TOPICS WEEK.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XX, Issue XIX, 7 May 1898, Page 562

TOPICS WEEK.

THE ONE TOPIC. PKOPERLY there can be but one topic in these days—the war, to wit—and I am quite conscious that in introducing- the usual half-dozen according- to my custom. I am giving an undue prominence to matters which are altogether of very minor importance in the public eye. The gentlest of gentle readers scents the battle afar off. and is not to be entertained with trivia] fond records of peace. To suit the temper of the public, every line of this page. and. better still, of This issue should breath forth battie. For the Anglo-Saxon war spirit is abroad, and a very truculent spirit he is. He calls aloud from the housetops, in the highways and the bvways. He indames the inflammable soul of youth, and the most cindery heart glows again. From the newsboy who cheerfully yells himself hoarse over ‘the latest.* to the little miss who hides away herdoils from the possible incursion of a rude, unprincipled soldiery, we are all under the spell. We might just as well be at war ourselves for the little peace we

enjoy. Go where you please, there is the flavour and atmosphere of battle. You get up in the morning from nightmarish dreams ‘of cutting foreign throats.of breaches.ambuscadoes. Spanish blades.' and such like entertainment -you wake from thesethings to i>e confronted by a morning paper in full panoply. You eat your breakfast by snatches—now a mouthful of toast, now a swig of Spanish gore. You use your knife like a bayonet, savagely attacking your bacon. As you go to business, sure enough you will be engaged in warlike argument by some |»erson or persons. In train.

tram, or 'bus the conversation is always the same — a continuous discharge of small arms, varied by a booming cannon shot or broadside from some authoritative individual who assumes to know. At lunch you get it all over again, and when you take up the evening paper it is only to be bombarded once more. You cannot hope to escape the war spirit: it is omnipresent. In fact, there is peace nowhere. I have sought it at the altar and found the priest with a sword. I have plunged into the vortex of pleasure, and heard the girl who had just danced with me tell her next partner that I was an awful bore, simply because I did not talk war. To judge by that talk, what bushels of Caesars and Napoleons and Wellingtons and Drakes and Nelsons, in the piece, and only waiting to be made up. we have among us. No one knows the potential field marshals, the majorgenerals, the admirals, and «ne strategists. inglorious though not mute, which this young country contains. Nor is it all mere talk by any means. Men are volunteering to go to the war. and women too. What an enthusiasm ! Did you ever meet the like manifestations of the peace spirit? No. certes! One cannot but feel with Ruskin that after all the world owes much that is noblest and best in it to that very war spirit. Ah. but. say some, that was in the past, when we were lower than we are now. Dear sir or madam, look round you. and what do you see in the present? This same war spirit has been aroused by no quarrel of ours, no business of ours: but in a way we have made it ours as we never did in any similar case before. Those old bonds of race between America and the Old Country had been lying so loose that some believed they were snapped, and the ends lost in midAtlantic: but see how they have tightened all round, so that we even in this remote quarter feel them tugging at our hearts and more taut than they ever were. When did you ever feel them tugging like that in the time of peace? Nay. they were sagging and sagging: these commercial relationships. often little better than a game of beggar-my-neighbour. never pulled them like that, and never would. All honour to the war spirit, say I. that has called out the better man in us. Heroism and generosity and chivalry flourish but indifferently in halcyon weather, like pot plants in a conservatory. They want a more bracing atmosphere and rocky soil to blossom and yield the best fruits. A new doctrine this? you say. Not a bit of it: and if it is new on my lips, that only proves what I have been saying, that there is no one proof against the war spirit. SOCIAL LAWGIVERS. HAT a fearlessness and intre- ’ v pidity characterise the proceedings of that mimic parliament which the ladies have just been holding in Wellington! The doings in our House of Representatives and Legislative Council are tame and commonplace beside them. Man is but a timorous kind of creature, after all. He meekly bows his neck to the yoke of convention: he trembles to lay a finger on established customs or sentiments lest he should bring the whole fabric of society in ruin about his head: he is a slave to the existing order of thought and things. But behold with what audacity the disenfranchised woman, happy in the thought of her new liberty, proposes and disposes. I own I have been not a little charmed with the freedom from prejudice, from calculation, and. shall I say. from reason sometimes, that the members of the National Council of Women display. What delightful intuitionists they are! what irresistible heretics! The sex has always been an enigma to man. but these leagues and councils are enlightening us daily, even while in some respects they increase our wonder. Yet. all things considered. I can scarcely wish the sphere of the ladies’ absolute power much enlarged. It may be that when they get those seats in Parliament which they covet, or their more ambitions sisters do. the position will carry with it a deeper sense of responsibility, and they will learn to make haste slowly: but I am afraid tha* the character of the deliberations of such a body as the Council does not increase the chances for would-be female legislators. Women fail to see the wide gulf which separates theory from practice, and it is

more than likely that in a parliament directly influenced to any great extent by the sex. too much of the time would be consumed in attempts to bridge that gulf—to give legislative sanction to impracticable ideas. Fancy

now. if Mrs Daldy were one of our representatives, what security would we have against her bringing in a bill to empower jtarents to choose husbands and wives for their daughters and sons. Yet it is just what she migh: do. for she holds very strongly the opinion that mothers are much better able to judge in these matters than their inexperienced youngsters. So she distinctly told the Council. No doubt she is actuated by the best motives. but her veiled suggestions are calculated to incite revolt. Much as we may trust a mother's judgment, in the choice of a husband or wife we are much more likely to prefer our own. Probably we often make great mistakes in the latter case, but who knows that the disadvantages of the first arrangement, which is. after all. not the natural one. would not be still greater? Your mother might indeed get you an industrious, domesticated wife, as Mrs Daldy says: but there are other qualities which the generous young wooer looks for which his mother might overlook—qualities quite as necessary for married happiness as these first. There is a good deal of excellent truth in Mrs Daldy's remarks on this and kindred subjects. We must all share her regret that •many girls make marriage the only object of life, and until it is accomplished practise hypocritical amiability and dress for the sole object of making themselves attractive.' But all the same she and those associated with her will find it a hopeless task to dragoon the young generation in the way they contemplate. The curfew bell that is to ring ail the youngsters indoors at eight o’clock, the marriage choice suggestions, and all reforms of that character, are hard to inaugurate, especially when the ladies cannot count on the support of half of their own sex in the struggle. ANOTHER PROMISING CAREER CLOSED. XT was perhaps jnst as well that Mr Chamberlain communicated with the colonies instructing them to maintain a strict neutrality in regard to the war. otherwise there is no telling what blunder we might have been guilty of. Some misapprehension. I am afraid, prevails as to the considerations which prompted the message. I cannot conceive, as some colonials appear to do. that the Secretary for the Colonies was haunted by a vision of some of the younger bull pups of the Empire slipping their leashes, flying at the throat of Spain, and having to be called if not beaten off by the Mother Country. Nor. to drop metaphor. did he picture our fitting out expeditions to harass Spanish commerce and annex Spanish islands. His only fear. I take it, was that we should allow ourselves to be a party to the war by commercial transactions in contraband. But it flatters our sense of self-importance to think that he gravely assumed the possibility of any one of us taking independent action of a more warlike character. Of course, we never contemplated national action of any kind, though T do believe that if privateering had.

been permissible there are not a few merry lads knocking around these coasts who would have gladly enough had a hand in it, if only for the fun. There is an undoubted charm in the role of a pirate, which one might play with a kind of immunity when so many others were at the same thing. Certainly there is the yardarm at the end of that pleasant vista of plundered vessels, but you might retire on your booty long before the end was reached. What a picturesque career to look back on when grown rich on Spanish and American dollars! —you could fly the two flags and plunder the two countries alternately and impartially—you retired to enjov vour hard-won leisure on your New Zealand estate. It was my earlv ambition to l»e a pirate, or.' in default of that, a highwayman, and I used to think, like Mark Twain, that if I were good and obeyed my parents. God might perhaps permit me to be one or other some day. Providence assigned

for me a lowlier lot. but —this is for your most secret ear. dear reader—l would even now have entertained an offer from any enterprising privateer at this juncture had not the Powers, very foolishly as I think, interdicted that profitable and adventuresome career. SPIRIT!" AL STIMIT.ANTS. THE pastoral issued by the Archbishop of Madrid to the Spanish army and navy is said to have almost promised the soldiers and sailors of Spain that they would l>e invulnerable to the American bullets, and the half promise seems to have given comfort in the direction intended. If I were a Spaniard I should like something a little more definite. In the old days partial invulnerability might have been worth having, but in these days of arms of precision it does not amount to much. The bullet from a Lebel rifle does not come to terms with a man when it visits him. but passes on. and not all the archbishops and prelates in creation can turn it one hair's breadth from the road it is

travelling, though the pathway lies through the centre of the man’s heart. There is a ludicrous audacity in administering spiritual stimulants of this kind, as little admirable as the proverbial Dutch method. And one questions the wisdom of it. too. Ma-

hornet's way was infinitely preferable and more politic. He promised no immunity from the swords of the infidel. no charm to keep death at bay; but- he promised an immediate place in Paradise to those who fell in the battle: and as dead men tell no tales, there was no evidence that his promise was not literally fulfilled. The Archbishop would have stood ‘on velvet.’ as we used to say in the mining boom, if he had followed Mahomet's astute lead. But perhaps he had reasons for taking- the other course. Probably your modern Spaniard is suspicious of these after-rewards, and would rather have a bird in the hand than two in the bush. We shall see. when the guns begin to play, the worth of the Archbishop's promise. I can fancy him feeling a bit nervous for his reputation for some time to come. Poor I'ncle Sam has no such stimulants to give his boys: it is not the Anglo-Saxon way: that breed requires no pick-me-up's, spiritual or other. It can do or die without either nervines or anaesthetics. OUR SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. AN Anglo-Israel Association, one hundred strong, has just been formed in Auckland. Outside of the little circle itself. I wonder how many people in the Northern city have a shadow of an interest in the common idea that has bound these hundred souls together. Who. besides them, cares to prosecute a bootless inquiry: for what matters it after all whether the British race is descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel or not? So far as I know, there is no historical or ethnological evidence to speak of that warrants this faith. It is embraced by its devotees on the mere ground of sentiment. There is something no doubt interesting in tracing one's lineage back so far and to such a people; and the mystery attending their entire disappearance from the stage of history seems to stimulate the desire to be identified with them. Then of course there are the prospects of sharing in benefits of the fulfilment of those ancient prophecies, supposing that we are indeed of the chosen seed. But the genesis of the Anglo-Israelite idea is deeper than that. There is a

great deal in common between the two races. We are a stubborn, energetic people, like the Israelites of old: in us is reproduced much of that exclusiveness and national narrowness which characterised them: and. perhaps more than any other nation, we assume a larger participation in the divine favour and protection than any of our neighbours. We invest the Almighty with our national prejudices in a way: we appropriate Providence to ourselves, and cannot allow that He is at all so interested in any other part of his universe as in that possessed by the Anglo-Saxon race. If you read your Bible aright, you will find that this is just what the Israelites were always after: and if we do it in a more subdued manner than they did. we do it- all the same. Long ago we transferred the divine aegis from Palestine to Popiar. and took possession of the Ark of the Covenant. Is it surprising. then, that with such sentiments spread abroad, thesesimilitudes should suggest an actual identity of race to a certain class of minds nourished on the Old Testament? They

seemed to see in the marvellous advance of the British Empire the guidance and benediction of the same divine arm that brought the chosen people out of the Land of Egypt, ami out of the House of Bondage: and what easier method of accounting for this favour in the past ami anticipating its continuance in the future than to suppose that we too were of the ehosen people? The Anglo-lsraelites are a little sect, and they are the ole ject of a goo«l deal of ridicule, bit! after all some ninety-nine per cent, of the feelings and sentiments and ideas that go to make up their theory will lie found current throughout the Empire. It has lieen the failing or the strength of all nations ancient and modern to assume that the Almighty arm was bared on their side exclusively. but perhaps no people in later times have cherished the idea so strongly or made it do service on so many contradictory occasions as Great Britain. It is the grand keynote of Kipling's ‘Recessional":— God of our fathers, known of old Lord of our far-flung: battle line Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine. and when he struck it. from every British heart came the responsive note as the string of one instrument of itself answers to its corresponding string in another instrument in the same room. You may laugh at this, or argue against it like another poet. Mr Watson. In reply to Kipling, he Best by remembering God say some We keep our high Imperial lot Fortune methinks has oftenest come When we forgot—when we forgot. But. hold what view you please, there it remains. VERBUM SAP. THAT is not merely an entertaining matrimonial story which is going the rounds of the colony, but one containing a very fine moral. Let me commend the perusal of it to all young men and maidens for the sake of the latter, which requires no pointing out. A young man in the Wairarapa having won the girl of his heart, proceeded to take her from the altar direct to the house he had prepared for her reception, thus saving the cost of the usual honeymoon trip, which he was ill able to afford. The lady, however, who had apparently conceived the idea that honeymoon trips were as indispensable to aproper marriage as the certificate itself, absolutely refused to forego the pleasure jaunt or to enter the little nest till she had tasted the delights of Christchurch City. No man is adamantine at such a time, and the bridegroom consented to the trip, though he had to mortgage his furniture for the wherewithal to make it. Bitterly did he pay for his good nature. In Christchurch a spieler relieved him of his cash, then the mortgagee descended on the furnishings of the little nest and left it bare, and now this poor Jack is rabbiting for a living, while the equally disillusioned Jill has perforce taken to charing. This may be an extreme, but it is by no means a solitary instance of the honeymoon fiasco. 1 can reroemlier more than one case where much the same thing has taken place in another fashion. I distinctly remember one young man who. when he got married, thinking no doubt he and his wife could live on love, threw up his situation ami went on a tour that consumed the savings of six years. Such conduct reminds one of those Eastern chieftains who make it a point of honour to almost ruin themselves in order to celebrate the nuptials of their daughters. But there is this important difference. that there it is the father-in-law who suffers. No right-minded young man could object to the introduction of the Eastern custom here, but many I know of have had cause to deplore the Western honeymoon one. How many a young woman looks forwaril to celebrating her deliverance from the paternal house of lion- • lage and transition into the glorious Canaan of matrimony by a prolonged trip to Sydney or Melbourne? And he must lie but a scurvy lover that can say nay without compunction. Prudential and economic warnings are neglected at such a time, for the fact is that he and the fair one have entered on a new world, an enchanted land. (If course, we know it is the same old world, and that they will find that out; but all in good time.

For the nonce they are in a fairv country, where the only currency is kisses, and gold is mere dross: where your swain feels so imperious]v wealthy in the possession of that one little heart, and sweet petitioning lips and eyes, that it seems to him he could never be poor again. I don't blame the poor deluded mortal. I envy him. I would not waste words preaching prudence to him. for I know it would lie useless. But I do appeal to the lady to exercise a little uiscrimination ami thought for his sake and for her own. Whatever she may lie in afterlife. she is master of the situation then.