NOTES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1566, 24 May 1887, Page 3

NOTES.

Everybody knows the epidemic form which crime occasionally assumes. At one time there is a run upon suicide, at another upon petty larceny, at a third the energies of rascaldom seem devoted exclusively to fire-raising. Each of these has its times and seasons, its favourable opportunities, and its latest developments. Incendiarism would seem to be the present weakness. It is vain to suppose that the late fires are all the result of pure accident. It would be agreeable to think so, but the facts forbid the flattering unction. It is as though, like the Malays, some fearfully ill-conditional persons were possessed with an irresistible evil influence which impels them to destruction of the most reckless and wicked character. Yet assuming for a moment that our supposition is correct, what possible gratification can the burning of such a fine pile of public buildings as the Wellington post-office, for instance, afford to any person however wicked ? Is this sort of thing pure objectless mischief, or is it due to a desire to give a forced spurt to the building trade ?

Lord Rosslyn, a Scottish peer, has achieved a success denied to Lord Tennyson, m obtaining the Queen's approval of a jubilee ode written by him. Her Majesty ordered its publication, and as the Messrs Blackwood were prepared to pay the highest price for it, the ode appears m their magazine, Lord Rosslyn thus exhibits his loyalty and turns an honest penny at the same time. We daresay the Queen is as good a judge of poetry as other educated ladies, but the rank of the writer on this occasion has evidently a good deal to do with her very favorable opinion. It is the old story —

Ascribe but to a lord the lines,

How the wit brightens, how the sense refines.

His Lordship's verses are smooth, highly-finished, high-flown, courtly, and very nice of their kind, but without a trace of spontaneity about them from beginning to end. The writer's poetic argument is that friendship is inconstant, and that monuments of stone or brass are uuworthy of royal virtues —

These will corrode, and some day die, But love alone, Laughs at decay and soars on high.

It used to laugh at locksmiths. Said Gama : " We remember love ourselves m our sweet youth." And much m the above strain the ode runs on through a good many stanzas, finishing with a fair estimate of the value of his Lordship's literary work ; only he might have spared us the likeness or rather unlikeness to Simeon and what follows: 'Tis a poor song, By one whose heart has ever been Loyal and strong, And who, like Simeon, now has seen His hope fulfilled— God Bave the Queen I

There could be no fitter exponenj|||| New Zealand opinion on the quejajap of Imperial Federation than the Prf|||li of the colony. His contribution, £ W&fk i fore, towards a distinct statement >fmsr a solution of the question, as formulated by our politicians, which appears m the March number of the " Nineteenth Century," is deserving of attention ; although we are by no means sure, as Sir Robert Stout puts it, that " the set of public opinion is towards a closer union of the Empire than has hitherto existed," and indeed entertain grave doubts if any such ploser union would be at all advantageous to the colonies. Public opinion is a very intangible element, and while the most of the talk is about federation, defence, and Imperial greatness, it is just possible the undercurrent is m quite another direction. The masses neither talk nor write much, but on occasion they can assert themselves. Our impression is that the bond which unites the older colonists to Britain is not legal or political, but one rnqch stronger and more easy to understand, if there be value m things and ideas which most men prize and cherish — the bond written m a common language and a nobje literatuie, m glorious associations and traditions, m frjendly intercourse and commercial relations.' Cherishing these, we are apt to reason from our own feelings, forgetting that as colonists disappear this bond weakens, and can have little or no existence for the younger race born here, m whom it is more desirable to inspire love of the country of their birth, because failing such patriotism the likelihood is that they will fall m love with themselves.

Lord Salisbury's latest speech at the Imperial Conference seems to have been an eye-opener, and that certainly not a day too soon. It will gradually pome to be seen that all* the line talk about the importance of the colonies, "Great Britain," patriotism, and other large questions usually indulged m when, £ato-like, the speakers had warmed with wine, does not mean much beyond leading up to the colonies contributing money to the British Exchequer for naval armaments and defences. At all events, all that is expected of colonists is to pay and look pleasant. A war may be m the interests of mere money-lenders as the Egyptian war was, or jt may be (n support of despotism on the'ppntinent o r f Europe \no (natter, But protection of cojpniaj interests m these Southern geas is quite a different thing, Would you have us go to war, asks Lord Salisbury, about such a thing as French occupation of the New Hebrides ? Certainly not ; but we would have you state m plain and unmistakeable terms that French sovereijTnty there rnu,st not bp attempted. ' THe' British can claim ! iio sovereignty there i they have sent no soldiers there j and the French must observe the same course. British missionaries have gone to these islands ; the natives have allowed them; and they ought not to be Interfered with. Establish a joint protection if need be, |>ut hands off. That, so far as we understand it, is the colonial position, and |t js" perfectly readable. We gather frpra {he latest telegrams that the putspokenpess of the Australian delegates had Us dye impression . (air Henry Holland subsequently explained that Lord Salisbury did not quite mean what he said but something else. His Lordship had no hostility to the views of the delegates, he only intended to show ihe difficulties of the question. His speech, m short, was to be taken as Lucifer, m LongfelWw'.s "Golden Legend,-" proposed to treat the Decalogue :-~ ■

A statute (bat was meant For a mild and general application,

It is; well it should be so. , Might we venture to recommend to the notice of our legislators, who take an interest m this New Hebrides question, a book which has just reached the colony, written by the Rev Mr Inglis, who was long a missionary m the group, and who has improved his retirement m the Old Country by putting his experiences on record. Mr .Inglis is a learned, remarkably shrewd* and even far-seeing man, m whom old experience has attained the prophetic strain.