Current Comment.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue IV, 28 July 1900, Page 155

Current Comment.

“ Th« Little Splaah of Crimson.” In a letter to the “Daily News” Mr A. G. Hales says:—"Some of the younger bloods are thinking of the V.C. they mean to win. For myself I cannot help thinking of the little splash of crimson I have seen so often on a man’s temple, of the strong bony fingers buried knuckle deep In the soft soil in the last death clutch, as the soul has slipped owt of the little hole in the centre of the crimson splash, round which the sharp splintterm of jagged bone, like broken needle points, project. Beautiful war! Glorious war! A moment of mortal anguish, a hole in the earth, and a soul on its way to judgment. A scout has just dashed past my tent, on his way towards the staff officer's ca-mp. His left arm lies useless by his side; his face is as white as the niilk the rraids pour from the pails in the Highlands at dawn. His knit brow and clenched teeth tell he is no holiday rider. He has to pass a little knot of privates. “What news, mate?” calls out the bugler. The scout does not pause, does not: check the steady gallop of his Argentine pony, does not even bend his body in the saddle, but half turning his head for a moment flings his reply baek at them as a. lass throws a shoe over her shoulder for luck: -Only a skirmish—they've bolted." ”

The Use of the Revolver. Nervous folks who are always on the look out for that familiar burglar should not be allowed revolvers. Thomas Hopwood, a groom, was charged in Sydney recently with hiving been found illegally on the premises of John Findlay, at Rookwood. Early on Sunday morning, hearing a noise. Frnrthiy arose, saw the accused at the back of hrs house, and ehased him. firing a shot at the retreating figure before the fugitive was captured. He.pgood explains that he had fallen asleep in the last train from Sydney to As4v lieki and had been overeai-ried to Homebush. He then proceeded, as he thought, to walk baek, but took the wrong road and did not discover his mistake unti.l he reached Bookwood. Then, being too tired to walk baek to Ashfield he was looking for an empty house in which to sleep until morning when he was ehased by Findlay. The magistrate believed his story and dismissed the ease.

The Train of the Future. The House of loramons has thrown out the Manchester and. Liverpool Express Railway Bill. The committee, however, did not condemn the proposal to run- trains at nearly WO miles per hour on- the mono rail. The plans satisfied them completely, excepting as to brake power. The problem of stopping a mono-railway at high speed was not. deemed to be sufficiently dear. The promoters of the Bill, too. had not satisfied certain local interests. This marvellous scheme of locomotion will come np again next year. If may be here noted that, to the joy of Londbners who use the underground railway, trains have already commence*! running on part of the district' section with electrical engines. There is hope that before long the funnels will be less evil-smelling than they are with the ordinary locomotive. + + +

Spoils to the Victors. The Wellington “Post,”’ referring to the proposed increase in- Ministers’ salaries, says:—“The scale proposed in the Bill is higher than that existing in any -of the Australia*! colonies, since in New South Wales there are no- house allowances. As against the New South Wales Chief Secretary’s £’182(1 our Premier is to be paid £1950, and’ as against the £1370 of the other New South Wales Ministers, our Ministers are to receive £1450. Instead of being higher, the New Zealand scale should obviously be lower than that of either Victorin or New South* Wales. Then, again, the sum allowed for the salaries of the Commonwealth Ministers is only £12,000 a year, or just) £350 more than the total of the salaries without house allowances proposed to be spent upon the Ministers of thia teMny. Including house allowance, it is proposed that. we should- pay mote for our HHtflfrters than Federated l Australia. Clou Id anything be more absurdT

There is another comparison that brings out forcibly the disproportionate rewards now asked by our Ministers for their services. Our Chief Justice is paid only £ I*so, and our puisne Judges £l5OO a year, and no house allowances. That is to say, the Premier, with his bouse allowance, is to receive £?00 a year more than the Chief Justice, and the other Ministers with their house allowances each only £5O a year less th in the other Judge--. From no standpoint, so far as we can see. ean the salaries now proposed for the Cabinet be justified, ami we trust that Parliament will refuse t*< sanction this enormous increase in expenditure." + + + Colonial Snobs. The Dunedin correspond nt of the Cromwell "Argus” givts the bl owing- as an instance of e:*loniai snobbery:—An early settler who hail tho luck to secure a g* <xl stretch of country made a good deal of money out of sheep. and when he died and the land was sold there w.is a handsome competence for the fanlily. Some of the girls were sent t-> Em-I.ni t » finish their education, and a-e now necessarily the erem*' de la creme of society. Going home in tl.e t:an>e:>r the other evening they were greatly interested in the doings of n Innd-enin little child, but while they could not conceal the enthusiasm inspired they explained afterwards that "Alt r all. dear, it was only a comm n i h 1 I. but so surprising to see a common child so bold, handsome, and clever.” A dance was given the sum- night, and it so happened that the father of the child was the leader of tin- mn«i inns. He got. to hear of what was ra : d, but could say nothing then. But the musicians were curtained off. and one of them rudely' drew the curtains a little apart, except when partaking of the beer and sandwiches good enough for common people, while the elite sipped champagne. The daughter, enraged at the boldness, sought the musician’s shop next day. ami bouneing in with ’Are you the man,' etc., roundly abused him for presumption, declaring that they would' not again have common people lo iking on. She was bouncing qut with haughty glance at the occupants of the shop wfhen she was petrified by the rem rk. "Well. if I and my child are common people, perhaps you can tell me what that, good old sort your mother was when she used to milk the cows behind old ’s barn””

A Woman’s Romance. A member of the Johannesburg commando in laager at (lleneoe was discovered to be a young woman, and inquiries elicited the foil- wing romantic story: —When the husband of this plucky young woman vrouw was

eermmanderred for sorrfee at the front, she attired herself in male clothes, went to the field-cornet, and requested him to commandeer her. This was done, and she proceeded to the front as a properly-equipped burgher. She fought bravely in the trenches at Spion Kop. It was not until a few days ago that her sex was discovered, and she was then at once sent to her home. On the way thither she made a speech to the people assembled on the station platform, exhorting the burghers to persevere in the struggle, and explaining that she preferred fighting for her country to lying ill at home. + ♦ + The Emperor of China. The Shanghai correspondent of a London journal has telegraphed to bis paper what he declares is an official declaration of policy by the Emperor Kwang Hsn. It was communicated through Weng Tung Ho. the Emperor’s ex-tutor, who was dismissed from Pekin in IS9B. The more important part of the Imperial message is as follows: — His Majesty is convinced, through amply trustworthy sources, that the loyal support of many millions ol the Chinese will be accorded to his proposals for putting an end to the stat*-, of anarchy brought about by the action of the Empress I'si Tsi. The Government of (hina being virtually non-existent, the Emperor proposes that the Foreign Powers.whose troops dominate the capital, shall ri-.-over his imperial person from the palace, in which l.is Ma jesty is confined a prisoner. shall declare Empress llsi Tsi and her present Ministers to be usurpers, and shall bring Emperor KwangHsu to Nanking. Wu Chang or Shanghai. whichever the said Foreign Powers- deem to be the most suitable situation for the capital of the Chinese empire under the new- conditions. The Government should be carried on, says Weng Tung Ho. by the Emperor. but the Powers should declare a joint protectorate over China. The proposals include the abolition of t.hc Imperial Boards at Pekin, the appointment of new Ministers, the reorganisation of the army to police the Empire under foreign officers, the control of the ( ustoins and posts ami telegraphs' by tl.e Foreign Powers, the establishment of a uniform currency, the readjustment of taxation, and. finally, freedom of religion. The revolution would be a huge one. but Weng declares that it would be peacefully accepted by the great bulk of the Chinese. The present difficulty. Wong imjilied. would need the presence of fully 100,000 foreign troops. + 4- + Cricket and the Empire. Let no wiseacre with his head stuffed full of high politics, of questions of trade and tariffs, of scientific theories of-raeial involutions, dare to laugh at •Ticket (says the London “Daily Mail"). If there had been no Australian test matches there would most likely have been no Colonial Volunteers. Just as the kindly memories of school friendships knit men together in after manhood, just as the athletic

training of an English boyhood fashions men into plucky and healthy soldiers, so does the friendly rivalry of the cricket field make our colonists willing ami worthy defenders of the Empire. We have spoken chiefly of Australia, but we do not forget that India has sent us a Ilan jit sinhji, and that the record of his triumphs and of bis popularity has attached to the Crown the hearts of Indian princes ami I heir subjects more closely and certainly than all the diplomacy of Governors-! leneral and Political Residents and all the paraphernalia of official cultivation. Our West Indian colonies have been garnered into the inner circle of practical loyalty in the same sportive fashion, England sending its cricketers to them and welcoming their cricketers in turn. Such small matters may be the mainsprings of Empire. Our soldiers are the best in the world because they have learned to be plucky and ready of hand and eye in our national sports; our colonists are helpful comrades because they have shared our pastimes in peaceful days, and learned to know us as the friendlv rivals of the cricket field. + + + The Wreckage of War. Mr George Lynch, the war correspondent who was captured by the Boers, writing in the "Westminster Gazette." says: —“We are coming back to England in a ship laden with the human wreckage of war—the wound- • ed. the maimed, the sick, who to their graves will curry maiming of their sickness. There are amongst these men, those who will crawl about the world lopsided, incomplete cripples, or those who will he perpetual victims to intermittent or chronic disease; but there is worse than any of these disasters to the victim. The man without a leg can get along with a crutch. The man who loses his sight from the earth shattering shell can at worst carry a label to tell that he was blinded in the war, and his fellow-country-men will give him enough to keep on enjoying life through the channels of the four other senses, and he will still admit that it is good to be alive. Blindness is bad, but war deals worse blows than in the eye. ft deals blows under which the reason itself staggers and is maimed. The lunatic asylum is worse than the hospital. We are carrying back nine men who have lost their reason at Magersfonteiu and other battles; two have been mercifully treated and have lost it completely padded cell must tnean a certain unconsciousness; but the greatest, deepest pity of which the human heart is capable is called forth by those who are maimed in mind. Long lucid intervals of perfect sanity give them time to learn the meaning of the locks and bars. “Yes, I know: I went off my head after Magersfontein." one poor fellow tells you: another repeatedly asks, "Will they put me into an asylum when I go home?” What a home-coming! Sure enough it is to the asylum they are going. 'They will be lost to what friends or relatives they have in that oblivion of a living- grave." -1- + The Law of the Land. The highest legal tribunal in the land has held (says the Otago “Daily Times") that it is within the rights of the Arbitration Court, if it so chooses, to grant a monopoly of employment in industrial pursuits to members of trade unions, and virtually the effect of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act is to abolish in the colony freedom of contract as between an employer and a workman. The Act. in effect, as the Chief Justice has said, has abolished contract, and it has restored "status." It is onlyworkmen with the "status" of unionists whom the Industrial Courts, which the Act has established, are entitled to hear: individual workmen and lion-associated workmen have no locus standi in an industrial dispute under the law. What this imports was well shown in an address which was recently delivered by Mr Samuel Brown, the employers’ representative on the Arbitration Court. The members of the unions throughout the colony who have the requisite status to secure for them a hearing under the law do not number 14,000, but they are able to ask from the Court term* and conditions which affect about 002.000 bread-winners and dependents. That is the position at the present time. It is not one which, we should suppose, will he altogether agreeable to the largely preponderating class of unorganised workers in the colony.