Current Comment.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue XXI, 18 November 1899, Page 911

Current Comment.

HOW THE "LIBERALS” GET THEIR VOTES. Instead of paying for votes out of his own poekets (says the Poverty Bay -“Herald”) the New Zealand "Liberal” buys them at the expense of rhe country by appointments or promises of appointments in the public service, by grants of .money to local works, such as roads jtnd bridges, or light railways, or perhaps for an esplanade at a seaside resort. Instead Of paying for support In eash from his own pocket, the Liberal Cozens the befooled elector with promises of legislation designed to benefit him at the expense of someone else, regardless of the ultimate consequences to the country so long as he maintains himself and his party in power, ami retains for another term the spoils stud sweets of office for himself and 'lis colleagues, with picking* for supporters. He reeks nothing) of ultimate consequences because lie knows that it is not upon him the curse of unsound and poisonous legi lation -will fall —that it is not those who scatter fire-brands that reap tile flame. It does not concern him th:; the smart must be borne; that someone must bear it as sure as God lives. The above is a strong indictment and a strong appeal to the consciences of the electors, who have now the Ministry upon their trial. Before bringing in their verdict the jurors of our Sovereign Lady the Queen should take pains to hear both sides of the case, should weigh them carefully and deliberately. and endeavour to bring in a true and just anti impartial verdict according to their consciences, and without fear or favour. •b •!• + PARTY TACTICS. It seems rather peculiar (thinks the Lyttelton "Times”) that, in spite of the Conservatives’ confidence in the strength of the Opposition feeling throughout the country, they are finding' considerable difficulty in inducing candidates to represent them at the elections. Judging by the correspondence in. the local newspapers, the selection made by the National Association for Christchurch has not been received with unmixed satisfaction. The Conserva t ive representative for t his. city has now announced his intention of retiring from the approaching contest, and a report from Wellington states that it is doubtful whether the Conservative Party will specially put forward a candidate there. Liberals however, will do well not to allow this dearth of Opposition candidates to lull them into a false sense of security. They should make their victory at the polls certain by concentrating their energies on the return of suitable men. 'Wellington Suburbs provides them with an object lesson of the danger of losing' seats through splitting Liberal votes. In spite of their apparent difficulties, the Conservatives may nominate candidates at the last moment, in order to take advantage of the lack of organisation among their opponents. If the Liberals wish to ensure success they will conduct the election as vigorously as if they were already meeting’ strong opposition. •fr 4> + WHO PAYS THE TAXES'? For political purposes some of those who prate about purity endeavour to mislead the people by setting before them statements intended to convey the impression that Customs duties fall equally upon each unit of the population. It needs very little consideration to show that it is not so (says the “Colonist”), for if we regard the tariff' we find that articles that may fairly be classed as luxuries arethe most heavily' taxed, and that the scale of duties is so framed that those who are better off have to pay for the gratification of their tastes. It is fair that it should be so, ami a spirit of justice must enforce a man to acknowledge that burdens should be lightened for those in straitened circumstances, + + + CLERGYMEN’S WIVES.—ARE THEY SHAM EFULLY OVER-WORKED ? The calls made upon Vicars' wives nowadays'are shell that the Vicar's outlook is to a time when he will have to nurse a wife whose health is shattered, and whose nervous, system is

hopelessly disorganised, as the result of overwork. What is required (says Mr Curzon Siggers in the “Guardian ’) is a happy medium between the two extremes of the unpaid curate. These extremes are represented by the wife who does too much, and the wife who does nothing. Now, a clergyman’s wife is often as good as two curates to the parish, without any cost, and hence of less use to her husband as a wife. On the other hand, she may be a most disastrous curate, being too narrow in her ideas of her duty. or having no interest in her husband's vocation. In the one case the husband and wife see nothing of each other between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., but. for one hour divided between hurried meals. In the other, the wife may want the husband to march oft* to ouy her a case of chocolate. A clergyman needs his wife to be as much a wire to him as any good layman needs his wife to be. If this is to be, then the clergyman’s wife must limit her parochial duties by the same sramiard as that of any other wife. Because she is a clergyman’s wife she shoo In not necessarily be expected to do more for the parish and less for her husband and family than any other wife. Her duty is first to her husband. 4’ 4- + POLITICAL PESSIMISM. Our surroundings take their colouring* largely from the condition nl mind of the individual, says the Waikato “Times/’ To one the world is a joyful place, full <>* sunshine, springtime and life: tn another il seems tired, weary and grown old. Unman society is broadly divided into optimists and pessimists, and these classes, again, embrace an infinite number of gradations. But outride the natural varieties. their are those, chiefly pessimists, who are so by profession and for a set purpose. The political pessimist is ho who declares that the country is going to the dogs whenever his parly is out of oilier, and though .In* changes his creed when he gets iju his optimism is never so effective as its ant hi thesis. For the last nine years the political pessimists of New Zealand have been industriously crying down the colony wherever they coidd make their voices heard, but. principally in England, and when one considers the enormous amount of energy they have brought to bear upon their task one wonders how it is that the country has managed to sur4* 4, 4. THE RATIONALE OF EXERCISE. Games are the inducements to exercise for children. Without the excitement and attraction of games children loaf about and do not take, the amount of exercise necessary for their health. Games of a certain kind provide exercise for children, keep them in the open air, and in their wayare a sort of gymnastics. Moreover they- not only train the hand and eye, but certain faculties of the mind, and by the discipline necessary for skill call into action Some moral faculties. Children must reach a certain mental standard before they appreciate or care to join in certain games. A Whitechapel rough would as soon think of playing on the piano as in a game of cricket. Maclaren, of Oxford (not the cricketer but the professor of gymnastics) states that cricket is the best gymnastics in the world, and bases this conclusion on the irregularity and variety of movement called forth, besides bringing every muscle into play. Games are not the same as gymnastics and ought not to be. superseded by it. This was the mistake made by the Continental schools of Europe which the authorities are now trying to remedy by introducing English games into their seminaries. Nothing can replace the games of England, which impart a character of vigour, daring and adventure to the British schoolboys unknown to any other country. Wairarapa “Star.” 4* 4* 4* CARNIVAL WEEK. It used to be the custom, a generatioix ag<h/to head, all referenced .to holiday- in a kihg wjtb the dictum of Horace, “Dulce est desipere in loco.” It is a wise thing and pleasant to enjoy ourstelves in due season. It has taken the Briton a long time to get. rid of

the sober Puritan conscience which he acquired two centuries ago. and he still makes excuses for his hours of pleasure. But he nerd not have gone to the old Roman for justification. Perhaps it is a mistake to confuse gaiety and happiness; the most mournful individual can at least be gay. But merry-making on an extensive scale is a sure indication of general happiness, and incidentally of the material progress of a community. When the wealth of an average man sinks below a certain minimum it forbids him to be happy, and when it rises above a certain minimum it permits him to be happy, at any rate, now and then. Thus, the present week will give us an opportunity of discovering something of the temper and prosperity of the people. But a carnival week has many uses and some disadvantages. . ... We are not sure that our holiday system dees not need revision. To break the course of a year's monotonous toil by this annual orgy of pleasure is hardly more reasonable than to be a total abstainer for twelve months in order to break out into the wildest intenipcra n<-(» at Christmas. Few wiser measures have been placed on the Statute Book that that which gives our workers their weekly halfholiday. By one stroke it added three weeks to each year of their lives. 4. 4. 4. PARTY PROSPECTS. The result of tin; approaching election is one of those things which, Lord Dundreary would observe, no fellow knows We can only conjecture, bays the “Stat." It is true those in the know make certain calculations, but as in the case of the evolution of man from the monkey there is a missing link. Of course each party in advance claims the victors, but this is nothing but wishing united to rhe general disinclination of at! mil ting defeat before it is absolutely necessary. T’he opinion among these who forecast for the Government is that the Opposition will gain seats in the large towns and the North Island but the Government will more than compensate for these losses by victories in the South Island. 4. 4. 4. PIRAM PATENT' FOL’ POLITICAL REFORM. Speaking on the question of political reform, at Palmerston Nortli. Mr Pirani said he had been hammering away ever since lie had been in politics. If a man is elected to Parliament he ought to be lit to exercise his own judgment. If this was not to be so, then the cheapest plan would be to semi a broomstick to Wellington and label it “Seddon" or “Russell” as the case may be. Unless a member was prepared to sink all opinions of his own he could not be a good party man under Mr Seddon, and he had known some members so good at their business that they would go into the lobbies with Mr Seddon to vote and then come out and ask him what the voting was about. The first thing necessary to secure reform in this direction was to abolish party Government and let Ministers be elected by the people's representatives. There should also be an elective Upper House elected on the rolls, but for larger constituencies than for the Lower House, so as to prevent canvassing, and ensure only persons becoming members who were approved by the people as men of ability. At present we get the political dead beats nominated, men who have never been aide to gain the confidence of any constituency. In 1879 Sir George Grey had proposed that the Legislative Council should be elective on such a basis, and Mr Scddon had supported him. Now' he opposed the idea on the ground that only rich men could be elected. 4* 4* 4* A PERENNIAL SOCIAL PROBLEM. There is perhaps no question that has greater interest to the comptrollers of household affairs (says the “N.Z. Tinies") than that of domestic service. Not only’ in Wellington, but also in every part of the colony, the mistress who needs help is confronted with the problem of how to obtain and keep a good servant, while the “lord and master" is frequently perplexed and annoyed at .the sudden desertion of the maid-of-all-work. Why young women should prefer stuffy atmosphere, sedentary employment and the miserable pay of the workroom employee to the healthful occupation of domestic service is a question that has frequently been put, but never adequately answered. Blame

has been attached to the young women. They me said to be untutored, aggressive, and unworthy of respect, while on the other hand mistresses are accused of being suspicious and domineering. The subject has just been discussed at h-ngth in the “Forum" by Professor Mary Robert Smith, associate professor of sociology in Leland Stanford University. The increasing disfavour with which domestic service is viewed is attributed by this writer to irregularity of hours, social stigma and lack of personal indvfiendence. As a woman she seems to enter into the mind ot the mistress and discovers that women do not want iiitelligent equals to serve them. The mistress wants an inferior, a subordinate, not an employee. 4* 4- 41S A SOVEREIGN WORTH AS MUCH AS IT WAS? If there be one thing which the ordinary Briton thinks is u’ichai.gealde as the laws of the Medes ami Persians, it is the value of his favourite sovereign. Other things may changr, stocks ami shares rise and fall, silver go down, wheat rise, iron and other metals go up. interest rates fall, money become cheap, but what, he says, have all these things to do with that handy little gold coin the sovereign ami its value? It is hard ai rrst to realise what is meant by coins being merely a symbol of money and gold being used as a standard of money value, as from earliest childhood we imbibe the idea that coins are money. With the spread of trade and commerce. however, we are beginning to learn that what we think to be a rise in the value of other materials may simply be due to a fall in that of which our svmbols are made, and vice versa. In the “Engineering Magazine” and in our ow.i “New Zealand Mines Record.” Mr 11. M. ('hance writes on the increasing production of gold, and seem< Io show that gold is “going down." and will keep on going down, which, being interpreted into language that will reach everyone, means that our fetish, the sovereign, will not be able to buy us as much of other things us ir has been doing, unless they should happen logo down 100. 4’ 4’ 4' PROSPEROUS- \\ AIR A RAPA. Wairarapa is a place the inhabitants of which never seem to grow older. Show after show comes round, and one receives the same pleasant welcome from the same unalterable men whom one has been acuiistonu'd to meet year after year. Healthy, robust, vigorous, nothing semns to go hard with them. T'here is really little to worry a man who lives in so good a climate and cultivates so consistently fertile a soil. If the Wairarapa farmer has a fault at all. il is that hr is too rouserv at • v(* in his agricultural and pastorr.l methods. Heuer there is very little to d i fi’vrrn fia te the show of one year from the show of another. Innovations and superior'll ies are mostly imported. Nevertheless, the upward and onward trend of the district is apparent wherever the eye rests. It is written in large letters over the face of lnr countiw. 4. 4- 4. TIII2 WEATHER. When Shakespeare '■aid through one of his characters. Let us ial ka l»ou I the weather.'' it was not that the weather was of extreme importance as a subject of con versa! ion, hut simply as -i diversion, and when bashful people, perhaps full ot -a subject they dare not approach, arc at a loss for any other topic, the weather has ever proved a sure ami certain resonrec. We have it always with us. like he poor, but latterly, also like the poor, it has (says the Havvera “Star”) required a good deal of sorting out to get any distinct brand, to know whether it is a summer or winter prodtietion, whether it is allied to the vernal or autumnal equinox. Looking at the fact that whatever the kind of weather we are getting, it is impossible to alter it, it may seem to many a work of supererogation in us to allude to the mater. T’he normal-travelled Chinaman, notw it hstanding a life-long association with the civilisation of the West, goes to the grave believing that the world is fiat, and that the Weather comes from the mouth of a dragon living on the confines of the immense plane, which, of course, he cannot get at to influence. Therefore, John thinks that the weather expert, who supplies thf? barbarian with bulletins from high places, “too much mnkec the gammor\,.pullce the leg all the time.”