The Week in Review

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 10, 7 March 1908, Page 1

The Week in Review

What a “tempest in a teacup’’ some people- attempted to raise over the sending of boys from the public schools to the cadets’ camp, held this week at Papakura! It would interfere with school work, destroy discipline, and lead to all sorts of danger to the health and the morals of the boys. Fudge! A week in camp will give a better education to most of the 300 cadets than a whole year of school, since they will learn something of the practical work that may be required of them in after years as citizens of the Dominion. As for discipline, surely Colonel Loveday and the other officers may be expected to keep the youngsters in order, and even give them a taste of stricter discipline than they have been accustomed to at school. With regard to health and morals, the presence of two medical men and a chaplain should be sufficient guarantee. As if to settle the discussion that took place in Auckland, there came the news from Wellington that two clergymen had given emphatic testimony to the beneficial influence that a cadets’ camp near the capital had produced on the morals and conduct of the boys. The upshot, of course, was the complete rout of the Auckland objectors; for," though clergymen are not the best judges in worldly concerns, they are entitled to speak with some authority on matters of religion, morals, and the “minor morals” of conduct. ■!X Jt There were insinuations that the dear boys of Auckland -would lie corrupted by being taken away from the refining influence of the gentler sex and left to their own rude company. The idea is altogether preposterous. Nothing is better than occasional deprivation to enhance the value of anything.' Everyone knows how forbidden fruit becomes more precious. It is the opinion of the best Sociologists that the system of mixed teaching is not an unmixed good. Some hold that co-education in the United States, with its many opportunities for freedom of intercourse, is to a large extent responsible for the decline of marriage and the increase of divorce. The argument is that boys and girls alike get to know too much of each other in their young days; there remains little or nothing of those romantic illusions that go so far towards making mature life happy; mutual indifference is engendered, and each sex inclines to go its own way. An occasional separation is surely a good corrective; and no doubt the boys will return from Papakura with a renewed zest for the enjoyment of female society. As Will Carleton, an American poet, puts it — “To appreciate Heaven well It’s good for a man to have just fifteen minutes in Hell!” Without applying this sentiment too literally, no sensible person can doubt that six days under canvas will do the cadets a lot of good, and make them appreciate the comforts and luxuries of life all the more when they return to them. Government House, Wellington, which is to be the temporary almde of I’arliaHicnt, is at present undergoing alterations to fit it, in some measure, for its

new tenants. In some measure only can it be made suitable for structural difficulties and limitation of space will prevent some of the well-known features of Parliament being retained. The chief things missing will be the galleries. For probably two years to come, there will be no room for the people in the House of their representatives. The country politicians, the city loafers, and the budding statesmen from the public schools will not be able to sit in the Speaker’s or the Public Gallery and pick up the pearls of wisdom flung around by Parliamentary orators. The Legislative Councillors, when freed from their own arduous duties, will not be able to nod and dream away the time in the place formerly reserved for them in the House. Worst deprivation of all, the feminine students of politics will not enjoy the delights so dear to them of showing their hats to each other, of displaying their dexterity with knitting and crochet needles, and admiring their pet members taking part in the noble work of framing the country’s laws. The deprivation to members will be none the less severe. “The applause of listening Senates to command” may still be their privilege, but it will be impossible for them to “Read their history in a nation’s eyes,” since the nation, male and female, old and young, will not be there to bestow on them those bright glances of intelligent encouragement which in the past have inspired some of our Parliamentarians to their most daring flights of oratory. It is perhaps just as well that it should bo so, for our M.P.’s are to “hold forth” in the ball-room, whose slippery floor may lead to many a “faux pas” as members indulge in rhetorical gyrations and ■ “double shuffles.” The “gentlemen of the Legislative Council” will be fittingly—though it may be a tight fit—housed in the vice regal draw-ing-room. There will be no division lobbies, so the representatives of the people will be spared going through the dreary exercise of “dividing” whenever anyone for obstructive or other malicious end, calls for a vote. Members will record their votes, as in the Council, by the common-sense method of responding “Ay” or “No” when the roll is called. It may be found that some of the changes forced upon the House may prove worthy of permanent adoption. In one important matter there will be no innovation—- “ Bellamy’s” will go on as of yore. Robbed of other sources of inspiration, members may still rely upon this. After all, Parliament may' not fare so badly in its new place of “board and residence.” JX What, in the meantime, is to become of His Excellency the Governor, his family and suite? Various suggestions, well meant, but more or less grotesque, have been made in this regard. One is that the Governor’s establishment should be located in the hotel at Bellevue Gardens, Lower Hutt; but this residence is palpably unsuitable on account of its distance from the capital. In session time, it is frequently of the utmost importance that the Governor should be within easy reach at all hours of the day or night, and a place that could hardly l>e reached within an hour would be decidedly inconvenient. One individual, in a lucid moment, has suggested that His Excellency should bo housed in the old lunatic asylum building at Mount View —a salubrious site and not too inaccessible, it is true; but the associations of the place give to the idea an air of jocularity which puts the proposal out of the question.. As Lord Plunket has so readily agreed to give up his reai-

deice for the use of Parliament, it is the clear duty of the Government to provide him with a suitable and dignified home, and no doubt such a place will be found for him in the city of Wellington. Parliament will immediately have to face the question of finding a new site for Government House, and erecting thereon a permanent and commodious home worthy of the Dominion and of the King’s representative. Probably no better site could be found than on land belonging to the State on the high ground adjoining the Botanical Gardens and overlooking the city and harbour. By co-operation with the City Council, arrangements could be made for the construction of a broad carriage drive to the site through the Gardens, which would constitute a vast improvement on that popular resort. Pending the erection of the new Government House, II is Excellency and family will probably spend most of the Parliamentary recess in Auckland, or in travelling about the country, jX jX The work of perpetuating types of the Maori race is not being undertaken a moment too soon. Not that the Maori is in any imminent danger of becoming extinct. So far from that being the case, the Maoris are increasing in numbers, chiefly because of their growing intelligence and the wise measures adopted for teaching them the laws of health. But they are losing their typical characetristics very rapidly, and a few years hence it will hardly be possible to find a live specimen of the Maori as he appeared to the original colonists of New Zealand. Scientists used to speak of Nature as jealously preserving her types, however careless she might be of the individual life. But this view’ has been proved fallacious, and Tennyson gave a more correct view of the matter when he wrote of Mother Nature thus: “So careful of the type! But, no; From searped cliff’and quarried stone She shrieks—A thousand types have gone; I care for nothing; all shall go!” So, before the old-time Maori goes, his physical features are to be carefully recorded in “counterfeit presentment.” The Government has commissioned Mr Nelson Illingworth, a sculptor of some renown, to execute a series of bronze portraits of Maori men and women of the old school, and that gentleman will shortly make an extended tour of the King Country for the purpose of studying types and modelling them in clay, preparatory to fixing them in enduring bronze. It is to be hoped the commission includes provision for full-figure studies, as well as for faces an dtatoo-marking, so that the physical characteristics of the race may be faithfully perpetuated. Some artists, and notably Mr Goldie, of Auckland, have done good work in this direction; but paintings, like photographs, are perishable, while bronze statues and busts, as has been proved in the ease of Roman works, can for a long period resist the corroding tooth of Time. J* J* So much for the perpetuation of the type; but what about the preservation of the race? This also is being attended to, and, most appropriately, intelligent and educated Maoris and half-castes are now the leading agents in the work. The Young Maori Party’s Conference, held at Orakei last week, has had under consideration the question of what means should be employed for preserving and uplifting: the native race-. First in importance was the subject of infant mortality ; after that came the problem of how to make the young Maori generation industrious and ambitious to improve their position. Those, who own sufficient areas of land have, in some instances, become most successful pastoralists and agriculturalists. The aliorigimil Maori was not, as is sometimes supposed, a mere warrior who, like the American Indian, left all agricultural and other manual work to the women. Readers of

Mr Augustus Earle’s interesting account of "New Zealand in 1827,” now appearing serially in our columns, cannot hive failed to notice his description of the extensive agricultural operations in which he found native men, women and children engaged. Dr. Pomare’s observations at the Chatham Islands prove that the Maoris of to-day, if given individual titles to land ami an incentive to work, can become enterprising farmers. Then, the Maoris of old time were expert craftsmen and artists, house-builders, canoe-makers, fashioners of implements of war, the chase, and domestic use; but with the change in their environment these callings have fallen into disuse. It only needs the undoubted ingenuity of the race to be directed to arts and crafts suited to their new conditions, and we may fully expect to see the modern Maori lifted from idle lethargy into industrious and emulative habits. The employment of Maori girls as nursemaids, domestics, etc!, has not hitherto been possible on any but the smallest scale. With advancing education, however, these may find many suitable and lucrative open ings. So there is a fair prospect of the Maoris being preserved for many generations to come; and when the representatives of the race a hundred years hen e come to be compared with their ancestral types, as perpetuated in bronze or on canvas, the contrast will be at once; a testimony to the improvableness of the Maoris and to the wise and humane treatment they received from the British. JX JX Is the kauri gum industry doomed? People have so long been accustomed to consider it as one of the staple resources of Auckland that, when the other day they saw the head line, “A Vanishing Industry,” in a contemporary, their first and natural thought was that there had been a letter dropped, and that the line was meant to read, “A Varnishing Indus try.” But there was no typographies! error, for it became apparent on reading the article that the production of kauri gum was declining at the rate of about a thousand tons per annum, and it seem ed as though it wai only a question of time when it would reach the vanishing point. It would be interesting to find the real reason for this decline. Is the supply running short? Or is there a lack of workers? Or is the demand fill ing off, owing to rival gums Supplanting the kauri? It goes almost without say ing mat the supply of this valuable pro duct is not so plentiful as it. mice was, for the deposits have long been steadily worked, and once exhausted they will never, humanly speaking, be replaced. But there seems also to be something in the theory that the lalxmrers arc few, or that they demand higher rcinuner.itio:i than the industry can afford to pay. It is alleged that certain of the northern Gum Lords are responsible for the latest “Bulgarian atrocity”—the import-.!-tion of the contract labourers from Bui garia, who were lately stranded in Sydney, and ol\othcrs “cn route” who have been warned that they will not be allowed to land in Australia. Then, the fact that the price of gum does not harden, despite the shortage of supplies in the lamdon market, would appear to indicate that varnish manufacturers do not find kauri gum indispensable, but readily fall back on the cheaper products of other lands. Possibly the resumption of direct, steamer communication between Auckland and San Francisco will give a fillip to the trade, for America was wont to be a large consumer of our product The prospect in the meantime is suffi ciently alarming to warrant inquiry by the Government into the beat means of preserving the kauri gum industry. The gumticlds have always been looked ii|x>n as a valuable outlet for surplus labour in the Auckland district, and for this reason it may not lie desirable to encour age an influx of alien workers. 1 u any caae, the trade is of such value to the Dominion that something should be done (and at mice, by Gum!) to prevent its exti action.