OUR WELLINGTON LETTER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 7, 16 February 1910, Page 4

OUR WELLINGTON LETTER.

February 12.

A Unique Conference. IT has often been said that the system of education of the Dominion is a pyramid with the primary schools at base and the University at apex. This has been said many times, and has been accorded the honours due to discoveries of fundamental truth. Nevertheless, it remains apparently only an aspiration. The evidence is to be seen in the spoeehes delivered at the education conference held during the week. The Minister dwelt for the whole of his allotted span on the need for reviewing the educational progress of the past, for consolidating, co-ordinating, and making the whole into something homogeneous and reliable, as well as of the same colour throughout. The Inspector-General took the same line, and all the speakers harped on the string struck by these two. The only thing that appears to be quite clear is that the University has still some distance to go before it ean be regarded as the real top of the education system Far be from me to say anything remote likely to give colour to the opinion that the whole of the time hitherto spent on this work has been wasted or that the men engaged in it are in hopeless disagreement on the subject, as to the right way of reconciling all unavoidable differences. What is apparent on the face of the discussions is that the assembled experts all agree in the wish to bring all the aims closer together so as to get the most out of the system by bringing it into one concentrated whole. It is on the face of it a thing very difficult. It is, indeed, this very difficulty that makes this conference unique among all the conferences held in the Dominion on the question of education. Hitherto all these have been concerned with certain details until the question of the general principle of co-ordination has been to some extent lost sight of. Naturally, for it is a case of not seeing the wood for the trees. For the first time in the history of education the question of “Quo vadis” has been placed before a conference with nothing else in the world to think about, Work for the Future.

The things that matter are therefore not so much the resolutions passed as the things said by the men who have discussed the passing of them. The Minister eaid the right - thing when he declared this to be the first occasion on which it had been attempted to hold a conference of all the forms of educational effort in the public service of the Dominion —primary, secondary, technical, and higher. So also when he said that the conference, had to find whether the legitimate demand to bring the public education into closer accordance with the requirements of the various classes in the community remains unsatisfied. He was right, at the same time, to warn them that the question of money must not lx - left out of consideration. He did good service by showing in simple enumeration tlie enormous number of detail matters which take up the time of the ordinary conferences, and make it out of the question to hand this important one over to their hands. It was proof positive that the ordinary conferences have quite enough to do \vith their own subjects. The need for a special tribunal of consideration could not have been better demonstrated.

For a time the meeting seemed to be absorbed in the subject of grammar. All the men showed, in fact, that they had got accustomed to take the narrow view of everything, and they wallowed in the narrowness. Then they passed resolutions generally affirming the present method of getting the primary scholars forward into the secondary system. That is the good part of the work done. For the reel, they are matters of detail, which will be thought out presently, and the Conference ean say that it has thrown some light ahead, in which these questions can be better studied. Certain it is that the first conference held on the subject cannot settle it, and we see that much water must flow under the bridges before the matter will be settled on the right lines. Meanwhile, the conference has shown that it is alert, that there is

somebody whose business it is to attend to the solution of the education problem, and that for the present, though there is tremendous division among the experts about things primary, secondary, ami higher, there is agreement in the determination to thresh the whole tiling out with patience, respect for facts, and a proportionate regard for conclusions. What the Cow Has Done. Mr. Buddo had a grand opportunity of saying good things, anil he took advantage of the same with the vigour that is developed by constant Ministerial practice. The opportunity consisted in the advance of the district in which the Horowhenua Show was held, at which the Minister had to say what was in him. The advance since 1901 in the values of the holdings was simply threefold in the time—all owing to dairying! Mr. Buddo showed what, the cow had done for the people of the district, and incidentally made them believe that he knew’ all about the subject. It was pleasant for them to hear him handle it. Under the shadow of £BOO,OOO of increase of the whole dairy output of the Dominion the district makes a good showing enough. But the best of the story is the bunch of results secured by the experimental station of Weraroa. In everything the agriculturist ean think of, the results of the farm are a delight to him. Grain yields, dairy results, breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, growing plants of all sorts useful to the farmer — in all these the Experimental Farm had a vast showing. Surely there is here a plea for restricting the sweep of the knife retrenching. Too Many Lawyers. Matriculation has been very much before us all since the University Senate decided to make the examination stiffer. There are two opinions. One set of men hold that the stiffer the examination the better, because the fewer lawyers will there be, and the fewer young people w’ill attach themselves to Government billets. < >n the other hand, it is declared that the privilege of the race is to bask in the sun of scholarship and get every chance possible for wearing broadcloth rather than fustian. In the commonsense of the public it is possible to see a good deal of assent to the former of these views. As a matter of fact there are already far too many lawyers. The big crops of late years have been gathered into the great barn of the public practice of the profession, and there is no grain for a quarter of the number of those thus stored honourably away. In the same way, there are too many applicants for Government ’work. Any one familiar with the desperate set made on members of Parliament to get billets for able-bodied young men, would imagine that the self-reliance once so much boasted of in this Dominion had departed to the Limbo of all things vertebrate. On the whole, if the stiffening of the matriculation examination lessens the leaning on Government work throughout the Dominion, the University will have deserved a great deal at the hands of the public of the Dominion. If the “Teachers’ Parliament,” as it has been called—which clearly is destined to sit like all Parliaments for years, to be judged like them by its results spread over many sessions of discussion—can help the good work it will be even better. Dreamers and Their Dreams. The dreamers are amusing themselves about the great Newcastle strike. I met one the other day who wept over the fate of the strike leaders. Said he, they are being twice punished for the one offence. But that was not his dream. He dreamt much as Cardinal Moran dreamt in the beginning of the strike—■ dreamt that nationalisation of the industry is the sovereign remedy. Deaf he was to the argument that even in this Dominion the workers have not shown that State employment keeps away the shadow of strikes. There are so many employers in that trade, he declared, and so much competition, so much uncertainty of markets, and so much consequent break of employment, together with the struggles of the “vend” and the confusion of shipping rates, that the industry stands in need of pulling together. Now, dreamed this dreamer, the niffy power to pull it together is the State. A little bill is the first thing,

and Parliament, which passes bills by the score, ean surely pass a little bill for floating a loan, to buy up all the coal mines in the Mother Colony. Then the State sets to work to make steady output, storing the coal on great concrete spaces built for the purpose at small cost. Rows of hoppers for loading ships and trains, great grab buckets for the purpose ’ of grabbing ten to fifteen tons at a time for transfer from the concrete stores, or ra tlier paddocks, and all things so arranged that there shall 'be the smallest' amount of handling, and it will be a fair hope that the trade will be freed from all the troubles now afflicting it. As to the strikers—well, in the beginning they must be in gaol. But if they trust the Government, and the men on strike go to work and agree on some terms, the settlement might be followed by the opening of the dungeon doors. After that, the State bill and the little loan, and the pulling together of the industry in the manner above described. To hear my man make his declaration, with an air of infallibility, did one's heart good. But—■ well, there are “huts" always. They are, ■however, not for the people who dream dreams. Dreams, we have to remember, are held by night, when the workaday world is abed. Now, the world is governed in the hours when people are awake. And the first thing to be regulated is the working of bhe Government of His Majesty the King. Another man meeting me insisted that dreamers are only to be found among the strike leaders who are no longer dreaming. Pondering they are, he declares, the lesson that has awakened them.

A third flies to Emerson, the philosopher, who strikes him as the teacher for every- time and every circumstance. He quotes from “Man the Reformer”: “What if the objections whereby our institutions are assailed are extreme and speculative, and the reformers tend to idealism? That only shows the extravagance of the abuses which have driven the mind into the opposite extreme.” This being declared to be vague somewhat, he says the remedy proposed in the same essay is that there is nothing like work—a thing which ennobleth every man who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow. This, leading to nowhere in particular, except that the noblest must therefore be the strikers aforesaid, who have practised the gospel of much work, whatever may be their present state of idleness. one drops on the following pearl of the great master: “I do not wish to overstate this doctrine of labour, or insist that every man should be a farmer, any more than that every man should be a lexicographer.” Therefore I felt that the only thing for me to do was to refer my friend and his last quotation to the Education Conference now- sitting, with the remark added that there is no other authority under heaven that, so far as I can see, may resolve this problem of education and what to do with it. And so we parted, each musing as we were. The Unexpected in Giants. It is a relief to turn to the great big giant who is showing himself off to the King’s lieges in our theatres. There is no perplexity about him. He knows what he wants, he knows how to get it; he can laugh at others, he can be content with a content as immense as his strength. Strength it is of the giant, combined with aversion to the use of the same after the gigantic manner. His views are as sound as his muscles, and we see how he has built himself into eolossism. Lift weights by degrees, walk regularly. and y-ou shall never be weak, neither shall yon ever grow fat Above all things, never try what yon are not fitted for. Take a. lesson from the cat Throw the cat out of the window, and he will fall on his feet none the worse. Do the same to a dog, and be dies. He has not the faculty of falling on his feet. In like manner, if you have not the faculty- of wrestling, rest assured that nothing will ever teach it to you; but that if you try it you die. Having the faculty, train your muscles with weights and your steadiness with walking. If you try the indiarubber aids to muscle you will get muscle, big truly, but as useless and inept. Such is Hackenschmidt on his successes. After reading how he held forth in this style, it is a pleasure to go and see his muscles and sinews of power, and mark the canny, cool, calm way in which he puts down his man. And it is all rounded off well, for he is proof against any unworthiness of money-making, giving his name to nothing in the way of fads or nostrums or patent devices, for all of which he has sovereign contempt. Living cleanly and

well, he has made enough to retire on, and presently will take to travelling foe his pleasure. On the whole, he is rather an unexpected thing in giants, a« strong in the eommonsense knowledge of meana and ends as in pose of his mind and the vastness of his muscles. Something Rotten. The apple is not the forbidden fruit of the Dominion. On the contrary, onfc finds it everywhere from the North Gap® to the Bluff, and sometimes one is tempted to believe that the best aro nearer to the latter place, and sometime® the temptation is towards the other exr treme of the country. In fact, the temptation travels with you wherever you go. Yet it is found necessary to offer X penny a pound by way of subsidy to encourage growers. This while nearly every, steamer of ours takes Tasmanian apple® to London. These ships even find a great market at Rio. The Minister told the Nelson folk all about this thing the other day after he had duly expressed hi.® astonishment at the abundance and quality of the fruit of their orchards. The local men, however, rather repudiate the encouragement offered by the Minister’s allusion to the subsidy of X penny. They declare loftily- that the penny is not wanted, as the price quoted from London (up to eleven and twelve shillings a ease) ought to clear anything from six to seven shillings a case without the subsidy-, which is equal to three and fourpenee, or twopence ibelow the price obtained in the local market. IS this is true, then the self-reliance ofi our apple grower is not the thing that! made the Dominion what it is. The Tasmanians are doing daily what we require the stimulus of a needless subsidy tai make us talk about. Now we can grow apples in the Dominion, and they will keep when grown, as all respectable apples will do. As we send but few to' take their luck in the Home markets, there must be something rotten somewhere. Missing. In re the Waratah the Board of Trade! has spoken with a sound that leaves us in no way uncertain about the nature of the inquiry- which will be held into the disappearance of that vessel. Ofi course, it will be a very wonderful thing if some navigator going South, say, Scott or Peary, were to pick up this overdue liner with a remnant of her people. One remembers that bottle picked up on the Broken Bay- beach with an intimation that the ship was drifting towards! Victoria Land. But the talk among the sea-faring men in this port is not! favourable to any such theory of improbable possibility. ’ It is sinister, indeed, a.® well as voluminous. It is mainly ofi plans hawked about from builder to. builder only to be rejected as unsound'. There is one story- of a final protest on' the part of the firm that did build tha vessel eventually, and got snubbed for! its pains. There is reference likewise' to the declaration of the Sydney marinet surveyor, who declared in the columns ofi the local Press that the dimensions ofi the vessel were a guarantee for hen “turning turtle.” There is also the story, of the passenger who got out at Durban! because, finding roll-recoveries slow, ha feared a capsize, and tried to get other® to follow his example. All of which; makes us understand why the Ruapehu', just arrived, has reported “no sign of tha Waratah,” and gives a significance ta tike postponement of the inquiry by the Board of Trade based on its desire tai make the inquiry “exhaustive.” Ther* is much expectancy among the ship men. A Fine Ship. In the same quarter, too. there is the utmost admiration of the Rua-hme, tha new ship of the New Zealand Company, which has just taken away I-ady Plunket and a large gathering of passert"■ers. It is the universal concensus that no vessel so well fitted foe passenger traffic, especially for hot weather, has ever come in here, that her saloons are models of light and air, that her! state rooms are comfortable, well ventilated and never to be sufficiently praised for the electric fans which enable the worst tropical heat to be defied; and that for seaw-orthiness and good behaviour in all the moods of tha sea there is none to beat her. Sixteen knots is not a speed like untq modern greyhounds, but this h not a greyhound, so much as a sound, comfortable, roomy, airy ship of the very best class built. We have seen the day, too, when sixteen knots would. ham been talked of with rapture. V

Lady Plunket’® Departure. There was a goodly cempany • .-nt away with her Excellency on Thursday, and there was also a goodly company assembled on the Glasgow wharf to see them away. The wharf has never looked so like’ the lawn of a big race meeting on Cup Day, with sunshades and brightness of ntauy toilettes. Her Excellency Booked very depressed, a fact which drew from experienced persons the remark that no Governor’s lady ever left New Zealand without tears —this speaks well for these ladies and for the Dominion, where they were held in such honour. When the baby was held up to its father to kiss, and Lord Plunket went off immediately thereafter down the gangway, looking just like any other father and husband under the circumstances, the crowd was touched, and got yery quiet. Perhaps that was why there was not much cheering. Anyhow, the people of this city are the worst hands at cheering in the whole Dominion. They like to stare, but they like ■gust as well to be dumb.

An Obscene Print.

We have found at last that rara avis an obscene print in our midst. There i# no doubt about the obscenity as found by ■the jury and attested by the defence itself. When the ease was going to the jury, the judge straightened the matter very considerably when he said that if the tactics of the defence were correct, then there would be no finding anyone from foreign parts guilty in these things in future, for the responsibility would be evaded ingeniously every time with perfect success. So thought the jury and the defendant was found guilty. But when sentence came to be passed, the judge thought it would be as well to etate a case for the Court of Appeal, so as to make quite sure about the law in the ease. For the present, then, there is an uncomfortable sort of feeling that foreign obscenity may have only to play fits cards well to secure unbridled license in the teeth of the law and the intentions of the Legislature to put a fence about the cause of decency. What the Court of Appeal will decide will transpire presently. In the meantime, it is clear to the meanest intellect that should it decide that there is no power in the law to pinch the right man, or the responsible man, the law will be altered so as to prevent Joliu Norton or anyone else from shooting filth over the Dominion under cover of elastic aliases. Last session, the ■Legislative Council passed a measure for giving to our Court, decisions of a certain kind validity in the neighbouring States. It did not pass the Lower House, because there was not time. But it will do so this year, we may feel sure. May it not be a precedent for giving other verdicts currency, too? An obscene print in Wellington is just as obscene whether its owner Ilves in Sydney or in Wellington. 'Latitude and longitude and climate ought not to save him from the consequences. When a man deserves gaol as richly in one country as in another, to gaol he ought to go. whatever country he belongs to. If he had committed murder this man would have had to stand his trial here, would have been dragged from his domicile to the scene of his crime. When he murders the mind of youth and assassinates decency why should he tie able to shelter in a foreign domicile? Mr. Seddon's Memory. Wihon the lluahine was taking away her passengers on Thursday, and the people on the wharf were talking about the departure of governors and their ladies, there was naturally much talk of the late Mr Seddon in connection with the departure of the Ran-furlys from the Baine place, and Mrs Seddon was present among the people fareweHing Her Excellency Lady Plunket. At the same moment or neu-r it, the ceremony was being performed in St. Paul’s of the unveiling Seddon Memorial. With the work of Mr. Franmpton most of us are familiar, especially those who have Been it reproduced n iyonr columns, Mr. Editor. We are aM glad to learn that the artist has forwarded the model Ito .Mrs. Seddon. It was a kindly ■thoughtful, and most attentive action. If anything had been wanting to complete the fitness of the proceedings it Was supplied by the speech of the Duke of Argyll, which strikes us as being the best of recent summaries, cabled hero, lor it gives the salient points of the late Mr. Seddon's career and striking personality, with clearness of good judgment. When the Duke isayis “his spirit still guides New Zealand’s counsel's” we can all say “Amen.”

The Duty of Public Men. It is useless for Australians to go into hysterics about the Norwegian Consul and his Danish Colleagues. It is quite true that only people with means are welcomed, and that all those who have not, find themselves in "queer street” on their arrival -from foreign parts. No smourrt of artistic journalism playing at ■virtue will get away from the facts. Under ordinary circumstances these consuls would have been perfectly right to ■warn their countrymen. In face of the fact that their countries want the right sort of the agriculturists with money, brains, and energy, at home, where they are sure of that prosperity, which is at least a doubtful quantity in Australia for them, the Consuls were very tnuch more in the right. Of course Australia wants population. Of course population as the vital want, without the satisfaction of which Australia will not remain a white country for many years longer. At the same time Australia does not want a policy of dumping. Australia must H>e content to choose between a well thought out, comprehensive, large policy of immigration or nothing. To denounce everyone who tells the truth on the subject, and to decry honest, public men who perform their public duty without fear of Australian suseeptibililies is contemptible. Victorian Railways. The Victorian railway accident is deplorable. All the more so as it is the .second sensational accident which lately set the tongues of the world going about the management of the Victorian railways. But when the cries of agony of the victims are out of our ears, it is impossible to get the statement of the survivors out of our minds. These concern defective brakes and long hours. Possibly this may make comparison with Victorian methods a less favourite pastime with some of the critics of our railway system. Especially since Mr. Millar has shown that his attempts at making the railways pay their whole way are not based on skinflintism or long hours, or the raising of high charges—ours, he says, are the lowest, and he says so with the air of one who means that they shall so remain—but by the healthful expedient of running nothing bl/ fairly full trains. The Marine Institute. The Marine Institute, which has erected a splendid building in Mulgrave-street, opened it with great eclat on Friday. All the world and his wife were there to hear the Minister for Marine and the Mayoi pay their pleasant well-deserved compliments to the Institute, to mark the excellent arrangement of the rooms, to see the fine view from the roof and to realise that the men of the sea having apparently conquered everything at sea, determined to tackle work ashore, and did so with a success astonishing to all architects, who admit they have seen ine of the finest buildings in the city. Secondary Education. The Education Conference last week resolved that the avenue to secondary education should lie quite free and unrestricted, eligibility, therefor to lie dependent on the primary school-leaving certificate, awarded on the joint representation of the headmasters and inspectors of schools. Wellington Woollen Company. The directors of the Wellington Woollen Company have announced an interim dividend of 3 per cent on all shares for the first half of the financial year ended December 31st. Boy Burglars Sentenced. The boy burglars, recently arrested at Happy Valley while carrying arms, Maurice Edward Pointon and Joseph Patrick Haughey, appeared for sentence at the Supreme Court last week on 13 charges of burglary. Haughey, as ringlea.der, was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment with hard labour on each of the 13 charges, sentences to run concurrently. Pointon was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment without hard labour on each charge, the terms to run concurrently. A Serious Fracas In consequence of the fracas at camp In Hutt Park, Wellington, (’apt. Dalrymple and Lieut. Hastings, of the Dominion Scouts, have been placed under arrest. (About one a.m. on Sunday last a heated

altercation occurred, the consequence, it is alleged, of personal feeling, Dalrymple believing attempts were being made to ■undermine his influence with the men. This was followed by a scuffle, in which blows were exchanged. A Court Martial has been set up to investigate the matter. Our Population. The population of New Zealand at December 31 (exclusive of .Maoris) was i*82,923. The Maoris numbered 47,731, and - the population of the Cook and other islands brings the gross total to 1,042,994. The males number 532,165, and the females 490,829, There are 2824 Chinese (67 females) in the Dominion. During 1909 the population increased by 22,281, or 2.32 per cent. The excess of births over deaths contributed 17,562 to the increase, and the excess of arrivals over departures 4719. The birth rate during last year was 27.29 per 1000, and the death rate 9.22, compared with 27.45 and 9.57, the respective figures for 1908. Municipal Abattoirs. Tile Wellington municipal abattoirs have so far fully justified their existence. Before construction the city engineer estimated that the weekly quantity of stock that would be killed would amount to about 70 bullocks and 550 sheep. These figures were largely exceeded in December, when 147 bullocks and 2364 sheep were slaughtered, while there was a larger increase for January, the figures of stock killed reading;—Bullocks 229, sheep 2025, lambs 805, pigs 130, calves 40. The engineer’s estimate of the total yearly receipts was £2479 15/, while for December and January the fees collected amounted to £727 11/11.

Lady Plunket.s Departure.

Her Excellency (Lady Plunket) left by the Ruahine on Thursday on her return to England. There was a large gathering on the wharf to say good-bye.