Current Comment.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue XVI, 14 October 1899, Page 672

Current Comment.

THE WASTE OF PARLIAMENTARY v TIME. J WHO ARE THE CULPRITS? The New Zealand Opposition charge the Government with wasting the time of the House and the money of the people, because more progress has not been made with the public business. This is glacial effrontery, says the Wanganui “Herald,” for no one knows better than the members supporting Captain Russell that it is the Opposition who have blocked the progress of Parliamentary business in the Lower House, wasting precious time on every possible occasion, and prevent! ng'important measures from being proceeded with. They wasted valuable time by spinning out the debate on the Address-in-Reply, and more by bringing forward a motion of “No Confidence,” which barred the way against any other business for a still further number of days and nights. Being beaten on this direct issue, it might naturally have been expected that the Opposition would have settled down to discuss and help on the business of the country, but they had no intention of doing anything so commonsense, preferring to hinder work until the Premier had to tell them very plainly that if they would not do the country’s business during the ordinary sitting hours, he would keep them there till they did allow it to proceed. * * * WHAT DO WE HUMANS WORK FOR? REWARD, OR HAPPINESS, OR NEITHER. Some letters of the late Robert Louis Stevenson just published have some interesting opinions on happiness and what we work for. The following is a remarkable passage, which is found in a letter to Mr Gosse, dated Bournemouth, Jan. 2nd, 1886: les, if 1 could believe in the immortality business the world would indeed be too good to be true; but we were put here to do what service we can, for honour and not for hire; the sods cover us, and the worm that never dies, the conscience, sleeps well at last; these are the wages, besides what we receive so lavishly day by day; and thev are enough for a man who knows his own frailty and sees all things in the proportion of reality. The soul of piety Was killed long ago by that idea of reward. Nor is happiness, whether eternal or temporal, the reward that mankind seeks. Happiness are but his wayside campings; his soul is in the journey; he was born for the struggle, and only tastes his life in effort and on the condition that he is opposed. How. then, is such a creature, so fiery, so pugnacious, so made up of discontent anil aspiration, and such noble and uneasy passions, how can he be rewarded but by rest? 1 would not say it aloud; for man's cherished belief is that he loves that happiness which he continually spurns and passes by; and this belief in some ulterior happiness exactly fits him.” ♦ ♦ ♦ AVHVf ABOUT OUR SOUTHERN N.Z. ISLANDS? MORE INFORMATION WANTED, Mariners, as a rule, are not much given to literature, says the Southland “Times.” To this aversion to pen and ink is due the fact that of the recent history of the Southern islands of this colony, the Snares, Auckland*. Campbells, Antipodes and Bounties, but little lias seen its way into print. Of the cruise in that quarter from which the Ilinemoa returned u few weeks ago but little, if anything, transpired beyond the fact that she found the Southern Cross and a Hobart whaler at anchor in Perseverance Harbour —- the latter vessel so far successful as to have killed three "fish,” as the great cetaceans, the “leviathans of the deep” are commonly but erroneously termed. Yet, on two of the islands—the Auckland and Campbell —there is in progress an experiment of no ordinary interest —neither more nor less than a test of the question whether they are adapted for pastoral setlement. As most readers arc aware, some four or five years have elapsed since the islands were lensed, nnd, in a small way, stocked with sheep and cattle. At the Campbell's between three and four hundred sheep

were landed. The flock throve —the first lambing. and shearings were satisfactory, but for some unexplained reason Mr Gordon and his men were recalled by their principal (A Gisborne, N.L syndicate). Since then the only news that has come to hand is that brought several months ago by the Swedish barque “Carin,” which in pursuance of a previous arrangement. was there to have met the “Southern Cross” with coals, supplementary stores, etc., but failed to do so. The master of the Carin on arrival at the Bluff was reticent—as all conected with the Newnes venture are bound by the terms of their engagement to be. but he was understood to say that the buildings were all right, but that he had seen nothing of the sheep. One would have supposed that some of those on board the Hinemoaon her recent visit, would have made it their business to look up the flock of sheep, whose grazing ground is said to be but a short distance —three or four miles from the landing-place and the “home station.” They may have done so, but, if so, have kept their information to themselves. ♦ ♦ ♦ CHEERFUL NEWS FOR ALL. THE RISE IN WOOL. Recent cablegrams have contained gratifying intelligence for pastoralists. It would seem that the tide of the wool market has at last turned; the long spell of depression has been broken, and there is every reason to hope that the improvement in prices noted at the last tivo sales marks a permanent appreciation of values. The importance of the matter may be ganged, says the Poverty Bay “Herald,” by the estimate that a rise of a penny a pound in wool means quite a million pounds sterling added to the value of the New Zealand clip, and comparing prices now with those at bed-rock last year, the average advance on all classes has probably been nearly double the amount stated. The gain will go to .the grower, the broker, the mortgagee, and will through them percolate to the whole community. * ♦ ♦ THE DESPISED POULTRY TRADE. It is true that up to the present time there have been no apparent results in the way of development of the new industry, but it is little more than two years since the first instructor began in the country the work of organisation and instruction, and as there is as much difference between modern poultry farming and the old-time farm yard breeding as ’twixt hand and machine made dairy produce, a good deal of time and labour must be expended by the instructor before profitable results become apparent. The truth is that the average settler in this country who has breadth of land for either sheep or dairy cattle is so well off that he is apt'.o despise poultry raising as an adjunct to his business. It is a small affair, and not yet worth his serious attention, but when he comes to realise that there is as much difference in value between a pure-bred bird and the barndoor fowl as 'twixt a merino cull and a prime crossbred freezer, he will find it to his interest that both he rnd his family shall take advantage of the liberal instruction offered by the Agricultural Department. We have the example of Victoria of what may be done by liberal encouragement of this industry, for the products of which there is just as limitless a market in the O'd Country as for our meat and dairy produce.— “Wellington Times.” ♦♦ ♦ . PURE SPIRITS.

Few people seem to know or to understand that spirits distilled from the grape or from sugar are the purest of all, as they contain no fusel oil. The danger is with spirits distilled from grain, and I take this opportunity of pointing this out. Brandy in France is. or should be, distilled from the grape, and hence it is of all spirits the best and the purest. Rum distilled from eluag-sugar is equally free from injurious products, and it is a pity that the place of these two should be now taken up by grain spirit, such as whisky and gin, that really require great age or care in their distillation to eliminate the “fusel oil.” so injurious to the votnrv of these excitants.— “Food for the Fat.”

MODEST HEE HEM SMITH COULD HAVE SAYED HEDDON SEVERAL BLUNDERS. Speaking the other evening at New Plymouth, Mr Hee Hem Smith observes:—Some of the papers tried to make out that he voted for the Government right or wrong. That was not true. He could bring Hansard to prove that it was not. On many occasions he voted against the Government when he found they were in the wrong. In fact, if the Government had only taken his advice they would not have got into half the scrapes they did. (Laughter and applause.) Had he been allowed to formulate a policy for them .they would be in power for the next fifty years. (Renewed laughter.) There could be no doubt about it. In conclusion, he would like to say a few words on the Prohibition question. ♦ ♦ ♦ THE WEAK SPOT IN ENGLISH CRICKET. The mischief in first class cricket at the close of the nineteenth century is the comparative absence from the game of the genuine amateur element. A large proportion of the <-o--called amateurs are men who earn their living by cricket and by nothing else. That is not a very healthy state of matters, though it may be inevitable in the change of social circumstances. There are fewer men of independent means than of old who can afford to dedicate their summer months to bat and ball. Those who have ambitions, cr who must make their way in life, in business, in a profession—men of whom the Steeles and the Lytteltons are examples—cannot devote very much of their time to a game, however noble and however captivating. What remedy time will work out we know not; but whatever remedy is ultimately applied will, we are convinced, be founded upon the recognition, and not upon t'he ignoring or the suppression, of the real facts. ♦ ♦ ♦ A CAPITAL NOTION. EDUCATION IN RURAL MATTERS. The agriculturist of this colony has largely to produce for a market at the other side of the world, and he has to compete with people of many countries where labour is cheaper than it is here. Were it not for the generous climate we enjoy, such competition would be impossible, and even with that advantage it stands to reason that, with greater knowledge and the adoption of the best systems in other countries, our agriculturists will be in danger of being left out in the cold unless they also keep in advance. The present Government has done a great deal in the direction of helping those who produce from the soil, by’ appointing experts who are always prepared to give advice and instruction as to most approved methods. It is an undoubted fact that the dairy industry has benefited largely in consequence, and good work has also been done in respect to fruit culture and poultry-raising. It frequently happens, however, that men of mature growth are prejudiced in favour of methods that have been improved upon, and consequently it is desirable to give practical instruction to our young people, and to do so in a way that will give them the utmost interest in their work. Every class must be served as completely as possible, and reason indicates that it will be wise to give such instruction in rural districts as will best fit the rising generation for the struggles of more mature years. ♦ + ♦

CHILDHOOD AND THE GROWNUPS.

It is not. surprising to know that the life of the grown-ups is in a measure the reflections of childhood days, and as we pass through the various stages of our growth, again and again are enacted the scenes that we so earnestly indulged in in our innocent days. The playing at fire and battle, the doll’s party, and the many other events go to show an analogy between childhood fiction and the life of the grown-ups, and, asks one writer, is there anything more curious in this altogether curious world than the persistence of our babyish traits after we have become children of a larger growth? One of the first things an infant learns is to use the sense of

terror as a luxury. Peek-a-boo has its origin in this t.-iek, and a very young child will laugh royally if it can pretend to scare itself or its parents. As we grow older we require more and more elaborate machinery to give our hearts the same delightsome shock that once followed the simple word “Boo!” The banishing of tho belief in ghosts has caused all sorts of extra labour and subterfuge. We have physic shocks now, and employ hypnotism, or project the fancy into the future so far that we can invent marvellous uncanny machines that are quite as good as ghosts. To give our nerves this alcohol of fiction, the world employs Heaven only knows how large an army. Think of the myriad pen and ink makers, the mob of pen and ink slingers, the publishers and editors, and office boys, and the type-setters and proof-readers, and pressmen and devils, the binders and the dealers and the book agents—a Xeric army with impedimenta of enormous machinery of presses and linotypes, and a whole book post. And all for what? That the old illusions may be kept up, that the work-a-day grown-ups may get back to the nursery and preserve the bliss of dollculture and make-believe. The child is not father to the man; the child is the man—uo less busy at the later age than at the earlier in his earnest pursuit of the games of “supposing” and “pretend.”