THE OLD AND THE NEW.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2039, 26 March 1907, Page 4

THE OLD AND THE NEW.

BRITISH CONTRASTS. When Hr. Chappie was travelling through England, Ireland, and Scotland last year, he could not help contrasting his impressions with tho ones that he formed when he visited Great Britain nine, years ago. The scene had changed remarkably in many ways. For one tiling ,lio says, the people look at New Zealand through different eyes. Once they gazed with .amused indiffernee at the country’s legislative experiments, but this supercilious air had vanished. The press the House of Commons, and intelligent citizens were now all seriously interested in New Zealand’s efforts to secure peaceful com-

nunitios. In Ireland Dr. Chappie was struct

by tho intensity of tbe Home .Rule sentiment in the south, and by the equally intense devotion to the union principle in tho north. The southerners had a majority as far as numbers went, but the north had a superiority in wealth, energy, and prospects. He did not think that the contention about the fusion of. the green and orange was credible. Discussing the House of Lords, lie remarked that the people’s sentimental love for the aristocracy had

stood ill tlic way of reform, but til a Chamber was an anomaly which Bri tain would not tolerate very long The vigorous language of the Liberal and the Nonconformist Churches in dicated the popular change from tb old-time reverence for the trapping a lid titles of the aristocracy. Thi violence of language against tin Upper House was (juile a new thing and was the sequel to the Lords attitude on the Education Bill. Tin Bishops, in their anxiety to hill tin Bill, were in their places night am (1 av, hut when another very important measure, the Shipping Bill, with over a hundred clauses, was sent up from the Commons, it went through practically without examination. II was claimed that the Lords should he as much interested in matters of industrial and commercial importance as they were in a measure which they thought was designed, not to strike at religious education in schools, hut at their particular creed. The people were begi lining to realise die incongruity of a system which 'flowed a peer to sit in the House if Lords and help to obstruct nalional progress even after the ordilary Courts of J ustice had decreed hat lie-was not. able to manage his wn affairs. Unofficially, at Dublin, Dr Chappie represented New Zealand at an Imperial conference of journalists, and found the experience thoroughly delightful. In England he gave some lectures calculated to increase Britons’ knowledge of Now Zealand.— I Post.