The Club

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3, 20 July 1907, Page 21

The Club

By

HAVANA

ISEE,” observed the city man, "that the tramway people have made confusion worse confounded by their determination to preventovercrowding. The situation is really rather comic. We have a by-law passed by our grave and reverend city fathers making it imperative on the conductors to see that no car carries more than its licensed number, and we who profess a deep and profound respect for the law have been persistently ignoring it. Not only so, but we raise a terrible outcry when the law is put in force. This only goes to prove that a regulation which interferes with the comfort or wishes of any large section of the community is generally more honoured in the breach than the observance. I fancy that the prohibition people would find it no easy task to enforce universal abstinence if they succeeded in passing a law forbidding the sale of intoxicants tn the colony. When any rule does not meet with the hearty approbation of a large majority it either lias to fall into abeyance or else a great many otherwise law abiding people are forced into tha position of becoming law-breakers.” © ® © “The average man would be surprised,” remarked the lawyer, “if he knew bow many things are forbidden by statutes still unrepealed. What would our footballers say if they were, told that there is law still in force against playing football in Scotland. Yet such is the case, and everyone playing is liable to a fine of fifty shillings. The law was made in the reign of James 1. of Scotland when the game was in much disfavour. It has never been repealed, and all the Scottish football teams playing in their own conntry are liable to prosecution. I do not know how a ease would go if the point was raised in court. Then, again, our Radical friends are very keen in their denunciation of the House of Lords, but it is a grave risk to criticise in an unfriendly fashion the moral shortcomings of a peer of the realm. You are liable to be punished for contempt of the Houses of Parliament—an offence which the law refers to as “scandalum magnatum.” If all the laws were strictly enforced some people would get a great surprise.” ® © © “Gracious me,” retorted the banker, “we have quite as much as we can do with in our laws which are enforced. Modern legislators seem to aim at making it little less than criminal to own property or enjoy liberty in any shape or form. Consols, which used to be the safest security in the world, have fallen from 114 to 85, and will probably fall still further. This is almost entirely due to the dread of socialistic legislation. The income tax of a shilling in the pound has come to stay. In times of war or financial stress it will be increased. England may one day l>e like some of those States which boast that they always pay the interest on their debts in full, but they impose a tax of fifty per cent on all their coupons and dividend warrants. Then the enormous death duties have contributed to check the habits of saving amongst the English. These duties will probably bo largely increased in the near future,

and people do not see any point in putting by for posterity, whether the Government will get the lion's share. It is to my mind very significant that the bulk of the people are now using the insurance companies as mediums for investment. The middle classes at Home are literally being taxed out of existence.” © © © “I have never known a time," put in the Stockbroker, “when gilt-edged securities stood so low all over the world. A friend of mine on the Ixinilon Exchange says that quite recently a jobber refused to take a thousand stock of NorthWestern debentures off his hands till he had found a purchaser, for fear of being left with an unprofitable book. Twenty years ago you could sell a million consols with case, to-day you can hardly sell ton thousand without affecting the market. There is very little demand for genuine investment stock, the bulk of the people seem to prefer something of the nature of a gamble. Confidence has been a good deal shaken in American securities, and even the best of our colonial stocks are not in much demand. The unrest in India is having a disquieting effect, I am told.” © © © “Nobody seems exactly to know the cause of the Indian trouble,” the dominie remarked. “The Radicals are making a great outcry against the deportation of Mr. Lalu Lajpat Rai. They hold him up as a martyr because he has been deported without trial under an old regulation of 1818. The all-round increase in taxation is undoubtedly partly responsible for much of the present agitation. At the same time the returns from the chief industries show a considerable increase. Cotton has improved 20 per cent, and the sugar cane 50 per cent, so that it is only natural that the Government should raise the assessments on the land. I believe the feeling of unrest is pretty widespread, and we may any day see another mutiny. The Babu is now an M.A., and an LL.D., and all the other alphabetical things that lie can be, and he does not see why he is not as good as the white man and a great better.” © © © “I have been in India for the best part of my life,” rejoined an old AngloIndian, “and I foresee grave dangers ahead of us. In the old days England produced men who could rule. We sent men to India who came from the ruling families. We did not care a great deal about examinations. You ail believe that certain qualities are transmitted in horses and other animals by careful breeding. I believe the same thing is true of men. When a’ man's ancestorsfor generations back have been in positions of authority, the instinct of command is likely to be transmitted to their descendants. And remember the power

to rule is quite distinct from the power to lead or to persuade. The Oriental is like a child. Tell him he must do a thing and he will obey you and respect you. But as a nation we seem disposed to throw aside our office of ruler. The modern sophist prates about the equality of man; he lays great stress on education and none on race or descent. W® send men out to govern who have non®

of the instincts of rulers, men whose only claim to exercise authority is the fact that they have passed certain examinations. In the mere answering of papers the average Hindu can beat us hollow. He has a phenomenal memory, and an almost uncinny faculty for cramming up a subject. He hears it said that education is everything. Well, he is educated as far as getting university degrees goes. lie feels that •he knows more of mere book-learning than the Englishman sent to govern him. He therefore not unnaturally asks why he should not be permitted to manage liis own affairs. Patriotism, again, with many people has ceased to be a virtue. They consider it a mark of a broad and liberal mind to contend that every nation and people under the sun are better than Englishmen. Loyalty to their country, the throne, the church they consider a sign of narrowness. That being so, it is small cause for wender that we are rapidly losing the respect of other nations.” © © © “That is all very well,” put in the commercial traveller, “but we live in an age of democracy—you cannot put the clock back and return to the days of the squire and the beadle. The people are the rulers now, and they are no longer to be led astray by the jargon of jingo istic Imperialism. Why should we worry our heads about India? The Hindus don’t want us there. Let us shut up shop in that quarter and devote our energies to matters nearer home. We have no right to rule anybody, or to exclude anybody from our shores. We are moving rapidly' towards the day when all men will be equal—Japanese, Chinese, English, Hindus. Africans. There will be a universal brotherhood of man.” © © © “We cannot put the clock back,” replied the previous speaker. “Let us hope the hands are moving towards the dawn and not towards the setting sun.”