TOPICS OF THE WEEK

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XIV, 8 April 1899, Page 432

TOPICS OF THE WEEK

AS OTHERS SEE US. THE Premier of Victoria has been asked to establish a Government labour Department in that colony, and, although he does not apparently take kindly to the idea, he has consented to send one of his colleagues to inspect the working of our Labour Department here, and to ask the Labour leader in the Victorian Parliament to accompany him. There seems to be always somebody or another visiting this colony to study something or another in connection with our legislative system and its general effects. 1 often wonder if these investigators gain much actual wisdom from their visits, which are generally hasty affairs. My own conviction is that they don't. They may certainly pick up a few detached notions, but we have had too many instances of the incorrectness of most of their general impressions to believe that they have gained a true insight into the matters they came to study. As a rule, I think it will be found that the impressions they carry away with them depend very much on the impressions they brought here, and on the treatment that was accorded them here by the authors or champions of the system, or whatever it is they came to investigate. For instance, this Victorian Labour Leader, convinced no doubt of the advantages of a Labour Department before he touches our shores, will be ready to see nothing but good in our administrative machinery specially designed for the benefit of the workers. Naturally he will be taken in hand by those who are responsible for that machinery and shown the most pleasing side of everything. Then, of course, he will be royally entertained, and between the third and fourth bottle of champagne, when his heart is aglow w’ith generous sentiments, our Minister of Labour, winking a jovial eye at his guest over the flowing glass, will ask him: ‘I say, ole man, what do you think of our Labour Department?’ Is there a man under such happy circumstances who could meet such a challenge in a contradictory spirit, or w-ho could fail to carry away with him the kindliest associations of all and everything connected with the occasion? Now, take the case of the Minister told off to investigate our Labour system, together with Mr Trenwith. Presuming he is not prejudiced in favour of the De-

’ bringing the- capitalist- to a true sense hit jo/ace tn the SoemJ Sra/e .

partment. lie stands in imminent danger of falling into the hands of those who are inimical to the system here, and they will not fail to show him their side of things. No doubt the Department will be represented to be a mere organisation for setting the labourer against the capitalist, a mere machine for rendering miserable the life of the latter, a sort of repository for such legislative thuiiib-serews and

racks as the Government consider best for bringing the capitalist to a true sense of his place in the social order here in New Zealand. Under such tuition, of course, the Minister will go back to his Government with the strong advice that it should have nothing to do with such a fiendish device as a Department of Labour, while the Labour Leader returns vowing that he never saw anything like it—the Department, not the champagne —in his life before.

MARKING THE BENEDICT. EM A NCIPATED Anglo-Saxon womankind is again raising that question, ‘Should men wear wedding rings?’ In many foreign countries, Germany, for instance, it is the almost universal custom for every benedict to wear his wedding ring on the third finger of the left hand; and our Queen has tried to get Englishmen to do the same. It is said that each of her sons wears a wedding ring with the name of his consort and the date of his wedding day inscribed on the inside. But John Bull does not take kindly to the idea for some reason or other. In many cases a strong distaste for personal adornment of that character may stand in the way of the adoption of the fashion; but as a general rule the antipathy is much more deeply rooted. Perhaps it is that the masculine wedding ring seems to suggest a sentimentalism in the wearer that the average Briton would die rather than be suspected of. Perhaps, again, it interferes with that full sense of freedom which we all know is our most cherished heritage. However, be the reason for the objection to the ring what it may, the idea of it does not find favour among Anglo-Saxon mankind either at Home or in the colonies. Yet there are some eminently reasonable arguments in its favour. To begin with, why should the symbol of

* Tome distrnyumhiriy' badge by which fhe World Would I'nmV 'if they are married. ,

wedding contract not be borne by the man as well as by the woman, seeing that both are equally bound? But it is not perhaps so much as a reminder to himself of the position he occupies as an intimation to the outside world that be is a married man that the ring would be chiefly useful nowadays. What greater danger to society is there, after all, than the benedict who poses as a gay bachelor? Conscious of his own safety, he is bold with an intrepidity that amazes the genuine bachelor; and as a consequence he triumphs with the fair sex where the other’s timidity condemns him to failure. What untold flutterings, what false hopes, does that knave of hearts cause, not to sjteak of the wrecks he may leave in his path? The worst of it is that even decent sort of married men enjoy travelling incognito in this respect when they are away from their wives: it ensures them so much more attention from the fair sex and amusement generally, they say. But they do not consider the probable cost. Now. putting aside the possibility of wounded feelings and broken hearts—things that are becoming antiquated now —the science of marriage and match-making is becoming such a

very difficult one nowadays that society cannot afford to have these interferences at every turn. The flirting married man may teach his unsophisticated victim a ruse or two with which she can better play more eligible admirers, but anything she may learn cannot make up for the precious time she has wasted on this dummy. It is very plain, therefore", that the compulsory adoption by married men of some distinguishing badge by which the world would know if they are married would be a boon to society. The ring would answer the purpose in most cases, for few men would be such rogues as to doff the little circlet when out of reach of the conjugal arm; but where it was found an insufficient check on the gay deceivers, why should not a more indelible mark proclaim the fact that they are not their own property? Some amateur physiognomists assert that they can tell a married man without the aid of ring or anything else, simply because, in the language of the music hall ditty, he wears a worried look; but more correct observation of mankind generally than the writers of comic songs usually permit themselves must convince us that mere looks are no index as to whether a man is married or not. DRUNK OR SOBER? AN infallible test for drunkenness and sobriety appears from the records of our police courts to be one of the great needs of the day. Of late especially you may have remarked the frequency with which persons charged with drunkenness have solemnly and soberly declared to the Bench that they are innocent and the victims of the policeman's ignorance. As a rule, the Bench appears to take the policeman's word as against that of the alleged drunk, reasoning, I sometimes fear, after this fashion. A drunk man is no judge of his own condition; Policeman X says this man was drunk; therefore this man's evidence as to his condition cannot be accepted. The syllogism on the contrary is, and the alleged ■drunk' pays his fine, goes to prison, or is let off with a caution and told not to do it again. That the magistrate should place such faith in the judgment of the policeman—his utter infallibility being the backbone of the minor premise in the above beautiful syllogism—may indeed strike the reflective mind as passing strange. But by what right does Policeman X set himself up as an expert in such eases? More observant and more scientifically constituted minds than his have hesitated to define the state of inebriety that is drunkenness. Experience has distinctly shown that the old popular formulas are entirely unscientific and unreliable. Many men who are teetotallers cannot stand on one foot for half a minute, and the rapid repetition of that famous test sentence, ■Agricultural implements are truly rural,’ is often as puzzling to the solver tongue as the truth of the sentiment is obvious to the dullest intellect. Any new formulas that may have arisen to replace these are equally unsatisfactory. Further, it must happen that the policeman in most cases brings to his problem a biassed mind. He knows drunkenness only as it affects the class he has mingled with. Perhaps he is a raw recruit who has never learned to distinguish even between the seven stages of drunkenness, and is as likely as not to confound riotous geniality or a mild phase of locomotor ataxia with it. Perhaps, too, he may be a rabid Prohibionist, and ready to arrest a man who has even ‘a smell of drink on him.’ Constables, I have noticed, go a good deal by their sense of smell. It is usually regarded as clinching evidence of the culprit’s guilt when Policeman X declares, ‘He smelt somethin’ fearful, your Washup.’ Only to show how grossly unfair such evidence is I may mention the case of a clergyman of my acquaintance who, when going to visit a poor sick woman with a present of a flask of brandy, broke the bottle against the saddle and was saturated with the liquid. Fortunately there was no policeman in the neighbourhood, otherwise the reverend gentleman might have suffered through his mistake, for ‘he smelled orful.’ But enough has been said to warrant my opening remark that we greatly need a test for drunkenness that can be applied by the least unskilful.

THE TURN OF THE TIDE. MR GEOIUIE HUTCHISON recently returned to Wellington from Waimarino, where h e had been denouncing the sins of omission and commission of the present Administration. reported that the feeling in his district was strongly "agin the Government,' and that ‘the tide of opinion’ had turned. Similar reports are very frequent in the eamp of the Opposition. Whenever a doughty fighter returns from a sortie into the enemy's country he always has much the same story to tell—‘the tide has turned.’ Perhaps, nay, very probably, he does not believe it, but it reflects credit on himself to have it understood that the power of his eloquence has been enough to effect such a change, and it is always comforting to his party to be told that another Opposition Canute has turned back the tide of Seddonism. The turn of the tide is the hope on which Oppositionists all over the world subsist for the most part. How could they exist, think you, if it were not for the belief that one day the flowing waters that have borne the ruling administration in triumph will ebb, and on a new tide they will be floated into power? And the belief is excellently founded, for, in the whole history of mankind, there never was a government that endured for ever, nor an Opposition that did not ultimately get its chance. This thought may comfort Captain Russell and his friends as it has done thousands in a similar position to theirs, but it is no guarantee that the night of their obscurity has almost passed, and the day of their glorification is about to dawn. Yet, how natural it is that they should see in every glimmer that for a moment may light the horizon the dayspring for which they have watched so long. How natural that the receding movement of every little wavelet should be construed by them into the turn of the title that will lay bare in all its awfulness the wrecks of Seddonism. That is the pleasant picture that is ever before the Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues; and when they go into any little country district and receive a vote of thanks from a handful of an audience gathered in the district schoolroom it seems to them for the moment a sure prognostication of the coming change. That’s how it was, 1 fancy, with Mr George Hutchison. The Waimarino people were, no doubt, pleased with George's smart way of stating his ease and applauded him freely enough; and he, good man, deceived by such laudation, so dear to his heart, interpreted as the echo from the larger world, and concluded that the tide had turned. When you consider all that the turn of the tide may mean to George, his little mistake —if, as I fear, it is a mistake—is quite comprehensible. Given a. return to the seats of the blessed by the Opposition, there is no telling to what heights Mr Hutchi-

son might not attain. What is there to hinder him some day grasping the sceptre now so firmly held by his friend 'Bun Tuck,' while that degraded monarch pines in the obscurity of the Opposition benches?

SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR. AUCKI AND is now connected with Napier by telephone, Napier with Wellington, and Dunedin with Christchurch and Invercargill; and for the sum of half-a-erown a person in one city may converse for six

minutes with his or her friend in the other. In busy business circles the new arrangement is likely to be taken advantage of to a considerable extent, and the mere novelty of being able to converse with a relative or an acquaintance instead of having to write a letter to them will no doubt induce many of us at first to expend half crowns where otherwise we would have conveyed our news or our sentiments at a cost of twopence. But when we have got accustomed to the newness of the thing I question ■whether we shall be so prodigal of our cash. After all, with all due respect to dame science, who has done so much for us, the old fashioned way of communicating to one's friends by letter is in many ways preferable to the new fashioned way of ringing them up and speaking to them along a wire. Those—and in spite of our glorious system of education free and compulsory they are not a few—who find the eccentricities of English orthography a worry and

vexation, and those too to whom literary composition even of the epistolary style is a labour will be inclined io hail with gladness the opportunity of expressing themselves viva voce which this extension of the telephone system presents; but even they will find the advantage is not al! it appears to be. Suppose one has made up his mind to the expense of the luxury of communicating with a distant friend, he will be sure to be nervous lest the precious moments should be lost, and this of course will tend to confuse his thoughts and interfere with the distinctness of his articulation.. The inability of his triend to eatch the flying words, the misapprehensions which are only rectified after half a dozen repetitions in different keys of voice, the fear that he has forgotten the most important part ol his communication, and, above

rntsapprehenfionr which are an/y rectified afiter repetition! t

all, the sao vision of that disappearing half crown must upset the most equable disposition, and it will be a wonder if the interview, prompted by the sincerest mutual regard on both sides, does not end in an out and out quarrel. You can fancy Smith after such an experience exclaiming ‘confound that fellow Brown; he is as deaf as a post and a donkey to boot. There I spent half-a-crown in telephoning to him to ask after his wife’s health, and I'm not certain that the fool understands me now.’ As likely as not Brown on his part will be lamenting Smith’s sad addiction to strong drink. ‘The poor fellow- rang me up to ask something about a knife, and then got mad because 1 could not for the world make out what he was driving at.’ To tell the truth, cnly in the case of lovers living far apart who are content with each other's half articulate billings and cocings and cannot, abide the tardiness of the written letter or the eold curtness of the telegram—only in the case of these do I see that long distance telephoning in this country will be taken much advantage of.