Topics of the Week.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XXIII, 9 June 1900, Page 1065

Topics of the Week.

ANCIENT AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP.

The lecture on the above subject, delivered by Professor Tubbs, of Auckland 1 diversity, to the Debating Club of that institution, was certainly worthy o> a wider publicity than it could naturally obtain from so limited, mid I suppose 1 shomd politely add, select audience. The Professor, who, it may be well to state, tills the Chair oi Classics at Auckland, is evidently an enthusiast on the duties, responsibilities, and privileges of citizenship, and considers, so 1 gathered from his discourse, that we should, and, indeed, that the British subject will soon, aspire to a much higher ideal of citizenship than nov. prevails, an ideal aproximating, or even excelling, that of cither the Roman or Lie Athenian citizen. As the Profess r pointed out. few persons seem to realise that the privilege of being able to use the proud and sounding boast. "Civis Romanns Sum.” was by no means lightly purchased, as instanced by the fact that to impose burdens of the franchise (without the right to vote) wr.s regarded as a suitable punishment for foreign communities reduced by her arms. Were the space available, it would, 1 am sure, have done tne average citizen of these colonies not a little good to have refreshed their memories by means of the Professor’s >eeture with regard to the duties of citizenship as the Roman saw them—and as (though perhaps to a lesser extent) he practised them. the majority of citizens (you and 1, perhaps, are no better than others) conceive they have done all they nerd do when they have paid their rates. A great many of us—let it be said with shame—a-e utterly careless as to the type or character of the men appointed to represent us. If any proposition is made to touch our pockets, we are all alive, but so long as this is not done, we tire completely iuoifferent as to whether joubery anti corrupt ion are rampant or otherwise. We would not stir a yard or speak a word to oppose the erection of unsightly buildings, or to pretent the destruction of what is beautiful. In fact, the duties of citizenship, according to the eyes of most of us. are to "do” fhe( rate collector if we can by undervaluing anything wo pay rates on, to endeavour to get as much as we can for our own particular locality out of the city funds, and to howl when any money is spent cor any benefit in which we do not personally sir re. That it is the absolute and sacred duty of every one to serve the city and the State, to see that only the very best men in our midst shall represent us; to buttle against the perpetuation of the ugly, ami (he destruction of the beautiful. That all this is our duty we admit, if tackled on the point; but we tire quite content to leave a very small minority to attempt to live up to the theory. But for the outbupst of patriotism which has been so pronounced a feature of the close of last year and the beginning of this, it would have seemed absurd to say that we should ever emerge from our present unsatisfactory state in this respect. but when resp.>ns ! bility of empire can shoot up as suddenly as we have seen it do amongst us, it is certainly legitimate Io hope that there may be a “renaissance" of responsibility in the matter of citizenship. Professor Tubbs' lecture was not confined io showing how very high were the ancient ideals of citizenship and how far we have fallen away from them. lie had something to say of the future. The professor holds the belief that London is destined to occupy in the future a position far more analogous to Rome than any city that has existed since her time. There may, the professor conceives ere long, be the Imperial city, and in eloquent words he lays upon us the nature of our responsibilities with regard to Imperial citizenship. It is, 1 think, well worth while to quote a portion of his remarks under this head: — “He would be," he says, “a bold man who should attempt to define at this present time the exact nature of the problems before us. We stand actors in a drama, whose grandeur, whose world-wide import we are not yet

able to conceive. History is in the making. The years ’•><> and I'.HH) will take rank as the equivalent of a century, for life is not measured by years, but by intensity of thought, intensity of passion. You ami I. gentlemen, even you and I. are of those who shall shape the conception of citizenship, which shall hold for that new Empire whose natal day we have seen, whose lust.y youth and rapid adolescence we, even we. shall live to see. Men have spoken of the British Empire in times past. Gentlemen, the British Empire in its true sense is only now in the throes of birth. Shall we look to it that we, each of us, however humble his power, however lowly his sphere in this furthest nook of earth, thinks and acts. does. lives, his best to give to the word “citizen of the Empire its loftiest meaning? We shall not, I venture to think, go far astray from the light path if. abandoning the attitude of antagonism, we adopt that which was so much belter realised by Hie aneients; the conviction that it is the privilege of a citizen of the Empire to give himself willingly to its service, we shall then seek to obtain concrete presentment lor the highest culture of our race; we shall make our Imperial city not the seat merely of goveri-m nt, but the temple which enshrines al! that, our race can produce, on art and beauty in its widest, sense." Going on to speak of the future of our race the professor said: ... "Hand in baud with its kindled across the Atlantic, the Saxon folk shall im pose upon the world the I’ax Saxoniea. as Rome imposed upon the I lien known world the I’ax Romaua. Members of the greatest empire upon which the sun lias yet looked- I am tain to say shall ever look -we shall set ourselves the task of proving not unworthy of our birthright, and in the effort to realise ‘ our ideal we shall not forget the lessons to be drawn from the glory that was Athens, the grandeur that was Rome." These are assuredly words (<> stir the blood! Doubtless they will have no small effect in shaping the thoughts and influencing the actions of the University men of Auckland, and that college is, I think, to be congratulated on possessing' a professor whose influence for good is bound to prove so remarkable. Scholastically the professor has gained a splendid reputation amongst liis students, but brilliant as his work as a professor of classics is, Mr Tubbs may achieve greater and even more valuable work in sending from his university men einlmed with the noble spirit which breathes in the passage I have (imperfectly) quoted. ® ® ® WHA T IS TO BECOME OF ( s? Some days ago the editor of one oi our dailies received a cominuuieation frou an American Anarchist breathing out tlireatenings and slaughter against the Empire, and intimating that the Fenians had decided to wage a war of extermination against the British race, not by means of dynamite, the favourite anarchist weapon, but by introducing the microbe of bubonic plague anti Asiatic cholera among us. It was exoressh stated that Australia was to have early attention from these industrious gentlemen We must lie thankful to the Anarchists for having intimated their intention, though it would have Itecti more polite, 1 would say, if they had held their tongues. Forewarned is. even against the insidious microbe to some extent forewarned, and we shall tie on flit? look-cut for the first consignment. From another source comes yet another warning of another kind. In a letter to another editor, a correspondent last week took pains to divulge for the benefit of the New Zealand public a terrible scheme for the overthrow of the Empire, which he assures us the French have up their sleeves just now. The writer gives himself out ns a Frenchman, but I have my doubts on that point. There is an exaggeration of the Gallic idiom in his remarks that suggests a copy, not an original. Perhaps he is a Fenian or an Anarchist. However, let his exact nationally pass. The thing that interests us is that he has got the whole details of that part of the. French scheme which concern* Australasia

and New Zealand in particular. In a recent number of "Le Monde 111 us tie" Frenchmen were graphically told how France, with liussia aiding her, would this war invade England, occupy London, and partition the Empire. But little was explained regarding our fate rcrtiin; teiy for us this Frenchman’ or pseudo-Frenchman. has got hold of that part of the scheme, and he gives it all away in a letter to the newspaper. Aucklanders will be glad to hear that the French invaders do not intend to meddle with Auckland, liecause of our torpedoes, and not altogether sorry, perhaps, if there is to be destruction, that Wellington should get as big a sh ire of it as it has hud of most things. But that was a nasty hit for Auckland to hint that it was not worth taking because there is nothing but mining scrip there, and that worthless. Oh. you impudent Frenchman! Wellington is to be shelled from Island Bay beautiful Island Bay and by its tall twoemls will be served: New Zealand will be struck at its heart and poet.c justice will be satisfied in a somewhat unexpected way. "A Wellington foi a Waterloo," cries our Frenchman, in such delight at the happy coincidence of names, that one might imagine the French had deli her.i lely planned the New Zealand expedition with the sole object of avenging on the city that bears the name of the great Duke, he memorable humiliation he inflicted on France. The French are fond of that sort of thing. If Wellington, then, is so clearly marked out for these delicate attentions, it can scarcely prove the most desirable place in the colony to live in during the present year, and if the war should break out its Inhabitants would do well to transfer ‘theiiHel ves elsewhere. Yet more questionable is it whether Parliament should continue to sit in a. city so especially marked out for the fnrv of the Gaul.

THE POOL'S PAKADISE. I'he principle on which lhe new Min ister of Hallways bases his policy of low fares is quite simple. The cheaper you make it for folks to get about the more will they travel, and what the. Department loses b> the reduced fares it will gain by increased trailic. If the plan is as successful as is anticipated. it is quite logical to suppose we shall have further reduction, but ill would be a mistake to suppose that die principle is capable of indefinite extension, and that we may live to see the cost of railway travelling reduced to an infinitesimal point. It would probably require that the population of New Zealand spent its entire time travelling backwards and forwards over the colony before that point was reached, and such a condition of things could not be long maintained, for the bulk of the travellers would soon be unable to pay even the nominal fare. It is useless, I am afraid, to trust to the operation of that, principle to provide ultimately free means of travel for the community. Nor need we expect in the near future such cheap fares as obtain in the Trans-Siberian railway, where the Government tempt the peasantry to settle along the line by carrying them 1200 miles for 6s. and 4000 miles, or a sixth of the way round the earth, for 15s. I believe it is a tenet of the creed of certain Socialists that all means of communication between one part of a country and another, or even between one point of the globe and another, should be as free to all as the air we breathe. 'l'ranis and 'buses, railway trains and steamboats would ply for the benefit of all and sundry, and whether one wanted to save walking home to dinner or desired a trip to Jericho, he would have no more ado than to step on to the first train or steamer and be carried to his destination free of cost. 1 have never been

able to understand perfectly how this arrangement would work out finance ally, and I am still more doubtful as tb its social success. Would it not tend to make us revert to the nomadic habits of our fur-bnek ancestors? Society lues, of course, benefited greatly by the facilities for travel that are now afforded us. but it is very questionable whether it has not suffered almost as much in these days when ib is open to all the world to wander Indiseriniinitely about. The man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher, according to Goldsmith, while he who goes from country to country guided by the blind impulse of curiosity is only a vagabond. I fancy that if the definition is to hold good the philosophers are few and fur between among the crowd of modern travellers. The great major-

itj must come under the category ot vagabonds. I have no high opinion of the iiKtntl globe trotter, nho so frequently corroborates th. wisdom of our grandfathers, wlivu they described travelling- as a fool’s paradise. But imagine abut it would be if facilities were given to all the fools in creation to realise their ideal of sublime bliss. Then we should be inundated by a constant stream of the idiots of all nations, when we have quite enough to do as it is to cope with the local contingent. No. 1 am not enamoured of this idea of free travelling for all and sundry. Even among those who are not fools the privilege would tend to do quite as much harm as good. Mau never is but always to be blest. Few of us are entirely satisfied with out present position, and we always picture we would do better for ourselves in so.-.ie other place than the one in wh’eh wo find ourselves. Happily, many restrictions combine to keep us stationary, .and not the least of these is the physical and monetary difficulty of travelling considerable distances. Otherwise we would be ever thinking of change and developing- a restlessness that would militate against success in our respective spheres.

THE THINGS WE MISS SEEING. The old-fashioned -story with a moral—the sort 1 mean where the said moral is formally set forth under its title at the end of the story—seems to he non-existent so far as the colonies are concerned. for I never see children reading them: but perhaps Mine of those readers of the '‘Graphic” who were born in less progressive days when such tales were the only literature allowed to tender years, may recollect a staid storyette called. I think, “Eyes and No Eyes.’’ In this an impossibly intelligent lad and n primly obtuse companion arc sent on the same country walk, and while the detestably observant hero (Eyes) finds a preposterous number of common objeets of the hedgerow, and affects a fathomless interest in them all, the companion confesses to having seen nothing of interest-, and to having found the walk somewhat dull. In tire days of my early adolescence 1 loathed that youth with a deadly loathing, consigning him mentally to some limbo. to be shared by those equally terrible infants who asked the questions after each chapter of Markham's history—is any one taught-fno-m Markham’s nowadays?—but the moral stuck in my mind, and conscience every now and then adds it as another thong to her scourge. There may be a few people whose eye* are perceptibly oj>en to the common wonders of every-day life, five interesting things which are occurring every day of our lives if we care to look for them, but the vast majority of us are, I fancy, in the position of poor “No Eyes’’ of my moral story, and pass through our daily life without tasting half its pleasures or realising half the wonders of mundane existence. Unquestionably we should find life a good deal more worth living if we only could keep our eyes open and take the fullest benefit of the free spectacles which surround us. For example, how many of the reader* of this paper, who live in one of tile larger ports, have ever enjoyed for an odd hour the really wonderfully interesting spectacle of the unloading of such a ship, as say, the mammoth Delphic, of which, by the way, some pictures appear in this issue. The process may sound dull, but as a matter of fact it is simply brimful of interest and compact of amazement and suggestion. It affords a more striking illustration of the wealth and the requirements of this community than any I can think of, and as a sort of miniature example of wliat the Old World can and docs do for us, it is not to l»e equalled. The old conjuring trick of the top hat, from which the moet wonderful miscellaneous collection of useful articles is taken, is not to be compared, either for wonder or variety, to the hold, or, rather, the holds of a great cargo tramp. Crockery. dress goods, iron tubs, wbiskj" in canes, wines in laurels, books tn bsilrs. paper io rolls; out they come, one after the other, with a rapidity simply astounding. At oue moment you may see the patent steamer cranes whip up a vast ease weighing wme six or seven toas a« if it were a mere feather and deposit the same ou the wharf as gently as if it contained eggs, and the punishment for breaking them was death; after it comes a tank tilled with ioilirs or seeds, and so on. with awh an ill ini it able amortaaeat that it becomes an impossibility to guess

what there is left that has not already come from those cavernous and exhaustless depths. Yet i and on, and hour after hour, the taele goes on, adding every instant something new. It is indeed amazing that that tolerably large section of the community who cannot exist without gambling hare not pounced on this as a new outlet for Lbe indulgence of their ruling passion. The betting on what would be the next thing to come from the hold ought to prove extremely fascinating, and would at all events have an enormous advantage in variety over fly-100, where, as I understand, the “sports” are provided with lumps of sugar, and the wagering is as to whose sugar first attracts flies. It is emphatically a sight to be seen, and one of the commonest wonders of a big city, which we of the class of “no eyes” pass by. Of course there are hundreds of other “common objects of everyday life equally wonderful, equally interesting and equally instructive, which we pass by without deigning to notice. The example of the ship unloading was taken for want of a better, and because the present scribbler happened to have been impressed anew by the sight during the week. That in taking so slight au interest in. and in seeing- so little of the life which surges round us, we are making a mistake, few. 1 think, will deny. "No Eyes." in the story, found his walks dull. If we choose to look around us to even the smallest extent, surely we can never be dull on the road of life, yet one is continually meeting bored people and hearing complaints that it is rather dull here. The reading of novels (innocent, but trashy), of books, magazines and papers which leave not a single thought behind them, is enormously ou the increase here as everywhere else, and as an antidote I sincerely do think we should do well in devoting a greater amount of time to an endeavour to open our eyes to the common wonder’s of every-day life. It would at any rate enlarge our sympathies and extend our horizon of thought, which, after all, is "a consummation devoutly to be wished.”

THE MAN WHO WOUI.D BE TYRANT. I had thoughts of starting a -competition in the "Graphic” similar to the other one we have had in connection with the war. The query my readers would have been called on to solve would have been "What will be the end of Kruger?” Events, however, are moving with such rapidity now—Roberts has reached .Johannesburg and Pretoria in succession—that it may seem to many folks too late to commence guessing at an event which is apparently so close to being realised. I for one am not inclined to consider that Mr. Kruger’s final appearance in the drama is at hand yet. The wily old gentleman is not at al! likely to throw himself on the mercy of the British nation as did Napoleon, whom some persist in regarding as Kruger's prototype. Be knows very well that he can look for scanty consideration in that quarter, and if he can help it he will never allow himself to fall into our hands. But how is he to avoid that calamity? Africa is indeed a big country. There are doubtless many secluded nooks where he might hide himself. But unfortunately for him the features that make Africa a good place in which to corneal oneself make it quite impossible for a fugitive to take advantage of the seclusion. To fly to the desert or the mountains of hie own country would be an easy enough matter, but he certainly could not remain there. He would find the African lion even less reasonable thaw the British one and no respecter of person*, further afield the prospect i« not a whit more inviting. Supposing he can dodge his British pursuers, how could one expect this modern Ulysses to trek with hie friends till he finds a place of safety per c ha nee in German East Africa? For a gentleman of his advanced years flight to the northward is practically out of the question. The best place I ean suggest is that he should endeavour to get bitnself smuggled to the coast, shipped aboard some friendly vessel and transhipped to the Continent. Once there he will be received with open arms in half a dozen places. Our good friends the French would gladly accord him a triutnpluU entry into Faris, or be Kight retire to Holland, and, smoking his pipe in peace for the rest of his days, write bis memoirs and tell Ues, as the first Napoleon did at St. Helena He ha*, however, to get out of Africa first, and that is no simple matter us things

stand. What is he to do if be does not get out? It yet remains for him to fulfil his promise, made, some time ago, “to stagger humanity.” Every day curtails his opportunities for carrying out that terrible threat, and soon all chance will be gone for such a piece of sensationalism. It takes a good deal to make humanity “shaky on its pins,” and I am afraid that poor old Kruger has lost- control of the machinery for effecting any great eoup. If he does make the attempt it must necessarily be very much a one-man show. Probably the most sensational aet by which he could terminate the play and at the same time not the least useful, would be to blow himself up, as he threatened to do Johannesburg.