After Dinner Gossip and Echoes of the Week.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue VI, 6 August 1904, Page 16

After Dinner Gossip and Echoes of the Week.

Statues and Sites. Those who admire such things have long deplored the absence of statues about the City of Auckland. Dunedin is comparatively rich in memorials to eminent pioneers, and Christchurch also has several effigies which remind the rising generation of the men who worked so hard for the privileges we enjoy, but neither Wellington nor Auckland have any to speak of. The Empire City has but one, I think, a striking statue in marble of John Ballance. Auckland has certainly a few in the Albert Park —including a bronze figure of out late Queen of blessed- memory -—but their disposition has not been particularly happy, and so the citizens do not see them to the best advantage, while one or two of them we would be better without. Soon, however, we are to have monuments to Sir George Grey and Sir John Logan Campbell, and in spite of what utilitarians may say, I am certain we will be the better for these mute reminders of what we owe our nation builders. Sir George Grey is to look down on the city he loved and honoured frs'in the intersection of Queen, Grey, and Rutland streets, and when we drive into Cornwall Park a marble statue of rugged Sir John at the entrance will remind us of a princely gift and the revered giver. The choice, of sites for these two monuments has been most satisfactory, and I do not think anyone would feel disposed to question their appropriateness. I only hope that on subsequent occasions the selections will be as happy. This seems a small point, but we all know what an unfortunate experience befell the huge equestrian group with which the English sought to honour the Iron Duke, before it reached its present restingplace. Did it not go half round London? In England there is now a recognised authority which regulates the disposal of publie monuments, and after looking round our own Albert Park one regrets that we had not some such body here. ♦ ♦ ♦ War at Any Price. Now that (at the time of writing) the tension with Russia has somewhat relaxed, one may, I think, legitimately and profitably protest against the mischievous vapourings of what may bo termed the “War at Any Price” Party. Wherever one went last week—at the luncheon table confabs, on the trams, or ferry boats, everywhere—the situation was discussed, and it was astonishing and really rather distressing to find how large a proportion of men otherwise sensible —I had almost written sane —clamoured loudly for headlong action which would have precipitated war, and such a war probably as has not occurred in the history of modern Europe. The game of Russia was (and probably remains) so simple that it is positively irritating to find that there is even a section blind to it and willing to dance to her martial piping. Surely everyone who has been at school remembers the ruse of the bully, who jostles and shoulders the lad with whom he wishes to fight, until ho can bring off the combat and yet escape the responsibility of striking the first blow. That is precisely what Russia has been trying to do, and what she probably will continue to try and do. “Sink a few of her ships,” howled the jingoes of the moment, and talked non-

sense concerning 1 what would have been done in the good old times. What futile rubbish! Nothing would have pleased the Russ better. War would have resulted ' inevitably, the nations would have taken sides, and whatever the result, the Muscovite would have been able to cover the shame of defeat and disaster in the East with the cloak of a European embroilment. It would be easy to retort contemptuously that one is desirous that the nation should stand by and allow itself to be kicked. That is again nonsense, as Mr Balfour lias already shown. There is no meek and mild business about the Government, but it is a matter for universal gratitude that those in control can, under the severest strain, keep their heads and tempers, and not be rushed into needless war by foreign ruse or popular clamour. We need not fear, our turn will come; the irritation and insults of this outrage will be amply and dearly paid for, and if war does come —and it seems as if it must sooner or later —we shall not fight worse or punish more sdieutifically and thoroughly because we bottled up our wrath when deliberate attempts were made to force a premature encounter. ♦ 4> ♦ The Russian Reign of Terror. The Empire of the Tsars is passing through one of its periodic paroxyms of outrage and anarchy. When despotism is tempered only by assassination neither the tyrant nor his subjects are likely to discriminate fairly or to aet wisely. The air is thick with rumours of plots and arrests, and the seething discontent that here and there bursts forth into violence is being repressed with brutal ferocity. What life in Russia is like at such a time we may learn from Kennan, Lanin, Stepniak, and a score of other creditable authorities. What the better class of Russians think of it themselves may be read in the famous letter addressed by the Liberal executive to the late Tsar:. ‘■There exists,” says this document,. “a condition of things, which is a flagrant violation of the most elementary principles of justice. For the past ten years, upon trivial suspicion, or ijpon false accusation, the police have been allowed to break into houses, to force their way into the sphere of private life, to read private letters, to throw the accused into prison, keeping them there for months, finally to subject them to an inquisitorial examination without even informing them definitely of the charges made against them.” Exile by administrative order, on the barest suspicion of revolutionary sympathies, has been the lot of thousands of the most refined and cultured and the noblest of Russia’s sons and daughters. Even without the extreme penalty, life under police surveillance is intolerable. Stepniak tells us of a Russian lady of noble birth and unimpeachable loyalty, who, after suffering seven domiciliary visitations within twentyfour hours, fled from the country, never to return. No great empire has ever striven so earnestly as Russia to exterminate or drive beyond her borders the best and bravest of her children —not France, when she persecuted the Huguenots, nor Spain in the worst days of the Grand Inquisition, ever laboured so earnestly in the work of self-destruction, and just as Spain in now paying the penalty for centuries of bloodshed and tyranny, so for Russia the day of reckoning has surely come. The universities are generally made the excuse for any unusually brutal outrage upon justice and liberty in Russia. Readers of ‘•fndcrgrouml Russia” will know that the huge bodies of University students at Moscow or Kazan or St. Petersburg resemble nothing so much as mutinous garrisons overawed by military

force. Since 1884 the university appointmeats have been vested in the Crown, and the professors, to retain their poets, are compelled to make common cause with the police against the students. It is natural that the men and women whose eyes are opened by education should in such a country hold strong views about intellectual and spiritual liberty, or should strive to mitigate the effects of the ignorance, the vice and the poverty around them. In Russia criticism of authority is unpardonable, independence of spirit is the worst of crimes. Thousands of students have been imprisoned for years or exiled to Siberia, for reading pamphlets to workmen, or possessing forbidden books. In the universities they live subject'to the untiring vigilance of the police. To each educational centre is attached an inspector, who directs several agents, whose sole duty is to watch’ the students. These police agents ean do almost anything they please to render the lives of the students unbearable. They can prevent them from taking private tuition; they can report them to the inspector for breaking arbitrary rules about baircutting and the shape of hats; they can imprison them on their own responsibility for nine days in the common cells. Occasionally the students call mass meetings to protest against this tyranny. The professors must older them to disperse; and on the slightest sign of hesitation the police, with the Cossack guards, are called in. The mere assemblage of students in a public place amounts to a political crime. Nicolas 11. is slow-witted and obstinate. So long as he follows the teachings of Louis Melikolf and Pobydonostzoff Russia must remain enslaved to a crushing tyranny, finding hope for the future only in the prospect of some revolutionary cataclysm by which the old order of things will be engulfed, and from which a new nation and a new. political and social life will arise. * * * German Army Scandals. A book which is being widely read just now (it has iecentlyj come put in the colonial edition) is “Life in a Garrison Town,” in which Lieut. Bilse gives a photographic study of everyday life in the army of the Emperor William. It is, one imagines, pretty generally known that the book has been suppressed in Germany, and that for writing it, the young lieutenant has been court-mar-tialled, dismissed from the army, and has suffered imprisonment for a lengthy term; but I fancy the majority are under the impression that the scandal exposed was confined to the brutal treatment of privates by their officers. This is what we have mainly heard of through the cables. But though this matter is introduced, and though we sea how incredible and brutal is the state og affairs in tliis direction, is is to the life of the officers themselves that the lieutenant devotes most of his book, au,d which provides the most sensational revelations. The truth of the book was admitted at the court-martial on the author, and substantiated by the subsequent compulsory retirement of the majority of officers, who figure under different names in the book, and who were, as the court declared, libelled, and the truth certainly discloses an appalling lack of morality, and, in fact, of everything save iron discipline. Debt, drunkenness, debauchery, dishonour, stare at one from every page, and it is easy to understand how intense must have been the rage and horror which the book created in Germany. The tyranny of the officers to the men is bad, but it is equalled by that of the senior to tho junior officers. If Kipling be true, there is some occasional breaking of the law, against adultery in our army in India, and liaisons are not infrequent; but, according to Lieutenant Bilse, it is absolutely shameless and common in tho German, army. We have heard much, too, of expensive messes and extravagant habits of certain regiments, but in our army this is confined within certain limits, and applies mainly to cavalry. In the German.. regiments, whether of the line or cavalry, it is almost imposisble to escape ruinous debt, and.a, demoralising credit system prevails. In short, the bool; gives a very sinister impression of what claims to be the fi,uest and most powerful army In the wvihL

', The casual habits of the Australian have excited much comment. Students of character are divided on the point as to whether it originates in indolence or dislike to emotion. A typical instance is told by a Melbourne man, who lately visited a town just over the Queensland border. At the hotel where lie stayed a bushmnn lounged into the bar one morning, and throwing down sixpence, said, “Give us a long beer. How are you?” The old lady behind the bar exclaimed: “Why, bless me if it ain’t Joe! Where have you been these years?” “Oh! out back,” was the meagre answer. The old lady put the sixpence in the till, Joe drank his beer, and staying just about as long as the taste of it lasted, said. “Well, so long.” “Where are you going to now?” asked the old lady. “Oh! out back—so long!” and he left. “Do you know him?” asked the vsiitor. “Do I know him?” exclaimed the hostess. “Why, of course, he's my son, anil I ain’t seen him these years.” The characteristic is Australasian as well as Australian. A staff officer of the Commonwealth forces tells that he was camped one day on the veldt, and part of his command were New Zealanders. A trooper was busy mending his boot with string as another column of New Zealanders passed by on their way to the front. “Hello, Tom!” called a voice from the column. Tom stopped mending, and said, without emotion, “Hello, Hill—that you?” Bill wheeled his horse out of the line, dismounted, and sat beside his countryman for some time. “Mendin’ your boot,” he remarked at length. “Yais —tryin’ to,” was the slow answer. There was another silent 10 minutes, then Bill

slowly got up and said, “Well. I must be gettin’—so long.” “So long,” answered the boot-mender, as he went on mending. The officer, who had watched with amusement this unemotional meeting of two old friends in a strange country, said, “Was that a friend of yours?” “My brother-in-law.” “You didn't have much to say to him.” “Oh, I'll see him another time.” And he went on mending. It was his immediate object in life.