The PasT Month.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 February 1905, Page 397

The PasT Month.

§| By S. E. GREVILLE-SMITH. |g

. ICKENS somewhere tells oi two octogenarian grave- ? diggers,, who referred to those younger than them- } selves as children almost, and believed with more sincerity than fein-nint^ that their own '" time was somewhere in the dim distant future. We all know old people of that

kind ; people who refer to the death of a contemporary as " untimely." and who profess to believe that a man dying' at seventy is cut oft" in his prime ; people who refuse to consider their " latter end," as a contingency too remote. Yet if the slightest cough assail them they are ready to lie down and give up the ghost at once. A curious, nay, a comical parallel to the state of mind here noted is to be found in the mental attitude of Aueklanders in respect of volcanic action. It happens now and then that some globe-trotter,, whose' appetite for knowledge has been relieved chiefly by the reading- of guide 'books and the tales of antecedent travellers, and who is driven by the pseudo-scientist's passion for making' deductions, expresses the belief that Auckland will some day be hoist by its ow m petard, as one might say. He has learned that Rangitoto, Mounts Eden, Hobson, Albert, Wellington, Smart, and a

Vol, XT.— No. 5.-2 0.

do/en other cones, are volcanic and once upon a time vomited fire, and, cheerful pessimist that he is,, sees no reason why they shouldn't "go it again." But he does not alarm the Aucklanders, for the simple reason that no Aucklander believes it possible for Rangitoto or Mount Eden, or any of the other craters, to misbehave themselves after so long- a persistence in decency and order. '' Qui a bu, boira," say the French, 'but this tendency to " break out " does not apply rigidly to volcanoes, and to Auckland volcanoes not at all. Most likely the Aucklanders are right : at any rate, we all hope they are. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable circumstance that, the other morning, when some person or persons unknown dynamited a tool-shed at Mount Eden, with a bang that was heard for miles around by people whom business or pleasure or a bad conscience kept awake, half the population reading- the scare heading in the morning- paper at once jumped to the conclusion that a volcano had broken loose somewhere. Directly the mystery had been cleared up they were just as firmly convinced as before that wherever else the alleged " internal (ires " may seek an outlet they won't come this way.

Christmas has come and gone since the last instalment of these notes was written, and we are well launched into another year. And yet there is no appearance of the commercial depression about which we have been so repeatedly warned ever since the new century was born. So far as appearances go, we are still in the hey-day of prosperity. Even the Prohibitionists fail to discern any signs of decay in our material welfare. It would chime with their traditional policy to look for them, because the nolicense advocates have always claimed that the drinking habits of the Colony were rapidly driving- it down the easy descent to Avernus. Jn earlier days the statistics of the police court were recognised as a foarometer of trade, that is to say, trade generally, not the Trade with a capital T, which stands for the liquor traffic. When tKere were plenty of cases of drunkenness trade was considered to be brisk. When the police went about vainly searching for an inebriate, the student of sociology looked up and down the street to see how many shopkeepers were standing at their doors waiting for customers, just as one looks for a white horse when he sees a red-headed girl. Whether the rule could be depended on in these days is not so certain. I am inclined to think it would fail. Over-indulgence in strong liquor, not to say drunkenness, has ceased to be fashionable in any class, while it is righteously reprobated in all classes. The happy change is due in great measure, no doubt, to the efforts of the various temperance agencies, operating morally rather than politically. In part, also, it is due to social evolutionary influences, that need not be specified. At any rate it must be apparent to anybody brought largely into contact with his fellows that there is less drinking than there used to 'be, and a wise teetotal advocate would accept the virtually proved

fact as at once proving- the utility of temperance and accounting for our national material progress. But that is just what the prohibitionist will not do. He takes the statistics, and because he sees an increase in the number of arrests for inebriety he concludes that the crime is on the increase. He will not accept the obvious explanation that the police, egged on by his own party, are making the way of the reveller much harder than it was wont to be, and so lands himself on the horns of a dilemma. For if the country goes on prospering and drunkenness goes on increasing, pari passu, what becomes of the contention that drink is sending the Colony to the dogs ?

In the middle of our annual merrymaking it is disquieting to think that the greatest man amongst us— the man to whom some at least of the prosperity we enjoy is dve — has been in poor health. The Premier for many a year stood amongst us as the very symbol and embodiment of physical strength and vigour. Ten years of strenuous activity has told upon him, as it would upon anybody, but until last year the effects were discernible only in Mr. Seddon'x whitening hair and softening manner. After a decade of the Premiership he looked twenty years older than when he made his first tour as head of the Government, while the rawgh and ready style of the West Coast digger" had been superseded by the courtliness that we instinctively associate with the Old World aristocracy. But last) year came a warning note of bodily weakness, and though the indomitable spirit refused sympathy for the weakness of frail mortality, a pause was inevitable. The halt and rest in the shade were recuperative, and Mr. Seddon was satisfied with that, and plunged into his work once more, carrying on his shoulders the burden of the Session's work, incurring-, as it seemed, no danger of a relapse.

Nevertheless, we read in the newspapers that the Premier's usual Christmas and New Year's sojourn on the West Coast was characterised by few, if any, of the features that were so prominent on former occasions. He appeared ill and. depressed, took no part in the public manifestations of gaiety, and sought no occasion for speechmaking-. The Premier, like all strong men, has made many enemies, and is himself a good hater, but there is not a man in the Colony, no matter what his political " colour " may be, that will not harbour a sincere wish for the Premier's bodily welfare. With the prospect of another '• warm " Session and the storm and stress of a general election at the back of it, the question of the Premier's retirement is bound to occupy a prominent place in public discussion. The difficulty of the case, as indicated in former notes, is this : That the Liberal Party owes real allegiance to no leadersave Mr. Seddon, and without him the heterogeneous elements of which it is composed would probably fall apart. He is the solder that holds them together. It is significant that since the retirement of Mr. Seddon has passed out of the region, of improbable events, little or nothing has been heard about the threatened Independent Labour Party. Without' Mr. Seddon the Labour Party would be left to speculate upon the chances of its existence as a determining factor in political life at all, with no time to worry about independence.

Charity, if it does not beu'in at home, certainly does not end there, in New Zealand. The extensive bush fires in Australia brought the sympathetic nerves of our Colonists into play, and meetings were convened in various parts of the country with the object of creating funds for the relief of the sufferers.

Such a course has been followed invariably whenever flood, or lire, or drought has robbed our cousins of the Commonwealth. But in the present instance we have been somewhat abruptly checked. Advices from. Australia and the opinions of such prominent Australians as happened to be visiting New Zealand, were hostile to our display of neighbourly benevolence. Apparently the damage caused by the bush lire* is not as great as it was at first reported to be, and the copious rains that have since fallen have no doubt by this time half repaired the mischief done. Australia is a land peculiarly subject to accidents of this kind, and her capacity for making a quick recovery is quite phenomenal. Bush fires do not mean there what they mean with us. Here the bush practically is never restored, there the marks of a lire are often obliterated in a couple of years. Besides which the ringbarker does infinitely more to denude the country of its indigenous timber than all the fires that ever raged.

Talking about the Commonwealth, which is so near to us and yet so far away in many respects, the tide of popular feeling that set in against Federation shows no sign of returning-. The people expected too much from political union. And the advocates of Federation committed the error, inevitable and unavoidable in all such cases, of promising- the Millennium. Every reformer, whatever may be the nature of his reform, is easily self-deluded into the belief that it is a panacea, a solvent for all the ills that our pockets are heirs to. That quality and nothing- less was claimed 'by Henry George for the Single Tax, and Mr. Samuel Vaile claims it for his system of railway fares. The trouble is that the g-eneral public, which it is souo-ht to advantage, are so impatient. Tf they take a pill or a . draught they expect

to feel the benefit of it in five minutes. But one would think that even those obvious advantages that flow from the abolition of the border customs regulations had been sufficient to reconcile the bulk of the people to the change. Before Federation the traveller between Adelaide and Brisbane was obliged to submit to the inconvenience, not to say indignity, of having his trunks and bags rummaged three separate and distinct times. But the Customs trouble affected the pastoral community much more keenly. A tax was levied on every ton of produce and every head of cattle passing 1 over what everybody felt to be the most artificial of boundaries. Strangely enough, the removal of this tax is looked upon as a disability 'by the very class of Deople who formerly condemned the impost itself. Eventually, of course, all parties will shake down comfortably. It took nearly a century, and the biggest war of modern times, to convince the American people that close unity and assimilation of interests were the 'best things for a. nation, and Australia will arrive at the same conclusion by an easier and quicker process. The advantage of being able to act promptly and unitedly respecting' matters affecting 1 their welfare outside of the Continent will aid in reconciling the various States to the new order,, and remove much of the existing friction. A foreign issue of grave importance has already arisen to occupy the attention of the Commonwealth Government. The free participation of the British Colories in the trade of the Pacific has been seriously menaced by the action of the German authorities in the Marshall Group. One of the largest Australian Shipping firms, Messrs. Burns, Philp and Co., which has heretofore done considerable business with those Islands has been " warned off the

grass/" and it is now claiming through the Government damages to the extent of £10,0(10. Germany, it is pretty clear, threatens to be a dangerous rival in the Pacific, and needs as much watching at this end of the world as she does at the other. AVhy she was ever permitted to gain a solid footing in these latitudes is a puzzle that could only be solved for us by the ghosts of dead and gone Colonial Secretaries of the LittleEngland type. New Guinea, the Marshall* and Samoa, all should have been ours, and mankind would have been the better for the acquisition. Germany is thirsty for Colonies in which to perpetuate the laws, customs and manners of the Vaterland, but her cast-iron system everywhere stands in the way of success, and there isn't a German colonist dumped down under the. Red, 'White and Black, who would not be infinitely happier under the Red. White and Blue.

A generation a<_ro v ' Julius Aogel was ready to seize Samoa and annex it to New Zealand., but the old ladies at Downing Street in those days held up their white hands in horror at the audacity of the proposal. Probably they regarded it as a species of piracy. Yet the day came when Mr. Seddon was permitted to collar Raratonga, and we, that is to say, the British, are apparently on the point of absorbing- Tonga. The High Commissioner has been there, counted up the 'balance in the Treasury, amounting to four and sevenpence or thereabout, and, considering this unsatisfactory, has executed a coup d'etat. He ran in the Premier and the Secretary to the (empty) Treasury and sent them to Fiji, and then proceeded to lecture the titular King George, a native gentleman set up by us to gratify the pride of those foreign nations who object to our out and out assumption of the sovereignty. What the upshot may

be, if not open and unashamed annexation, one cannot conceive. Of course we may go on playing the farce of allowing the island to retain its independence with our benevolent aid, as we do in Egypt and in some of the Indian Principalities, or as the French are dom<4'. in Tripoli, but it will be cheaper and better to do as we have done in Fiji.

The. war news during" the month has not been start-lino-. On the first day of the year the lon^-expected surrender of Port Arthur became a

fact. The event was inevitable, but it now appears that if all thing's had worked together within the beleaguered town it might have held out for a few additional weeks. The commissariat blames the ordnance department, and the ordnance blames the commissariat. The one ■declares that the food was plentiful but the powder supply had given out, and the other says ditto, with the necessary change of terms. What is worse than this sordid tale of recrimination is the report of Russian callousness and cruelty. According- to the Japanese, hundreds •of the besiegers who were wounded

during the assaults were left to die where they lay. The charge is not contradicted, and if true will account for the intense horror of capitulation felt by the Russians. Possibly they feared reprisals. Had the circumstances been reversed they would themselves have sought a bloody revenge. But the Japs are teaching all the world a lesson in the practical application of those cardinal virtues which we have been in the liabit of calling 1 " Christian." Their treatment of the Russian wounded and prisoners has profoundly impressed

the Muscovite mind, and filled all others with admiration. The land operations, at the time of writing, may be quoted as easy. In the neighbourhood of Mukden somewhat over half a million armed men are gathered, and something momentous is bound to happen soon. if the Russian Bureaucracy had a cool head the somethingwould be Peace. As these pages go t& press, grave news of a threatened revolution comes from Russia.

hi British politics there is the

calm that usually intervenes at this season of the year, but. there is stormy weather ahead. The general election that is rapidly .approaching! will, it is agreed on all sides, give the Liberals another chance. What use they will make of it is another pair of shoes. Meantime, Mr. Chamberlain's scheme of Imperial protection will be thrust into the background, though it is not likely to be shelved for long. The feeling in favour of preference, if not spreading, is deepening, and the view that it does not imply a reversal of freetrade, but rather the scientific adaptation of new principles to modern needs is setting into a conviction. This conviction may not be popular yet, but it is held : by men who think, and thinking men govern.

Major-General Kobley, whose connection with New Zealand dates back to the war days of '64- '(>(>, when he fought gallantly as an officer of the fißth, is better known to most of the readers of this Magazine as a collector of tattooed

Maori heads. He probably knows more about heads of that description than anybody living 1 , though there may be here and there a native patriarch who can claim a more intimate acquaintance with them. is not so far off as some of us may think. In the 'forties it was common, and was occasionally resorted to at a much later date. The late Mr. Marshall, of Waikato Heads, informed me that he wellremembered witnessing 1 the finishing touches of a cannibal feast at a settlement between the Heads and Whaing-aroa Harbour — upon what m now Te Akau Estate. That would be in the late "forties, T think. His attention was attracted by seeing some children nlayintr a game resembling 1 football with a woman' s head, and he ascertained, by cautious inquiry, that the body belonged to an erring wife of one of the Chiefs who had been taken in adultery. General Koblcy, in sending New Year's greeting's to the Editor, encloses a characteristic photograph, which is reproduced in these pages.