TOPICS WEEK.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XX, Issue XVI, 16 April 1898, Page 466

TOPICS WEEK.

I SING OF ARMS. THE Colonial party in the House of Commons appears to be very solicitous that in the event of any change being’ made in the Royal Coat of Arms the Colonies should be accorded representation in it. So far as 1 am aware, the Colonies, singly or collectively, have shown little desire for any such distinction; perhaps because they failed to see from their utilitarian standpoint any advantage in it. But as soon as they can be persuaded that the omission is a reflection on their dignity and importance as parts of the Empire then depend on it we shall hear a good deal more about it. A nice little problem will it be requiring infinite tact and discrimination to devise just what would be a fit and proper representation for the Colonies. True, Mr Ashley Hunter did not seem to find much difficulty when he sketched for us last week his suggestion for the new composite arms; but then caricaturists —to whom all things are possible^ —are quite out of court here. The man who suggests or designs the successful idea for the Imperial insignia must have no taint of humour about him, for humour is always stumbling on inconvenient truthsand magnifying them. Mr Hunter, for instance, would make it appear that t he only‘bonds of Empire' are private mortgage deeds and public debentures. Now, we know all about that, but. granting there is truth in it. coats of arms are not the places on which to rmblazon it. Heraldry is a fanciful science, not an exact one. Lions never ramped on any English or Scotch field and unicorns argents, armed and crined. never reared their picturesque forms in defence of any earthly crown. No doubt, if the heralds of old had desired and been free to make the shields of the nobles and the insignia of the royal houses the medium for truthful delineations of the actual characters of the wearers' armorial bearings generally would be very different from what they are. But the heralds dealt chivalrously w»)h the reputation of their masters in those days, and we have a right expect that the same treatment iPj ieh was accorded to England and ami Ireland should be r vouchsafed -to us. "■'•->tko such metamorphosis of the entire royal arms as Mr Hunter's delicious caricature suggests is contemplated. The English lion and the Scotch unicorn will continue as of yore to support the insignia of the United Kingdom and Ireland. The only change will be in the quartering of the shield. In this, as everyone knows. England occupies two corners with her triple lions while the Scottish lion is found in the third quarter mid tXie harp of Erin in the fourth. The proposal is, as I understand. for one set of the leonine triplets to vacate their quarter to make way lor the Colonies. But in what form these should be represented is indeed a puzzle. Figurative the representa-

tion must obviously lie; but what emblem could be chosen that would be figurative of all these diverse Colonies. Clearly safety lies in the adherence to the old heraldic lines, and probably. when everything is considered, a litter of lion's whelps, if the laws of heraldry will permit, might be as good a device for the fourth quarter of the royal shield as we could find. If you insist on something not symbolic in the sense that the other quarterings are, then you will assuredly produce a very incongruous effect. It is not improbable that this new departure may have other effects than are contemplated. Who knows that it may not beget an individual desire for armorial bearings. You think we are above such things do you —such snobbishness you may call it. My clear innocent reader, you do not know’. In a certain public hall in Auckland there now hang some two dozen shields bearing strange quarterings, which only a few initiated can decipher. These same shields, I am told, represent what the local amateur heralds of the Northern City were, able to produce in the way of escutcheons for certain Auckland families who thirsted after distinction of that kind. The same amateur heralds had their work eut out. for them, but they tackled it heroically, and the result in gules and argent, or and azure —syrens, orles, treasures, flanches, lozenges, lustres, etc., etc., meaning—neither heaven nor the proud possessors know what or wherefore I much fear—may be seen to-day; which proves that we Colonials have not a soul above coats of arms.

THE VALLE OF DEMONSTRATION. ALTHOUGH we are seemingly a long way off the time when men will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks there are still indications that the old fighting ideal in its crudest form is losing ground among nations as it has long ago lost ground among all sensible individuals. Reason has not yet triumphed to such an extent as to make the peoples of the earth lay aside their arms, but it has certainly taught them to be very chary of using them. In the old times when one king had a quarrel with another he seized the first opportunity to Invade his adversary's dominions and ravage and plunder. But mark you, how differently we go about things in these days. When relations between one Power and another become strained there is no mad rush into actual warfare. That is the last resort after all others have failed. There are innumerable interchanges of protocols and diplomatic correspondence, and when that fails to bring about agreement there remains that splendid engine of peace—the warlike demonstration. As a rule it can be counted on to prevent actual hostilities, for either my demonstration will overawe you or yours will overawe me. In either case the result is the same. Warlike demonstrations are not, of course, by any means a.quite modern invention. They have existed from the earliest times. Hut they were very inferior affairs and unlike those of to-day usually ended in war instead of in peace. You see in the headstrong youth of the world when one nation made ostentatious parade of its prowess and warlike resources it was regarded as a direct challenge to its neighbour to fight—a challenge which in those iron years the neighbour was not more loathe to accept than the average Irishman at the fair when his truculent fellow-countryman invites some gintieman to tread on his coat. But a demonstration nowadays is never looked on in that light. If it offends any nation's susceptibilities that nation merely relieves itself by a counter demonstration, and there is Hie whole thing. France and Germany have been demonstrating for the benefit of each other for the last quarter of a century, but no harm has come of it; indeed, it has probably been the means of averting a great deal of harm. But the biggest impetus given to these warlike demonstrations was the naval review at Spithead on the occasion of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Great Britain herself was astonished at her own greatness and astonished too to find what an impression that vast display of sea power had on the world at large. So useful did it prove that it will be seen she is contemplating something of the same kind to overawe the Chinese and her rivals in the East. The Japanese

designated such action as bluff; but bluff or no bluff it is likely to have a good effect. But it is no more bluff than are the oft recurring demonstrations of military power in which our neighbours indulge. Russia, Germany and France are perpetually using their squadrons, in the spectacular sense, with good effect, and why should England not do the same with her navy? In the present strained rela tions between America and Spain we have another fine instance of the part demonstrations have come to play 1 do not believe the two countries will go to war, but, all the same, they both go on making as visible preparations for warfare as they can. These things indicate a growing reasonableness in the world. Unlike our ancestors, who could only appreciate power and force in action, we are able to recognise and judge of them in rest. We are rapidly learning to gauge with perfect accuracy the result of a battle before it is fought; and when we can do that what will be the use of fighting ? Optimists look forward to a time when all warfare will cease and armies and navies no longer exist. I look forward to that time too. bin I am perfectly persuaded that both armies ami navies will continue a very long time after actual warfare is a thing of the past. They must continue as an evidence of potential strength till human nature is very different from what it is. These armies and navies of the future, however, will be as harmless as chessmen and infinitely more picturesque; a regiment and a battleship will simply be innocent formulas expressive of so much force. That's what it is coming to. A MILLION OF MONEY.

THE latest statistical item of news will prove quite a tit-bit to the 'anti-gambling crusaders here. It appears that the people of this colony spend the very tidy little sum of one million pounds annually on horse racing. Here is a peg to hang no end of homilies on the increase of gaming among our population; but I must leave it to others to sermonise and demonstrate on this matter. My experience is that it is of very little use reasoning with gamblers of any kind. Eleven of the arguments which are usually quoted to persuade them of the folly of the thing- are based on ethical and moral considerations which have no weight with them; and the twelfth argument, which is the commercial one of profit and loss, and which does attract their attention—the argument that gambling as usually indulged in on the racecourse is the least paying of speculations — they cannot be taught to understand. Even when they have a pretty firm grasp of the doctrine of probabilities it avails nothing with men who prefer to be guided b.v vain hopes instead of by- reason. Now, what does this million sterling represent? The amount spent in horse-racing. Yes. precisely so; but betting on the racecourse is but one of the superficial concrete expressions of a deep underlying tendency’ in our colonial society. Properly speaking, that million pounds sterling represents our yearly offering to the most fickle of all deities—the goddess of chance; or the money’ spent on mental stimulus. A pretty’ heavy amount to go in votive offerings to propitiate such a shrine or to be disbursed in tonics. In whichever way you regard it there is nothing very creditable to New Zealanders ■ in the transaction. In the first place, ic does not argue a very high order of intelligence in the people to spend twice as much in a speculation that all commonsense proves to be a losing one as they do on education. ‘But,’ says the would-be-intelligent man, ‘I know your argument and I admit it; but I don't put my “bit” on the “tote" expecting to make a fortune. I know that the chances are enormously against me. I only wish a little excitement. and I am willing to pay for it.’ Well, granting even that is the view the majority take of the business, it scarcely’ mends matters. A million of money’ on such a quack mental tonic! What a wretchedly low intellectual level it betokens; what a miserable crew we are that, require to have our nerves stimulated with that sort of stuff. THE BRITISH PUBLIC AND THE COLON lES. TH E demonstrative reapprochement of the Mother Country and her colonies in the celebration of the Queen's Jubilee did much to call

the attention of the general public of Great Britain to those parts of the Empire not encircled by the rough embrace of the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean, and to suggest to it that those countries might possibly have some shadow of claim to the proud title of ’Greater Britain.’ But even before the idea which led to the glorification of the colonies at the Diamond Jubilee, had sprung up in Mr Chamberlain's diplomatic brain, the British public was beginning to reconstruct its conceptions regarding those distant dependencies of the Empire. After all, things as they are cannot fail, if you give them time, to displace conceptions of things as they are not even in minds confidently entrenched in ignorance, and the British Publie, for some years'back now, have been gradually’ acquiring the impression that the colonies are not altogether what they' thought them—they exist for purposes for their own, and not solely for the convenience of the populations of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Nothing, however, can give us a clearer idea of the views taken in the Old Country of the colonies up to, say, twenty’ years ago, than a perusal of the fictional literature of that day. Even now, when there is a ’boom’ in British enthusiastic respect for the colonies, no novelist who regards the feelings of his readers, would dream of.settling his hero and heroine for life in any one of those new countries. He might let them come out to the Cape or New Zealand for a few years to work up a fortune with which to return to England, but that is the utmost he might do. Still, that he can do as much as that with the cordial concurrence of his readers, shows how greatly the colonies have risen in the estimation of the English public, and we can allow time to gradually explode those two still popular fallacies, viz., that fortunes can be made in the colonies, and that permanent residence in them is not a desirable thing.

RECEPTACLE FOR HUMAN RUBBISH. SOM E 20 years or so ago, underneath the word Colonies in the mind of the British Public was writ large the legend, ‘Rubbish Shot Here,’ and it is a fact that not until quite lately has this discriminating, wellinformed public ceased to regard those huge, vigorous y’oung countries as convenient receptacles for the rubbish—more or less useless or deleterious—of the population of the Mother Country. The rubbish that used to be shot in the early years of the century’ into that great Island Continent—which is big enough to make an empire by’ itself—was indeed of such an extremely deleterious order, that the miasma it created cannot be said to have even yet vanished quite from the atmosphere of certain parts of Australia. Canada and the Cape were regard'd as excellent places for the disposal of the surplus population whose unemployed energies might give trouble at Home. In New Zealand generally lay’ the bitter road the younger son must tread ere he win to horse and saddle of his own—younger sons, without the horse and saddle of their own, being naturallyclassed amongst useless rubbish. The reputed climate of the various colonies greatly assisted the British public in the fit disposal of its own rubbish. For instance, if novelists of an earlier date are true in their depiction of life—the [ropular vote sent the well-meaning ne’er-do-well to a colony with a climate that would not interfere with his liver, such as New Zealand or the Gape. While the repentant scoundrel or the scamp with a few redeeming points were generally shipped off straight to British Guian. where the climate might be warranted to punish them as they deserved. in an insinuating, undemonstrative fashion. Poor British Guiana! If half the reprobates whom the novelists consigned to your shores ever reached them, no honest men could possibly breathe your air. Having the highest respect for our own colony, I am glad to gather from a careful study of the great works of fiction of the past generation that New Zealand has apparently always stood highest in the British Public's estimation of the colonies—that is since the man-eating Maori has been known to l»e as extinct as the moa. Nothing but. the l>est. class of human rubbish has the discriminating novelist. speaking the mind of the British Public, seen fit to send out here—well meaning ne’er-do-wells and younger

sons, whose juniority of birth the charitable might consider rather as a misfortune than a fault. He has even gone a step further and given New Zealand the aspect of a House of Refuge - for the deserving unfortunate. 'Madeline.' says the bravehearted Beatrice to her weeping sister, ‘take courage. It is true that on earth happiness can never again be ours since this great unmerited trouble has fallen upon us; but, surely, in the far-off wilds of New Zealand we can drag out a blameless existence unvexed by the malice of our oppressors. Or it is the kind, worldly bishop advising his young friend the Major—‘My dear fellow, you must not dream of marrying that girl. I grant that she she is all that is beautiful, good and accomplished, but the cloud that hangs over her father’s character would render your marriage with her your ruin, and a life in New Zealand would be the only possible life left for you and her." But, as I said before, the notions of the untravelled English public concerning the colonies have changed very much of late, and I confidently await the time when the novelist, voicing the public sentiment on the subject, will reward the beauty, courage and fidelity of his hero and heroine by marrying them and sending them to live happy ever afterwards in some portion of Her Majesty’s great Colonial Empire.

THE WRITTEN WORD. THAT good current hand which the old copy books used to tell us commands admiration, and which it was the ambition of our boyhood to acquire, seems to be a rare acquisition among' the New Zealand youths. The other day the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution drawing the attention of the educational authorities to the bad composition and worse penmanship of the majority of boys who have graduated at the public schools. One gentleman sgid that out of fifty lads who answered an advertisement for a boy, inserted by his firm, forty or eighty per cent, had to be rejected because of the small command they displayed over the pen or the English language. Another reflection on our boasted system of education, but I am afraid not by any means an untrue one! I have bdien surprised on many- occasions at the. difficulty which many of our sixth standard pupils have in expressing on paper the very simplest facts or thoughts. Many of them had but the most rudimentary ideas as to (grammar, and punctuation! jwa.s a matter of which they knew absolutely nothing. A new sentence began only when- the writer became tired of the old one, or had a fancy for some particular capital letter. Yet, to hear these people talk one would never have suspected their weakness; for in conversation they expressed themselves rationally enough, and, if not elegantly, at least in moderately proper form. Clearly, however, they had never been taught the art of composition, or taught it in a merely mechanical way. Now you cannot hope to teach anyone to write decent English prose by rule of thumb any more than you can drill them into writing poetry. It requires much care and method, and in our schools there is not time to get through the long curriculum and teach English as it should be taught. Then why not alter the curriculum? is the obvious suggestion. Why not, indeed? What earthly use can there be in teaching boys and girls a mere smattering of a variety of subjects which they are certain to forget, and are never likely to use if they remember. Surely it would be better to make them proficient in their mother tongue, which they will be constantly employing all their lives. As to penmanship, which is largely, if not entirely, a mechanical art. there is much less reason for the neglect into which it has fallen in some of our schools. Probably the teachers are to blame by the bad example they often set, and which quite overweighs the good precept. There is, too, among grown up people in the colony, a tendency to minimise the good current hand—they so often write such an execrable hand themselves—and the youngsters take their cue from that. In the Old Country a clear, clean penmanship has always its value, and it is always recognised that though Midas may adopt any hieroglyphics he pleases, and the manuscript of the great poet or novelist be unreadable, such vagaries are not to be tolerated in young clerks who have no cheques of their

own to sign, and few ideas of such value to mankind as to make it worth our bestowing pains in deciphering them when written down.