MAIL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2062, 24 April 1907, Page 4

MAIL NEWS.

MR. LONG AND HOME RULE. Mr. Long recently drew attention to tho very disturbing phrases used by the Prime Minister in regard to tho Covornmont’s Irish proposals. Ho had suggested that tho model to bo followed was the Colonial form of selfgovornment. If Sir Henry CampbellBannerman really means to inaugurate any system which can possibly be described as colonial, ho must be propared to be opposed by the whole force of Unionist opinion. We also agree with Mr. Long in his declaration that Devolution proposals of this sort would be distinctly in contradiction to the declarations which Ministers and their supporters made so frequently during the general election. These were to tho effect that Home-rule was not before the electors and formed no part of the immediate policy of the Government, and that no proposal of the kind would he made during tlio present Parliament. To proposals intended, as Mr. Long put it, to bring peace and contentment to Ireland, and thus to put an end to the attempts at separation, we shall give our heartiest support, Schemes, however, which are merely intended to further the policy of a separate Parliament and separate executive wo shall oppose, not only as ruinous to tho welfare both of Great Britain and Ireland, but also as distinctly a breach of Liberal electoral pledges. But we must remember that the Government scheme has not yet been introduced. Until it has been produced, we refuse to believe that they can contemplate a policy so unjust, so disastrous, and so little consistent with good faith as Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s words might seem to foreshadow.

THE NEW IRISH SECRETARY. Mr. Birrell’s first speech as Irish Secretary, in answer to Mr. Long, can hardly be called satisfactory in tono. We do not of course object to Mr. Bin-ell calling himself a ITomorulor, for we are quite aware that when the Liberal loaders lot it be understood that thoy did not mean to make Home-rule proposals during the present Parliament, thoy made it clear that thoy continued in tho abstract to favor Mr. Gladstone’s policy. Wc must, however, protest against Mr. Birrell’s suggestion that Ulster is flourishing because the Irish Protestants were favored by the Government, and the Roman Catholics in tlio rest of Ireland depressed. The great and amazing prosperity of Belfast and its neighborhood is in no sense due to Government help or protection, arid has grown up 'during a time—i.e., during the last fifty years —when it is not too much to say that more Government help and patronage lias been given to tho Roman Catholic section of tho Irish population than to the Protestant. Can it bo alleged that the shipbuilding industry of Belfast, which is tho greatest source of prosperity, has had any assistance from tho Government which has been withheld from Cork and Queenstown? Belfast is prosperous because of the energy and enterprise of its inhabitants, and for no other reason. We are heartily in sympathy with Mr. Birrell when he appeals to the representatives of Ulster not to mumble the dry bones of a belated bigotry, but he should- remember that there are other belated bigotries than those associated with the Northern Protestants, and that a capital example is the bigotry of those who pretend that the evils from which Ireland has suffered, and is suffering, are exclusively due to her connection with England and Scotland.

FROM THE VALLEY OF THE ' TOMBS.

A discovery of extraordinary interest was reported to tlie Times recently. Mr Theodore Davis, a wealthy American gentleman, who has for some years devoted himself wil|i great perseverance and success to excavating the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, has, with the aid of his assistant, Mr. Edward Eyrton, discovered the tomb and mummy of Queen Teie, the foreign mother of Amen-liotep IV. of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the famous “heretic King” who proscribed the worship of Anion, and introduced a now but short-lived religion, the symbol of which was the solar disc. But although the tomb bears at every turn evidences of the religious zeal of the victorious priesthood of Thebes —the name of her son :!iid the emblems of his creed being everywhere erased—the mummy and the jewellery of the Queen have remained untouched. The tomb is described as “filled with sheets of solid gold,” and the mummy was discovered in a wooden Collin entirely covered with a frame of gold inlaid with lapis lazuli, cornelian, and green glass, the head being encircled by a magnificent gold Imperial crown, representing the Royal vulture holding a signet-ring in each talon. Besides the crown and bracelets, a number of objects of faience, vases, and bronzes were discovered. while the covers of the canopic jars were, adorned with fine portraits of the bead of the Queen in alabaster in place of the usual genii of the dead. The discovery bears striking evidence of the intensity of a religious revolution which had spent its force before the birth of Moses, and we can well imagine the feelings of awe which possessed the excavators as they handled “file symbol ol' ancient sovereignty which had risen up from the depths of a vanished world.”

WOMAN’S GREATEST CHARM—SYMPATHY.

When a man arrives at that stage of his existence when he realises that he ought to select a Rte partner, ho puts on his considering cap, settles clown comfortably in his arm-chair, lights his favorite pipe, and brings under review all those damsels with

whom he is on terms of intimacy, and who might prove likely candidates for tho important post which ho has at his disposal. And ho solects and ho rejects; ho pondors and considers; this lady is too proud, that ono too inook; this ono, again, is too solf-opionatod, that ono too frigid, and so on—ho, in short, judges them according to what his oxporionco has taught him aro their particular failings or good points. And, ultimately, he arrives at seine sort of conclusion—whether he proposes, to tho girl or not, and is accepted or rejected, has nothing whatsoever to do with this article. But how does ho arrive at any conclusion? What particular characteristic is likely to weigh with him in his selection of a young woman. He is acquainted with young ladies who, from every indication, aro very loving creatures, estimable personages in every way, the very persons, indeed, that, a man might bo expocted to select when bent on matrimony but ho rejects those ladies so soon as thoy appear before him. Others, again, with whom ho is acquainted are of a cold, and somewhat proud stylo—very nice some of them, as women go, no doubt, and might tui n out most excellent wives if skilfully handled, but he pictures married life in company with a block ol marble, and ho rejects those ladies also. And so ho proceeds, until one young lady conies under roviow; of good looks she possesses a very limited share; of fine figure and proportions she is sadly lacking; indeed, slio is just nil ordinary young woman. But—yes, she was kind to lum that dav at the picnic down the river when ho sprained his alike; how soothingly did she attend to him when ho could not put a loot to the ground. Then ho passes on to other maids, some with perfect features and ideal figures, the kind of young women that all young men admire. He admires them, too, but—somehow his mind wanders hack to that very ordinary girl—'there was a something about her which all those othoi ladies I,,C What was it now? What exactly constituted her charm or What a moo smile she had, how she did boar with him as ho chatteled about himself; how she did try to aid him on that occasion when he was in a little trouble and told hez i,ll ßut°why t did lie tell her all about it? She was so kindly, so sympathetic. And he makes up his mind to offer this lady Ins hand alld *J? dlt ; And the mail who does as this man did does not go far wrong; lor it any woman is Ikcly to turn out a gobil and true wife it is the leally sympathetic one, not hypocritically so but sympathetic m very truth. She endears herself to tho heart oi man. In her ho finds a woman who can understand him, who seems to know of ail his failings, and who is lenient in her judgment of them. And is the truly sympathetic woman a l-ara avis? Not,at all; slio is a common enough type, and well it is for man that women like her are to Than°a woman sincere in sympathy no finer example of womanhood can be found. She is not only the idol of the men, but, perhaps of greater significance, the favorite of .the women and children. , Tho sympathetic woman can make a man contented with himself—a very great feat. If he be a man of very doubtful character, she can make him feel that, after all, there is nothing much tho matter with him, and that is perhaps a step in the direction ol reformation. To the very young man, the unsophisticated youth, she is like unto a ray of sunshine, for she bringsbrightness into his life. She shows him, by demonstration what a good woman is, and can do, and in that- way she aids her sisters, for slio causes the man to have a higher respect tor womankind. „ . , ■ Man may he. sympathetic m his own wav, but his sympathy lacks the lofty tone, tho divine touch which are attributes of the sympathy of the really sympathetic woman, who, in whatever slio does, does good to someone. That is the sort of wife a mail wants, and please do not rasniy say that such a woman will have no knowledge of the practical. Such a woman always has real knowledge, and the woman who lias real knowledge must have a fair meed of common-sense and practicality.