they were more than a million too many for the men, and if they got the suffrage then—things must certainly happen. Sir William c'early fears those things, whatever they may be. The lady friend whom I mentioned before says they are all afraid — that it is nothing but grim, cold, deadly fear that dictates the action of every opponent of the Women’s Suffrage where it is in question. She says they think that when once women have got the power, they—the women—will act up to the axiom, ‘ Whatever men have done unto you, do thou unto them,’ and the men see centuries of tyranny and oppression looming in the future for them. She adds that this is merely an unfounded fear on the men’s part, born of their natural incapacity to imagine a more christian-like constitu ion of mind than they have themselves. MODERN CHILDREN. A LADY writer has been making some scathing remarks on modern children. Not the children of the so-called working classes, for whom we all pay a large sum annually that their education in everything but manners may be perfected ; but the children of the upper middle class—the aristocracy, in fact, of New Zealand. It certainly is a trial to have to endure the visitation—inflicted by loving parents —of these children. One can well imagine the mental agony—endured with Spartan and smiling heroism, of the hostess, who, talking to her lady visitor, sees the two inquisitive and badly-brought-up children of the guest prowling about her beautiful drawing-room, fingering valuable photographs and priceless engravings with unclean hands or soiled gloves, climbing up the delicate and richly upholstered chairs and setees, crumbling the afternoon tea cake and muffins on the handsome carpet, and carefully trampling the crumbs intothe pile, or devouring the rich cake intended for their betters. All this and more has to be borne at the hands of too many of the modern children. And the mothers, who should know better, but don’t, still further exasperate their suffering hostess by the remark: —‘Look at dear Harold! see how he loves pictures ; he will surely be a tip-top artist!’ and all the time dear Harold is dog-earing a lovely etching, or smearing a dainty photograph. The real truth is the modern child is a spoiled atom, who is taught to believe that everything nowadays is his especial property, and that everybody only lives for him and his amusement. He is, in fact, an ‘ odious little nuisance,’ to quote the lady writer’s own words, and as a child is a distinct failure. He goes to race meetings, attends all sorts of late evening amusements, smokes cigarettes, and sips wine at dessert, or even lunch. As he grows older he does not improve, and unless sent to some pretty strict boarding school, which knocks a little of the conceit out of him, becomes a decided failure as a youth and as a man. Thegirlis asbad. In fact, there are nogirl children now. They cannot romp or play ; they can only dance and flirt. They cannot trundle hoops, or enjoy rounders; they can only cycle and play tennis, and many of them cannot, alas ! even keep up with these young lady games. Some of them are crammed with book learning for examination use only, and cannot even tell where the latest

war scare is. Some neglect school for the ball-room and picnic ground, and by the time these modern children are grown up young ladies they are so utterly blase that they pretend to groan at the trouble of going to a dance at all. No wonder the modern girl does not marry. Who wants a wife of this type ? And, on the other hand, what girl cares to tie herself for life to the ordinary young man of the present time ?