Topics of the Week.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue IX, 31 August 1901, Page 393

Topics of the Week.

The Imperial Stomach. The decision of the Admiralty that only Australian wines shall be used in connection with the christening of British vessels built in His Majesty’s dockyards is doubtless meant as a gramous compliment to Australian patriotism, and a lift to the Australian wine trade. As the latter, however, one scarcely sees that it will greatly benefit the industry. As an actual purchaser of the colonial article the Admiralty cannot count for much if the wine, as indicated, is only to be used in christening war vessels. At a bottle, or even a dozen bottles a ship, the most extensive building programme would make but a very light call on the Australian cellars. As to the value of the arrangement as an"advertisement of colcnial wine, it would surely have been a better testimony to British appreciation of the article if the Home Government had ordained that in the drinking of all patriotic toasts only it should be used. Only to give it place as rlie baptismal fluid in the Government dockyards suggests a doubt as to its worth as .a beverage. It is questionable whether the Australian makers would greatly promote the popularity of their vintages by labelling the bottles, “As used in Ills Majesty’s dockyards.” That would be an excellent recommendation for kauri pine or jarra. but hardly so appropriate for wine. Unfortunately the stomach is probably the last organ to be reached by the Imperial sentiment. Statesmen and orators at Home talk eloquently about promoting close relations between the colonies and the Motherland, and drink prosperity to ‘‘the land of the five new nations”; but they do so in French champagne and German hock after a banquet in which colonial products are absent, or apologetically introduced as very minor entrees. The Imperialism that I would like to see at Home would be that which thinks it treason to eat bread made of any wheat but colonial, or- to spread on it any butter that was not of Home or colonial manufacture. “A free breakfast table” used to be a great cry among the British freetraders. What say you to an Imperial breakfast table and an Imperial dinner table? Her Majesty the Queen expresses the sentiment I would inspire when she intimates the hone that ladies attending the coronation will wear as far as possible dresses of British material and manufacture. The Duke’s Cigars The veil of anonymity hides the cableman even more completely from the public than ; t does ‘ leader writer. Yet despite that and the laconic nature of his utterances, one comes to have a certain inkling into the character of the man he is who, in a flash, brings the outside world daily before our eyes. :*everely impersonal as the cable messages are, they must reflect in a measure the individuality of the sender. Now. for one thing, one could never doubt the profound respect which ‘he cableman feels for wealth and royalty—but especially royalty. How careful he is to chronicle the minutae of the court, and from the moment the Duke of York departed on his tour the watchful eye of the cableman and his brethren have been on him. Nothing escapes those argus eyes. For instance, at Adelaide, His Royal Highness was not allowed to suffer in secret such a very common affliction as toothache without all the world being asked to sympathise. Now we are called upon by. the cableman to rejoice over an equally trivial matter connected with the Duke’s tour. A message from New York last week announced that several thousand of the cignrs intended for consumption by the Heir-Apparent on his visit to Canada had been recovered from the wreck of the Lusitania. I don’t know what losses may have been sustained in connection with the wreck, but that hardly matters. The thing that really concerns the Empire Is the providential rescue of these cigars. You

cannot say what disastrous results might have ensued had they net been recovered, for doubtless they were particularly choice, and the judicious gift of a good cigar J>y His Royal U gliness might do wonders to stimulate the loyalty of loyal Canada. To those Canadians who have a fair chance of sampling the ducal “smokes,” the cable item may be of interest, but to us in these colonies who have or have not partaken of his bounty in the matter of/ugars the news is surely of little moment. O O O O o The Real Bank Clerk. In his evidence on the Shops and Offices Bill, Mr Tregear, the head of the Labour Department, pleaded the cause of the overworked bank clerk. 'The clerks themselves, as we all know, have ostensibly objected to the measure, which it was claimed was introduced in their interest to deliver them from the thraldom- of night work, but Mr Tregear seems to think that, so far as the clerks’ actual feeling and opinion is concerned, they would welcome the Bill, and are only deterred from doing so openly by the fear of losing their places. An exbank clerk, speaking to me the other day, assured me not only that the men were systematically overworked, but that no class of employees went about with the fear of losing their billets so constantly befoise their eyes as they. There is certainly room for legislation if the cases quoted by Mr Tregear are not exceptions. He tells of one young fellow who had to do his courting on a- Sunday, like the hero of “Sally in Our Alley,” because for months before his marriage he was working at the bank till late every evening. The other instance Mr Tregear quoted of overwork was that of a young man he met at Blenheim, who for three months had been engaged in the bank till midnight every night, and had finally broken down through heart disease, induced by overwork. Here are pictures very different from those of the be-cuffed and be-collared sauntering dandies who have been held up to us as the typical bank clerk. And I do believe that if that species did once exist it is getting rarer every day. There is noticeable in our banking- institutions a good deal less collar and less cuff, ana less mathematical exactitude in the hair-parting than of yore. Is it overwork that is the cause ? CourUlup and Marriage. in connection with the last I notice that Mr xregear, in complimenting on his appioiicuing weuuing, the young man who had to do his courting 011 bunday, said that "unfortunately marriage ends one of the pleasantest times of a man's lit?, that of courtship.” The observation was not original which must be taken as an excuse for it. For frequent as it is, I consider it requires an excuse very much. There is no getting away from the reflection which it casts on the felicity of marriage. The inference is that the lovers bid adieu at the altar to a period of bliss and enjoyment they are never likely to encounter again. Were this indeed the case it is surely cruel to waylay the young hearts on the threshold of matrimony with such doleful croakings. But is it the case? It would be interesting to open these columns to the discussion of the question whether on the average courtship is a happier stage in one’s existence than married life. Unfortunately the weight of available evidence is on the side of courtship, for the poets in most ages have dwelt on the springtime of the ardent passion more than on its riper phases. They accompany the happy pair with dance and song up to the portals of Hymen’s temple, and there stop, giving the impression that beyond those portals there is no more dancing or singing. But should it ever become the fashion to sing of matrimonial blessedness, as of prenuptial bliss, we would hear the other side.

That Secret Loan. The most hopeless stage in a drunkard’s downward career commences when he takes to secret drinking, and there could hardly be a worse sign in a borrowing administration than the surreptitious raising of loans. This is the last charge that has been levelled at the Government. Whether it is true or false 1 really cannot pretend to say, nor have I looked into the public accounts to solve the matter, for I have found that much wiser financial heads than mine find it difficult to discover the actual position of anything in the intricate and enigmatical statements which the Go-~ vernment publish. The witty Frenchman said of speech that it was given to conceal thought. So it might be said of the Budget that it is published to obscure facts, not to elucidate them. However, despite the Budget and its smooth prophecies, keen critics have discovered that on or about June of last year Mr Seddon went secretly and borrowed a cool half million. Now, with a debt of close on fifty* millions to our name, we are not the folks to feel much compunction about going on the money market. Borrowing has come to be looked upon as one of the most legitimate processes in the work of nation building. We have been at it ever since we can remember, and when the Premier in the Financial Statement told us without winking that the debt had increased by a million and threequarters we took the announcement with equal nonchalence. But the borrowing - process wears quite another aspect, and a very suspicious *one, when the Government without saying anything about the matter goes behind our backs and secretly and surreptitiously pledges our credit. It has something analagous to the action of the spendthrift who raises money on post obits, with this in favour of the latter, that the rich relative may never know what his prospective heir has done. We, on the other hand, must surely learn our indebtedness sooner or later, even if an astute Premier may keep us some time in the dark regarding it. Of course the powers of secret borrowing which a Government have are very limited, but with an autocrat like Mr Seddon one does not know what might happen. Is it possible that when he departs we may find ourselves inundated with little bills for a hundred thousand here and a quarter of a million there, representing the secret advances made to R.J.S.? I wish some financial authority would set my mind at rest on that score. I confess I feel anxious after this last half million affair. The Invitation List. The inviting of a representative of the Transvaal Republic to the wedding feast of the Prince of Oldenburg has been construed by Continental pro-Boers as a valuable act of recognition on the part of the Czar. But is it not possible that, as was the ease in- regard to lesser royal ami vice-royal functions here in the colonies, the invitation list was neither compiled, nor even car efully; revised, by the giver of the feast? Or again, it may have been that the Czar, out of a certain compassion for pool Kruger, paid the courtesy of an invitation to a State that no longer exists. Or perhaps out of those millions he carried away with him the ex-Presideut had sent a valuable marriage present to the bride, and so had to be invited. At all events the incident should not be allowed to minister to the Russo phobist proclivities of the Briton. Hostesses generally who know the difficulties associated with theeompilation of an invitation list, even in the humblest sphere of life, will sympathise with the autocrat of all the llussias, who evidently has his difficultiet in the matter. And it may partly reconcile them to their own troubles to find that even in the highest ranks there nre such difficulties; nay. that they become more pronounced the higher you go. Goodness knows what international complexities, and diplomatic ruptures the Czar’s intentional or unintentional recognition of the Transvaal Republic might not cause You see the British representative stayed away from the function, to begin with. Now, in society something of the same kind might happen, but the results would not be in any way disastrous. If Mrs Jones, who

has no acknowledged place in tbn social ladder, or occupies a very low rung, were invited to the Smiths’ wedding, the Robertsons also invited, might comment on the curious people the Smiths take up with, but there would be no cessation in the friendly relations of the two households. But nations are even more puerile in their ways than individuals.