Topics of tine Week.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue XXI, 18 November 1899, Page 909

Topics of tine Week.

THE INGLORIOUS THIRTY. It would certainly seem that those thirty men of the New South Wales Lancers who elected to return to their homes in Australia rather than take the chances of battle with their comrades in South Africa have made a very sorry choice for themselves. They have avoided the perils of war, but they are risking a dishonour which most brave men would account worse than death. Lhcre is every indication that the colony that sent them forth feels very keenly their action, and will not be slow to show its indignation. ’Unless a much more satisfactory explanation of their conduct is forthcoming than any that has yet been suggested, they will inevitably be objects of obloquy throughout the whole of Australia. When the news first came to hand it was felt, that they had betrayed l e national honour and pride of these colonies just at the very moment when we were most boasting ourselves on our loyalty and patriotism. What boots it, we cried, that we send contingents of volunteers to South Africa when those of our sons to whom we accorded all the advantage of a soldierly training in England—the men who have had every opportunity to imbibe the martial sentiments at the fountain head—should, when they come to scent the battle, take the shortest cut- to their homes. Among the Immortals whom Leonidas led against the Persian hordes at Thermopylae there were, it is said, two Spartans who, owing to a disease of .the eyes, were absent from the front. One of them, however, commanded his slave to lead him to his post, and there he gloriously died. The other, Aristodemus, preferred to go home, and was ever afterwards shunned as a leper by his indignant fellow countrymen. Public opinion in these matters is, fortunately for the thirty, not quite so strong in New South Wales as it was in Sparta, but when I read the comments of the New South Wales legislators 1 felt 1 would not like to be one of that ungallant band when the steamer conveying’ them arrives at Sydney. The Sydney people, like us Australasians generally, may be indifferent to many things, but the action of the thirty galled them on a very tender spot, and they are apt to be irritable. I mistake greatly if there will be anything in the nature of the Prodigal son's reception accorded to these gentlemen; and if 1 stood in their shoes I would pray that the boat might get to its destination in the dead of night. Unhappily for them, a whole weary continent- stretches behind New South Wales, and there is no back-door entrance to the colony through which they could conveni-

ently slink to their homes and their mothers. But even as it is, if they knew the sentiments cherished towards them some might probably prefer to be landed on the shores of Western Australia, and trudge across the continent at the merciful risk of losing' themselves in the interior to having- to face their indignant fellow colonists. Of course, there will be some to make excuses for them. Pity for ' their plight. and desire to uphold the colony's good name will dictate many plausible explanations. Already that has been done. In the Sydney Assembly the other night, when the news that thirty out of the 105 were returning to Sydney raised a storln of condemnation, certain speakers praised the moral courage of the men in obeying their parents, and the military authorities, after pointing

out that seven or eight were under age, suggest, that many were compelled to return owing to their not being able to pass the doctor or for family reasons. It is further stated that- the employers of many would not grant them further leave. I sincerely hope for the sake of the men, for the sake, of their fellow colonists, for the sake of Australasia, for the sake of the Empire that some explanation will be forthcoming which will wipe away the stain. But I doubt if any will suffice. The excuse that the men were under nge can, as is admitted, only affect seven or eight. They may have been forced by their parents to return, though it appears very strange to me that parents who allowed them to go Home to be trained as soldiers

would be so unpatriotic and weak as to stand in the way of their behaving as soldiers at the call of duty. Curious parents these, who would do that? But what of the twenty-two who were of age? Family’ reasons, refusal on the part of employers to grant them leave of absence, er inability to pass the doctor are the excuses urged on their behalf. As to the last, it seems to me improbable that men who were selected to be sent Home to England for special training, and were' kept there, are in the least likely to come short of the standard required by the authorities. That excuse appears to me a very la.me one. The other, that the men were prevented from joining their comrades at the front by family reasons, is infinitely weaker still. What had men, who had adopted soldiering as their trade, lo do with family reasons? Thousands of warriors might urge iilie same puerile pretext for hanging up their swords. No, that excuse is utterly inadmissible. It is too palpably thin: and the thirty will want some better plea than that before they are acquitted at the bar of Australasian public opinion. The third excuse I do not regard as a whit better than the other tdwo. There are few’ employers who in such a case would have placed obstacles in the way of the young men. © © THE MARRIED “SLAVEY.” A married woman at Taieri in making application to have her name placed on the electoral roll gave her occupation as that of “slavey.” No doubt the lady thought the occasion an opportune one to publish broadcast her sense of the domestic servitude of which she was a victim. Probably she had just had a difference with her husband on some point of domestic economy and had told him. as wives frequently do at such times, that she was nothing better than a servant slaving; for him day and night, etc., etc. The indictment is a familiar one in matrimonial quarrels. The clerk who received the form being, as 1 take it, a married man, and therefore conversant with such tiffs, took it on himself to erase the lady's implied protest against her position and wrote in the place cf “slavey” the noncommittal and quite conventional phrase “domestic duties.” And of course he did rightly. A semi-public document is not the place in which to ventilate one’s private wrongs. An electoral form less even than a census paper invites confidences of the kind the Taieri lady could not withhold. It does not inquire whether, in a domestic sense, you are bond or free, nor on what terms of friendship yon are with your family or your neighbours. These arc questions which lay beyond the scope of even that most inquisitorial of public catechisms, the old property tax form. If then yon as a wife have grievances domestic which you desire to ventilate you had better not choose the census paper or the electoral application form as the medium of publicity in the hope that in that way your wrongs will be brought into the light of day and you will compel the sympathy of the community. Covert complaints and appeals, as the case of the Taieri lady abundantly proves, never get beyond the eye of the ruthless electoral or census clerk. Your piteous prayer touches not his hard official heart; your most cuttingsatire affects him nothing. People have been known to use the census paper as an avenue for publicity. One lady once tilled up the document with a recital of her husband's misdeeds and her own misfortunes, but I never heard that the Government took note of, still less took action in her case. To tell the truth 1 fear there is no satisfactory way of gaining the public ear in matters of this kind, and she is a wise woman who keeps her own counsel, and bears her lot with closelipped patience. © © © FOOTBALL FOR EVER. 1 believe I have said many unkind things about football, and have thought more; and this is the season when 1 might with safety give the rein to my adverse criticism; for now the game is in abeyance, and the foot of the footballer has for the time forgot its cunning, and one can speak without fear of it—which cannot b« done when the game is at its dizzy

height of popularity. But I have no inclination to speak evil of it now. Since I read that cable message from South Africa that said that the British prisoners at Pretoria were amusing themselves with the leather my heart has grown wonderfully soft towards it. All honour to the game that apparently can bring some consolation to the captives. 1 can quite imagine that they find in the very roughness of the game —-the brutality that I have so frequently condeium d —a very necessary relief to their feelings. These arms that, under hanpier circumstances. might have been dealing death to the Boers at Ladysmith, are now quite deprived of their natural chance of activity. These sturdy legs that might have been bearing their owners in some victorious charge against the enemies of Queen and country are now condemned to pace the circumscribed limits of their quarters in Pretoria. How their limbs must twitch and their hearts burn to think of their comrades in Natal gallantly lighting against overwhelming odds. Football is no doubt a pom* substitute for actual war. but when you are debarred the one it is better than sitting- idle. They can imagine when they bestow a vigorous kick on the ball that the latter is a Boer, and a good scrimmage can be made to bear considerable analogy to a hand-to-hand melee on the battlefield. Somehow 1 don't fancy I would like to be in either of the opposing- teams in these Pretoria n matches. There is bound to bp a concentrated fierceness in the game. Men who have such an accumulation of chagrin to work oil as they have are not the most lamblike of players. Men who bav e been accustomed to a game that entailed broken beads and shattered limbs will not think much of bruised shins or broken noses. It is men tinned as an instance of Boer clemency that the prisoners should have been allowed to indulge in football. But, bless me, I fancy the poor warders must have been only too glad to afford their captives an opportunity to work off their terrible energy. If they had not football. goodness knows what they might, not have done. It was policy io allow them to amuse themselves in that, innocent fashion. No less admirable than the wisdom of the Boers in that respect is the fine healthy AngloSaxon philosophy of the men themselves. No one assuredly regrets more than they the untoward circumstances that placed them where they are, but they, like true soldiers, do not give way to useless repining. They accept the position, irksome as it is, ami in true British fashion go on cultivating the muscle that is to stand them in good stead when thev shall next be permitted to play thodrspera te blindfold game of war. After all, the game that Joubert is playing with General White is but another larger football game. with Pretoria as the Boer goal, and when General Buller comes to make the final kick that decides the match these captive players of to-day will be there on the ground to do some barracking for him. © © © THE WONDER OF IT ALL. I stood the other day. not as you would perhaps imagine “at the tomb of Napoleon the Great' as all elocutionists seem to delight in doing, but at the back of the dress circle in the Auckland Opera House, during the progress of that magnificent’ spectacle, and (plaint conglomeration of opera, farce, pantomime and pathos, yclept the “Belle of New York.” I had seen the production before, so was merely enjoying the music and ceaseless kaleidoscopic effects of colour, without paying any particular attention to the plot or dialogue, and thus dropped easily into a meditative mood, and inarvt lied, as I have often marvelled before, on similar occasions, on the wonder of the complex arrangement of society which enables you or me for a few shillings to command such a production as Bland Holt or the Opera Company place before us. We accept it as we do all the other W’onders of the days we live in carelessly and unconcernedly. The marvels of the whys and wherefores we never consider. Yet it is surely amazing enough, if one comes to look into it. For hali'-a-crown—for less if the pit contents you —you command the services of authors, actors, actresses, costumiers, scene painters, managers, and half a score more, all of whom become for an hour or so your devoted servants, giving their brains and their utmost abilities, and straining every nerve to win your approbation. For half-a-

crown you command a spectacle which, if you were a monarch or a millionaire and wished it for private delectation, would cost you thousands of pounds. And the monarch or the millionaire who commanded it could by. no possible means get more for his thousands than the pittite secures for his shilling or so. But how often do we think of it in this light? As another instance take the wonder of the daily paper. For a single penny we secure the use of the entire service of cables in the world, and if \ve are in London it secures us the services also of the greatest writers of the day on every subject of special moment. Did our previously mentioned friends the millionaire and the monarch desire such information privately, they would find it would over tax even their vast resources, and render them bankrupt. Yet we skim it over and throw it aside without a thought of all this, morning after morning. Similarly we speak into the telephone, and think it the most natural thing in the world that we should talk to a person half-a-dozen miles away or more, just as if they were a couple of feet off. One might give instances ad infinitum. We are surprised at nothing; we practically see or consider nothing as to the inner working of life, and I really believe we are proud of our ignorance. Yet it is probable, that it would be wholesome ami profitable to make ourselves try ami realise now and again what a wonderful world it is in which we live, and how complex are the causes which enable us to enjoy all it has to offer It would certainly interest us more in each other, and render us less sell centred and this would assuredly be an unquestioned gain.