Topics of the Week.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue II, 12 July 1902, Page 77

Topics of the Week.

The Taiismanic Penny. It is stated in the annua! report of the Post and Telegraph Department that during the past year the post office handled 13.000.000 additional letters, as compared with the previous year. Making all allowance for the natural increase due to the advance in population, there still remains a phenomenal rise in our correspondence, which can only be attributed to the introduction and popularity of the penny post. This fact, most gratifying as it must be to Sir Joseph Ward, to whom we owe the innovation, offers a most distinct contradiction to the common dictum that the colonial "is careless in the matter of pence, and never looks twice at a penny. Had that really been the ease there is no reason why the reduction of the cost of carrying a letter from one place to another should have had such a marked result as is the case. 1 confess that I myself had always considered that it- was the disinclination to write much were than the cost a letter involved which hindered correspondence. Anti that is no doubt so with a large number of people, but the thirteen million increase doesn't eonsort with that theory. There must be a very big section of us who both understand and appreciate the difference between a penny and twopence. Even the infrequent correspondent to whom one would say that difference cannot be of any great account recognises it. The reason of this lies rather in-the sentimental than in the intrinsic value of the copper. I fancy millionaire and pauper alike see in the penny the standard coin of economv. It is something of a

fetish is the penny, among all classes, high and low. an “open sesame" to the fat as well as the lean purse. Now. to a man of Mr. Carnegie’s wealth, a penny and twopence are virtually the same. Yet I can quite understand that the millionaire who gives away thousands of pounds a week relishes the fact of the penny stamp and the penny newspaper, and the penny "bus and even the pennybun. not less than any of us. o o o o o The Cheap Telephone.

The success which, as the above re port shows, has attended the cheapening of postal and telegraphic rates, is quoted as a strong reason in favour of bringing down the cost of the telephone communication. I fancyexperts will tell us that the eases are not so closely analogous as the man in the street supposes. Every individual telephone connection involves an additional expense to the department in its installation and working quite out of proportion to that which the carriage of each additional letter means to the postal authorities. There is no doubt that with an increased number of subscribers the Telephone Exchange could afford to give private telephones at a reduced rate. But whether the reduction would ever be so substantial as to win sufficient patronage to cover the loss may be doubted. We have all to write letters; but we don't all require telephones. We do not miss the penny it costs to despatch the one: but there are only a limited number who would not feel the annual payment of a pound or two for a luxury they could do very well without. The vision of a telephone in every house is not one that appeals to me. It has its advantages as well as its disadvantages, and I must say that private installations seem to me to threaten the peace and quietude that we look for and should jealously guard in a home. I like when I leave business to leave it —a rather antiquated notion I asa aware—and I object to be at the beck and call of my friends, and. worse still, sty neighbours' friends, when I have got on my slippers and am comfortably settled at my own fireside. Cheap telephones might prove as much a social curse as the ehcap piano is or as cheap champagne would be. ' ~ -

The Imperial Conference. Great things were expected of the Imperial Conference. It was to bind the colonies to the Mother Country as no other device has succeeded in doing. Out of it was to spring the basis of a union for offence and defence that would stand for ever. Before it all the thousand difficulties which still stand in the way of closest union against the world were to be dispelled. The colonial Premiers went to London full to overflowing with this sentiment, and everyone, or. at least, a good many of us, looked to see it carry the business through triumphantly. And sentiment has done so much in these last days that our faith was not unnatural. What was it but sentiment that induced New Zealand to send ten contingents to South Africa? What was to hinder it beiqg victorious in peace as it had been in war? A very great deni. The considerations of national safety which weigh so much with us in she hour of danger are replaced, when the danger is departed, by considerations of quite another land. So when the Premiers and Mr Chamberlain foregathered at the Conference with the fires of Imperialism bright in their bosoms they were doubtless surprised to find how on both sides the severely practical aspects of ihe position and seifish interests, of which they had almost forgotten the existence, rose like an unhealthy mist to damp their ardour. The generous generalities and picturesque suggestions that had passed current throughout the Empire, leading the unwary to imagine that the day of absolute national homogeneity Was at hand, would not serve at the Conference, which was meant co forransate s4me definite proposals. The Colonial Secretary looked to the Premiers for the latter, and the. Premiers looked to the Colonial Secretary. Mr Chamberlain is said to have cautiously advocated Imperial free trade, with only such duties as were necessary for revenue, and this, the nearest approach to definiteness, was received with disfavour because the colonies did not see their way to adopt free trade. The result was disappointment on both sides, and disappointment throughout the Empire. But it was only what was to have been expected ’.tnder the circumstances. The Premiers knew perfectly well in their hearts what the difficulties were they had to contend with, and they went to the Conference never having attempted to discuss them beforehand, and indolently trusting to the sentiment of Imperialism that is abroad to get over the barriers. Powerful as that sentiment is, it is not powerful enough for that; and it would probably argue indifferently well for us if it were. w O O O O O Ths Premier’s Dilemma. Something of the unexpended glory of the Coronation appears to have invested the Royal Review at Home last week, and the colonial troops especially came in for a good time. But so far as the New Zealanders are concerned, they are to enjoy the Coronation display also. The cables told us last week that the Ma or:land Contingent is to remain till the end of August. Mr Barton has expressed the hope that the Australian Contingent will be able to do the same, but Mr Seddon. after his fashion, has entirely arranged the thing so far as the New Zealanders are concerned. So these fortunate troopers are to have two long months in London. Who wouldn't be they, feted and flattered by- the cockney throng? It's enough to demoralise them. Vppish as the trooper from South Africa :s occasionally apt to be. he is probably modesty itself to what the members of the Coronation Contingent will be when they return to their humble New Zealand home. But what does Mr Seddon mean to do himself? He says the troopers are to stay on for the Coronation. Is he to stay too? His is certainly a delicately difficult position. Naturally he would like to

be back at his post here if no other better one offers elsewhere. Equally natural it is that he should desire to take part in the Coronation and share the good things that may then be agoing. And it is plain he can't do both. There Sir Wilfred Laurier has the advantage over both Mr Seddon and Sir Edward Barton. He can run across to Canada, see hew things are going, and return a few days before the Coronation. Distance presents an insuperable obstacle to any such trip on the part of the Australasian Premiers. If they are to be present ■t the Coronation in August they must remain in England let things take their course in their own special domains. And that's what they no doubt will do: and Australasia will get on as best it can without them. They have, however, to face the possible and very awkward predicament of further postponement of the Coronation. How would they do in that case? You can Imagine these two gentlemen being kept hanging about Westminster for the next six months through successive puttings off of the great event. By that time the elections would be over here, and Mr Seddon perhaps seatless. ’Between two stools" — you know the adage. That, however, is a very remote contingency. I admit- More likely, if not more pleasant to contemplate. is the possibility of our Premier over-staying his welcome in the Old Country. The old folks at Home hare been most enthusiastic in their welcome, but they might be equally enthusiastic in their farewell after five months of Mr Seddon and his' speeches. He ought then to go slow on the off-chance of a lengthened stay. The Electoral Boundaries. The changes effected by the Commissioners tn the boundaries of the electoral districts interest the public about as much as the progress of Parliament—if Farltament can be said to progress—and that at present is very little. I don’t believe that one elector in twenty has taken the trouble to find out how the changes will affect his position at the next general election a few months hence. The most salient fact is that in the new Parliament there will be six additional legislators for the weal and woe of this country. It Is perhaps unreasonable to suppose that this addition can make any great change in the wisdom and utility of the Parliamentary machine as a whole, the business with which the, impartial student of politics must chiefly concern himself. And so in this view of the case of much more value to the colony than the recent Commission would be one to determine the best men for the House. We eould do very well with crooked and inconvenient boundaries if we were always assured of straight and competent representatives. It is high time we had got beyond the very parochial view of a representative. As a New Zealander my chief public interests should be those of the colony as a whole, and I should regard every man in Parliament as much my representative as the member for the particular district in which I may happen to reside. What have rivers and mountains and imaginary lines to do interfering with the man I may regard as the most suitable for the Legislative Chamber? With Mr Hare, 1 would sweep them away so far as they may determine that point, and have my

vote travel from the Bluff to the North Cape until it found some reliable individual to whom I might give it. But even a provincial Hare system ol proportional representatkn. much le*s a colonial one. does not find favour in our legislators' eyes, and the people don't bother themselves. Agriculture in Schools. At the recent Agricultural Conference iu Danedia the question of teaching of agriculture in schools was brought up, and an interesting discussion ended tn the adoption of a motion urging the Government to arrange for the simple pract: -al teaching of the elements of natural science, particularly as bearing on agriculture and horticulture as an essential and necessary part of pn rr.ry education. What the majority of the speakers said about the ignorance with regard to natural science, which is a marked feature among colonial school children, is very true, but truer still were Mr Gilruth a remarks on the uselessness of an agricultural tuition which was confined to the verbal and theoretical side. He aptly instanced the methods in vogue iu French schools, where the teachers make their gardens, and not the class-room, the place of instruction, ana told how at cue school he visited the teacher de-mou-trated the gradual expansion of the seed germ by planting a row of peas and taking one up every day so that the pupils eould see with their own eyes the wonderful process of development. And that is plainly the only kind of agricultural teaching that is worth anything for our primary schools. But how are are to secure it • Unfortunately, but quite naturally, the teachers themselves are quite ignorant of these matters, and have not the interest in them that would very soon lead them to acquire the knowledge. One could net conceive a more complete divoree between what the teacher is labouring to teach the children within doors and what Nature would fain teach them outside than is to be found in must of our country schools. It never seems to have occurred to the Education Department, or to the Boards, or to the teachers, or to the parents, that there should be some sort of harmony between the knowledge required in the school during their school days and the know ledge required by ume-tesths of the pupils when they are cutside the school doors for the term of their natural lives. It would be reckoned the height of absurdity had we not gradually become accustomed to it, this elaborate system of cramming remote historical and geographical facts and purely theoretical science into the young mind, which quickly forgets it all, if it ever really absorbs it, while the common knowledge that would be of such service to all in their daily iife is neglect ci. The primary agricultural training which the conference urge* is so clearly advantageous to country schools that no one will venture to gainsay its importance. But for town schools, teo, it would be most important also, not merely in the immediate practical value it must have for the agriculturalist, but in cultivating habits of observation and reasoning. This it would effect much more than the usual dry facts disassociated from daily experience and impossible of being interestingly demonstrated to the youthful mind, which form the bulk of the overloaded school syllabus.