The Week in Review

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 2, 14 July 1909, Page 1

The Week in Review

NOTICE. The Editor will be pleased to receive for consideration Short Stories and Descriptive Articles illustrated with photos, or suggestions from contributors. Bright terse contributions are wanted dealing with Dominion life and questions. Unless stamps are sent, the Editor cannot guarantee the return of unsuitable MSS. A Great Imperialist. R. CHAMBERLAIN may fairly 4I ■ e,a ' m to be considered the A I J greatest living Imperialist, and / his policy has had a profound influence on the political life of every British State. On his 73rd birthday, which fell on Thursday last, New Zealand was not behindhand in forwarding messages of congratulation. Auck'and, Christchurch, and Dunedin all sent cables recognising the great statesman’s services to the cause of Empire, and a special cablegram forwarded on behalf of the editors of the leading newspapers in the Dominion. Mr. Chamberlain is eminently a practical stateman, and he has always kept in close touch with the spirit of the times, never giving blind adherence to either political dogmas or party obligations, but striving to bind together the whole Empire in a voluntary and national unity. He first made his mark in municipal affairs, and when Mayor of Birmingham he caused the transfer of the gas and water works to the borough authorities, and devised the improvement scheme which has entirely transformed the face of central Birmingham. His Imperial instinct led him to strongly denounce Mr. Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill, which he held to be disintegrating and destructive to British unity. His services to the colonies have been great. He had charge of the measure for the constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, he presided over the 1902 Colonial Conference, he personally visited South Africa and inquired in the condition of affairs after the war, and in May, 1903, he launched at Birmingham, his famous scheme for the revision of the fiscal policy of tire country, and the adop tion of a policy of preferential tariffs. Mr. Chamberlain’s motto has always been “ Imperial consolidation through democratic patriotism,” an ideal that is noble, imaginative and spiritual. His views on colonial preference are steadily gaining ground, and the Imperial Conference of 1907 showed how great an obstacle to the closer union of Britain and her colonies is the rigid fiscal policy of the Mother Country. No English statesman has appealed more to the inhabitants of the great self-governing States of the British Empire, and the people of this Dominion *ro not among the least enthusiastic of his admirers.

The Colonial Secretary and the Press Conference. A very different type of man is the present Colonial Secretary, the Earl of Crewe. The Sydney “ Daily Telegraph,” in reporting his reception of the delegates to the Press Conference, says: — “The Earl of Crewe halted and halted, and threatened repeatedly to die entirely in the middle of a sentence. He realised to the full the critical nature of the audience. In a sense it was a bad start for the Mother Country to have to put up the Earl of Crewe. The fact, so nobly appreciated by Mr. Chamberlain, is that the colonies are the strong end of the Empire of the very near future, and worthy of the administrative ta'ent, not of one of the weakest, but one of the greatest men any Ministry can command. Not that Lord Crewe strikes cne as a weak man, but he is far from brilliant, and not the sort of man to consolidate the Empire.” This is a little unfair because Lord Crewe is anything but weak when occasion demands his taking a strong stand on any political question. But he has not the grasp of colonial questions possessed by Mr. Chamberlain, and he also probably realises that the stand taken by the present Government on the matter of tariff reform is not a popular one in the colonies. His sympathy with democratic ideals is mainly academic, and he is the grand seigneur to the tips of his fingers, making even Lord Landsdowne seem plebian beside him. But he possesses in a marked degree both tact and diplomatic talent, and he is one of those men who accomplish much whilst seeming to do little. There was a special fitness in his presiding at the Press Conference which the “ Telegraph ” has overlooked. His father was practically the founder of the Newspaper Press Fund, the immediate object of which is to provide for the working journalists of the United Kingdom a fund to which they and their families, in seasons of distress or of bereavement, may resort for assistance. The Newspaper Press Fund has long since established itself so thoroughly that it no longer need fear unfriendly criticism; but the case was very different when it vias first established. Many of the most influential members of the Press not only stood aloof from it, regarding its establishment as a blow at the dignity of the profession to which they belonged, but offered it their most strenuous opposition. Lord Houghton threw the whole weight of his presonal influence into the scale on behalf of the Press Fund. He became its first president, and retained that office to the day of his death; and it is no exaggeration to say that the fund owed more to him than to any other man. Though not as distinguished in the world of letters as his father was, the Colonial Secretary yet possesses considerable literary gifts, and questions of statesmanship apart, there were many reasons why he was the most suitable man in the Cabinet to welcome the journalists from the different parts of our great Empire.

Local Taxation for School Buildings. While many people would be willing to admit that our present system of allocating grants for school buildings is not altogether satisfactory, the system of local taxation advocated by Mr. Fowlds is likely to be extremely unpopular throughout the country, and there is little probability of its being carried into effect. The main objection to the present system seems to be that the Department has to find the money for school buildings, and the local authority -has to spend it. It is obvious that the Education Department cannot decide adequately on the merits of the various claims submitted to it, and it is equally obvious that it cannot accede to all the requests made for grants for building purposes. Mr. Fowlds also says that as the Education Boards have not to face the responsibility of raising the money, or any part of it, themselves, they naturally are less careful and less economical than they would be if the money had to be raised locally. But against this must be set the fact that the effect of making school buildings a local charge would be to disproportionately 7 increase taxation in the districts where new and enlarged schools are most required, and where local burdens are already heavy for developmental purposes. Had the system of local taxation been in force from the beginning, it would perhaps have been found to be the best method; but to make a change now would only mean that small and comparatively poor districts would suffer, whilst those which are settled and stationary’ would escape. Colonial Physique, Captain Blunt, of H.M.s. Pioneer, in commenting on the colonial physique, has drawn attention to the fact that the percentage of New Zealanders rejected upon medical examination is greater than the percentage of those rejected at Home. This fact may mean much or it may mean little. In all probability the colonial surgeons are much more particular and harder to satisfy than the ■English. Many men undoubtedly pass the doctor in England who would be amongst those rejected in the colonies. We cannot for a moment suppose that the general standard of physique is higher in England than in New Zealand. In every form of sport we more than hold our own, and a race that has produced the champion scullers and the champion footballers cannot fairly be accused of degeneracy in the matter of physical development. But there are defects noticeable in the rising generation, and the question arises whether in our primary schools sufficient attention is paid to the all-important subject of health. Doctors tell us that shortsightedness is on the increase, and this may well be due to bad lighting in the schoolroom and to badly printed school books. Then, again, we are told that slight curvature of the spine is very prevalent, and this is frequently attributed to defective school seating and the unnatural strain placed on the children's backs. Health is of more importance

than any amount of mere book learning, and the Department would do well to see that the children’s minds are not developed at the expense of their bodies. Jt The Übiquitous New Zealander. A marked trait in the character Ox the young New Zealander is his love of travel. He is to be met with everywhere, and the Press of the Dominion is constantly publishing items of news that proclaim his übiquity. He seeks experience, employment, pleasure, or maybe just pure adventure. After the manner of all island peoples who have such close acquaintance with the world’s great highway—the sea—the New Zealander is essentially a wanderer, but albeit one who somehow or other leaves his mark and makes his way in the land of his adoption. It is recorded, for instance, that a New Zealand surveyor has been highly honoured for his public services by the King of Siam. Again, the Defence Department reports a difficulty in distributing the medals and clasps won in the South African war, because those entitled to them are now in far distant lands. One eorrtingenter whose medal awaits him is in Nyassaland, Central Africa; another has been located in the West African colony of Sierra Leone; and a third is a policeman in the mining city of Yukon in frozen Alaska. The list could be multiplied indefinitely. New Zealand sends surveyors to the Gold Coast of Africa, engineers to half the shipping lines of the Empire; and in this connection it may be mentioned that a Dunedin boy is sixth engineer of the record breaking Cunarder Mauretania, mining experts to Patagonia and Burmah, scientific and up-to-date farmers to the Argentine, and there is, perhaps, no field where the Dominion is more fully and worthily represented than in the great missionary enterprise* of India and China, though in these instances the colonials are animated by a higher and loftier motive than that responsible for the expatriation of so many of our young people. If reliable figures could be obtained it would probably be found that an astonishing proportion of New Zealanders have sought their fortunes abroad, and it is a matter for pride that few of them fail to achieve distinction and receive great honoura Our Prison Chaplains. The Rev. J. L. A. Kayll, who has been appointed visiting adviser to the Prisons Department, was for some time curate at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Auckland, and was subsequently vicar of Pokeno, and assistant priest at Hastings. He has written extensively on matters connected with prison reform, and in his book “A Plea for the Criminal” he advocates the adoption of more intelligent and more humane methods than those at present in vogue. But, though he has made a close study of the question as far as theory is concerned, he has not been brought into practical touch with the occupants of our gaols as have many of our gaol chaplains. Few men are

belter qualified to speak on all matters affecting the criminal than the prison chaplain of long experience. It is strange that the Government makes absolutely bo recognition of the valuable work done year after year by those who minister to the spiritual needs of our prisoners. In (Auckland the chaplain to the public institutions has for the past eleven years devoted the whole of his time to visiting the gaol, the mental hospital, the public hospital, and the Costley Home. He has taken on an average over 100 funerals a year, he has made valuable reports from time to time on matters connected with the prison and the hospital, and he has done more real work for the state than many highly paid officials. Yet the sole concession granted to him by the Government is a free pass on the Kaipara line as far as the cemetery. A man who has passed bis life in ministering to the insane, the sick, the indigent, and the criminal has surely some, claim on the sympathies of our members of Parliament. A Paradise for the Unemployed. Many people allege that the present acute position as regards unemployment is due to the immigration policy of the Government. Some attribute it to financial stringency, to the Arbitration Act, to the lack of paper money, to the weather, and to a host of other causes; but the majority seem 'inclined to think that ,we have had too many immigrants lately, and that we might very well deport a few of them Home again. From accounts published in the English papers it would seem that Poplar is a veritable paradise for people out of work, and a proposal to send all our unemployed to Poplar would probably be more popular than schemes of bushfelling and clearing. A few weeks ago the guardians brought forward a plan under Which the wives and families of men out of work would have been in a better position than the dependents of those in work. It was proposed that when a man entered the workhouse under what is known as the modified test order, and went to the Laindon Farm, his wife should receive 15/ a week, and 4/ for each child. If a woman had six childern, she would draw 39/ a week, or 18/ more than an ordinary Poplar labourer. Already the scale of relief is within 25 per cent of the above figures. Whole streets are occupied with paupers in the Bromley district, the women drawing from 15/ to 22/ a week. In one street there are 38 pauper families in 13 houses, and in some houses there are five or six pauper families. As for the work at Laindon Farm, it is stated by a reformer that so little work is done there that it costs £25 to produce ten shillings worth of vegetables. This is the kind of thing that goes on in Poplar. On May 19th a man entered the workhouse and left the following day. His wife got 12/and 6/3 in kind. Two weeks later he did the same thing, and his wife again got 12/-. Apparently it is not necessary to do any work in Poplar. All you need to do is to drop into the workhouse or the farm colony for a day at intervals and the obliging guardians will keep you and your family. Before the inquiry one person in twenty-six in Poplar received out-relief; after the inquiry the proportion dropped to 1 to 42. Now it is 1 in 25. The rates are 13/4 a year. But even Poplar cannot equal an incident reported from the Isle of Wight. There a man hit on the ingenious idea of living on bookmakers and the “house.” He would go into the workhouse, and put a shilling of his pocket-money on some horse. If the horse won, he would leave and live on his winnings, returning to the workhouse when they were exhausted. If he lost, he was still comfortable in the workhouse, and it was the ratepayers’ shilling that had gone. Thus does charity demoralise the race. There is no doubt that the monumental report of the Poor Law Commission in Britain brought down this year will bring about some seeded reform.