Topics of the Week.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue XX, 16 November 1901, Page 925

Topics of the Week.

The Sheep and the Goats.

The closing act of the Parliamentary session was the raising of the honorarium of members of the House of Representatives from £240 to £3OO, and of Legislative Councillors from £l5O to £2OO. To a considerable section in Parliament it was doubtless the most important act, Yet it was, in face of a very strong opposition, and only by a narrow majority that the proposals were carried. Some from the highest motives, and some, it may be, from motives not so creditable, resisted for a day and a night the augmentation of their salaries, but in vain. The attitude of the public in the matter is curious. They may be said to be entirely indifferent to the increased expenditure which the change involves. They have not given a thought as to what justification there is for the rise in the present political and social conditions. The one idea they take hold of is that of a body of men, servants of the publie, voting themselves an increase of salary without first consulting their employers; and looked at in that way the action of the majority of the house does not commend itself. I admit there may be a great deal to be said in favour of the increase, but the public find it much easier to assume the self - seeking character- of the politician than to go into these matters. Their tendency will be to ignore any honesty of conviction that prompted the support of the measure on the one hand, or any mean dishonesty that dictated opposition to it, and to roughly divide the ayes and the noes into the sheep and the goats. They will not forget that while half the house was willing to forgo its natural rest for a night in order to get an increase of £6O per year in their income the other half underwent an equal sacrifice to oppose it. Considering how near the elections are and the cursory judgments of the people, it would have seemed quite worth while for members to assume a virtue if they had it not, and to pose before the country as disinterested legislators, looking not to filthy lucre but to the good that they could do. It must tell against the supporters of the Bill when they go befo-re the electors a year hence. On the other side, those who voted against the larger honorarium will not, only have the additional money in their pokes, but, what is more valuable on such occasions, the reputation for disinterestedness and unselfishness rare in a politician.

The Pipe of War.

Her Majesty Queen Alexandra has been happy in her choice of a Christmas gift for her soldiers in South Africa —happier even than the late Queen was under similar circumstances. That chocolate box which every soldier received from Victoria the Good will doubtless remain a sacred memento of the great sovereign, but the most loyal heart might question whether .with all its enclosed sweetness it yielded, or could yield, so much satisfaction to Mr Thomas Atkins as the briar-root pipe which Queen Alexandra is presenting to each and all of the men. The delight which the choicest of sweetmeats could afford the rough palate of the war-worn warrior is slight and transient compared to the joy and peace of spirit he could suck from a pipe. That briar will be a perennial satisfaction, stimulating with every mouthful of smoke they draw through it the loyalty of the men. Chocolates are but for a season, but u pipe may be usable for years, and then handed down as a family heirloom. It is difficult to imagine a cake of chocolate the guardian of old ussociations, but what, is there more fitted to hold enshrined a thousand memories of the past than a pipe, which in the case ®f the soldier enjoys a closer companionship with him than even his carbine or his sword? What a key to the scenes of the war when the curtain has fallen on the last act will

these Royal gifts be. The returned warrior will but have to pull it from bis pocket to invite an eager audience, and as its smoke ascends he will read in the curling clouds a hundred half-forgotten incidents of the campaign. Our beloved Princess was well assured of the smoking proclivities of Tommy when she thus determined to minister to his amiable weakness, but still there must be some nonsmokers in the Army, to whom the gift must lose much of its value. What are they who have never learned the soothing influence of the weed to do with a silver-mounted briarroot pipe? Some, I can believe, may be tempted by their loyal feeling to repair the omission of their youth, and smoke their first pipe in honour of Her Majesty. But such a sacrifice as that would probably entail is scarcely demanded of them". It would be converting into an instrument of pain what was meant to gi.e pleasure only. No, the non-smokers will have to be content to prize the pipe as a Royal present, altogether apart from its uses. 000-oo

On the Wings of a Dove.

Although the Deutsch prize of £4OOO has been awarded to M. Santos Dumont as having demonstrated the dirigibility of his balloon to the satisfaction of the examining committee, his achievement does not bring the regions of the air much nearer within the sphere of us common mortals; and the chances are that even the babe of yesterday is condemned like Hamlet's father to walk the earth to the end of his days and soaring- into empyrean must remain, save in the case of a very few, a mere figure of speech. If you have seen pictures of M. Santos Dumont's flying machine you must have been struck with the extreme elaborateness .of the contrivance. One would require a little fortune to make it. and" when it was made it would be a ease of the Vicar of Wakefield’s family portrait—almost impossible to find a place to store it in. Further, if you have read some of the accounts of M. Dumont's voyaging you will most probably have come to the conclusion that if air travel is to be such a precarious sort of business, not to say a dangerous one, the earth will suffice you for the present. Even when the flying machine has become a much more perfected contrivance than it now is it will still be far above the reach of the people. Not until science can turn out something not much more bulky than a family waggonette need we look to see folks taking the air in high altitudes. In-deed-to be popular the flying machine of the future will have to be as handy as a bicycle, and not less safe. Some Daedalian invention having all the convenience and grace and poetry about it of wings is the ideal contrivance. After all flight in any other way would be clumsy and prosaic. We want to soar, to float, to poise like the lark, the swallow, the eagle. To sing hymns at heaven’s gate like the first, or to renew our youth like the last' at the fountain of light. Consider the absurd want of romance in futilely fluttering about in the centre of an awkward construction of sails and umbrella ribs. The scientists may have these curious contrivances for themselves, but for us we shall stick to the earth until wo can have wings of our own on which we can rise with the ease of the dove.

In the Public Eye

Li Hung- Chang ia dead. In an earlier chapter of the world's history the event might scarcely have been known outside China, for what to the outside world was one Chinaman more or less? But Li came upon the scene in time to witness those developments of the world drama which involved the Flowcryland and to take a prominent part in it. He has lived within the sphere of the cosmopolitan interest of the day, ini

the teem v*ith records of the quo. Thus it is with prominence of auy kind nowadays. If you are anybody at all the whole round earth gets to know about you. If Li had died a century or so ago bis name would hardly have been written in European characters. Now hr is the subject of ten thousand obit nary notices in three score tongues. The village Hampden is an anachronism to-day. Let him but withstand the little tyrant of his Helds with sufficient tenacity and the Ixindon papers will have paragraphs about him which the American journals will copy and sensationalise. The Polish musician, the Russian Ullage novelist, the Turkish philanthropist, they are not for their own narrow circle. Almost before they guess their own genius the world has claimed them, and they are written of ,i,n<l spoken of in a dozen tongues which they do not understand. ’There is no such thing as hiding your light under a bushel: it has to come out, to give light to the world if it is capable of doing so. No one need be afraid of remaining obscure and forgotten nowadays if he has anything to tell bis fellow man that is worth telling, and even if he has not alas there is always the danger that by some mistake or oversight he gets floated on to a wave of popular approval and is carried round the globe before, the wave discovers its mistake and drops him. This general publicity given to everyone and everything is playing havoc with us. It is making comparatively little men believe that they are great men simply because they hear their names bruited from China to Peru. If they would only realise, that the noises are for the most part but echoes depending too frequently on the hollowness of the locality for their loudness. I think our friend Mr Sodden has suffered as much as any man from this sort of pseudo fame, which is apt to- beget in any but the biggest souls a foolish Nebuchadnezzar-like belief in themselves. o o> o o ,3

The Art of Enterteininp.

The wll meaning hostess who in her innocent heart thinks she is entertaining- her guests when she brings down the family album, and explains it painful length the relationships of every man. woman and child in its pages to herself, her husband, or somebody on a page or two further back, is believed to be obsolete, and t hope she is. as also that venerable volume. At all events, it is rare that one is required to rack one's brain, and wring- one's heart for complimentary things to say of the foolish physiognomies passed in review. The album nuisance has been pretty effectually suppressed in private lite. In public life 1 regret to say an almost analogous system of boring a guest, still obtains, and the latest martyr to it that has come under my notice is Nir Hector Macdonald, who recently left these shores. It was not so much the whiskeying and blarneying of which the gallant General complained that he might have taken special exception to, but that terrible process of showing him round, which be bore in silence. Auckland was not the sole offender in this matter, for 1 understand that other cities did the same, for it is the usual municipal way of lining- the thing. Each in its turn trotted out the city's album, so to speak that is to say. took the guest to look at everything which seemed good in the municipal eye. and waited for him to admire. Take the Auckland programme as a sample. Among the lions of the city which the unfortunate General was taken to sec were a church, a school, a hospital. gaol, an orphan home, and a cricket ground. Had there been more time io till in the idea of entertainment u, to fill in time he woulu certainly have been taken to the water works, the asylum for the insane, the manure works, the abattoirs, and other places. Now,’l would like to know how many there are of ns who would look on a visit to any <»f these institutions as the acme of pleasure, or would voluntarily spend our holidays inspecting them. Then why is it assumed that the General must find ♦ hem surpassingly interesting? Had he not seen schools anil hospitals, and

gaols and asylums, to satisfy the average crtiving for such dis»ii»ation. long before he came to these shores, and was there anything so special in those we showed him to warrant our doing it? 1 cannot think there was. But. honestly speaking, it never was really assumed that there was. but the General had to be entertained, and that is the only way we knew of doing it. It is just the good old family album over again, with hospitals, gaols, schools, etc., instead of portraits of “my wife’s relations.” or “a gentleman named Smith, now in Ceylon, who married Annie, a second cousin of my mother’s, whose likeness you remember 1 pointed out to you at the beginning of the album”—heaven help us! But why should I scoff? Do not I remember one occasion when I was one of three who endeavoured to entertain Mark Twain when on a visit to Auckland. We showed him the family album—that is to say. tpok him to the summit of Mt. Eden, and pointed out the wonders of the. view, took him to this place and that in the usual approved way. As we were nearing hrs hotel on the return voyage the. freezing works hove in sight, and our consciences smote us all three. Almost in chorus we exclaimed: “Oh. there’s the freezing works. Mr Gleuieuts. would you like to see through them?" He is a brave man as well as a humorist is Mark, and he quietly, but very decisively replied: “No, I think I won’t to-day. thank you. I’ve seen something of the sort in America.” I question whether Hector Macdonald would have been equally courageous under the circumstances.

The Religious Census.

One of the most interesting tables compiled from the census returns is that which gives the respective numbers of colonists professing adherence to the different religious denominations. Perhaps the most noteworthy fact of all is the big decline there has been in the ranks of the Salvation Army since 1896, when the previous census was taken. While all the other- denominations show a substantial increase during the period referred to (with the exception of the Baptists and Congregations lists, who have suffered a nominal decrease), the famous organisation appears to have lost nearly one-third of its converts. Some further light on this matter than the tables show is much to be desired. Are we to infer that the army has passer! on into the regular church’those whbm it rescued from sin and indifference, and that the colony affords no more of the raw material for its work; or is it that the drum ahd the red flag, the jolly tunes and the all too familiar wrestlings in prayer With the Deityhave lost their old power to hold the converted or to attract fresh sinners to the fold? 1 cannot pretend to decide which it is. but surely it must be one or the other. I am afraid, however, that the second presumption is likely to be the correct one. In its own way the Army has been a great power for good among us. It has not all been a matter of sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Behind that its agents have been prosecuting a quiet methodical philanthropy which must bear fruit. But the sensationalism of the movement, its constant ami somewhat hysterical appeal to the emotions—methods which were calculated to draw where all other methods had failed—these things lose their influence after a little on a community grown used to them. You may galvanise the dead soul once or even twice by such machinery. but if it is only galvanised and not actually spiritualised, your success can only be. temporary. I notice by the table that the number of persons professing adherence to no denomination has increased by 842. while the I- reethinkers have declined by 1127. Perhaps among the Ipst are a good mpiiy of the 2328 additional persons who object to state the nature of their belief. If so, it must be confessed that they have changed for the better, for as a rule the type of individual . who hesitates to subscribe to the tenets pf any one of the churches shows a more commendable spirit than the aggressive Freethinker. -who is generally as incapable of thinking for himself on religious as fie is bn commoner matters.