THE GLOBE. MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 1879.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1702, 4 August 1879, Page 2

THE GLOBE. MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 1879.

The Government journals are somewhat at sea at the present moment. They do not seem to comprehend, or rather, parhaps, will not comprehend the political situation. They profess to bo scandalized in that the Opposition have refused to entertain the proposal of immediately passing an Electoral Bill, a Redistribution of Seats Bill, and a Chinese Bill. They do not appear to understand the absurdity of a beaten Government piloting two most important measures through tho House. Having, during last session, absolutely refusod to extend the franchise, the Government, now that practically it is no Government at all, puts it forward as a grievance that it is not allowed to act in the matter. "He that will not when he may, when he will he will have uay," says an .old provorb that applies closely in tho present case. With regard to tho Redistribution of Seats Bill, no doubt it would be very dosirablo that the now elections should be held under conditions which commend themselves to all sensible men as being more desirable than those that at present obtain, but in tho first place the measuro with all its details is not likely to bo "an uncontested one;" in the second place tho condition laid down by the Governor that the elections shall be held as soon as possible, would bo violated; and in the third placo, tho Grey Government cannot bo trusted to work with tho solo object of passing a measuro quickly through the House that would bo acceptable to the country at large. Tho present Government has not shown such love for constitutional practice that it can be relied on to act up to any high standard of political morality. As to the Chinese Bill, no ordinary mind can fathom why it should be pushed forward at such a inoinont. It is not a pressing one. "Why should not an expiring Government pass a Scab Act ? It would be quite as logical. Tho bringing of such a subject forward at such a timo is scandalous. No doubt the idea was to raise a cry that the Opposition favor Chinese immigration, but the ruse is so transparent as to be quite valueless as a political move. Tho Opposition, in agreeing to pass supplies and tho Loan Bill, havo shown a wise discretion; by their refusal to concode anything further it is evident that they know their duty to the country, and understand tho character of tho Government with which they have to deal.

The "Lyttelton Times" has developed quito a new idea. Concurrently with its adulation of the gallant Knight of Kawau, it has taken to running down tho pluck of the British soldier, for in

one or two loading articles lately it has given it as its opinion that the race of Englishmen are degenerating, and that when they have an opportunity of running away they always do so. Our contemporary has evidently been studying its classics, and has become a laudator temporis acti. Marathon, Thormopylaj, and soveral other timeworn themes are rubbed up, and the conclusion is drawn that the English Caucasian is worn out, as least as far as the army is concerned. "With respect to the Zulu war nothing seems to please our critic. That the British army has advanced into an unknown country and has been surrounded by an enemy more than ton times as numerous as the scanty forces of the invaders; that it has done this with a defective commissariat and transport service; that it has fought valiantly at Rorke's Drift and on numerous other fields; that Chard and Brorahead have, with a mere handful of followers, saved Natal —all this is nothing thinks the "Lyttelton Times," A few men engaged in a reconnoitoring party ran away and the Princo Imperial was killed, —consequently the army is a miserable body of woody, scrofulous, undersized feeble folk. Moreover, on occasions their loss is ridiculously small, at one time 5000 fought for twenty-five hours and only lost eighteen men. Miserable creatures ! their commanders ought to be ashamed of themselves ! Our critic is as equally dissatisfied with the officers as with the rank and file. He apparently looks upon them also as enfeebled by foul air, gin, tobacco, and worse, and as holding generally no higher hope for the future after death than to sink into an eternal sleep. All this is extremely cheerful for the empiro at largo, the army in particu'ir, and for those of our fellow colonists who have lately arrived from the Mother country, and must have been drawn, it would appear by our contemporary, from the ranks of the seedy infidels that form the mass of the English nation. The moral that the " Lyttelton Times" draws from its reflections is that the conscription (the gin enfeebled section of tho community being, we presume, first of all, carefully eliminated) is the only way of saving the Empire and, strange to relate, it proposes that the same process should be tried in New Zealand, our Yolunteors being evidently hold by the " Lyttelton Times" in as small estimation as the scrofulous individuals who aro fighting in Sonth Africa. We fancy, however, that a rather closer acquaintance with the British army would somewhat open the eyes of our eontemporary. A stroll through the camp at Aldershott would convince him that the modern soldier is by no means the worn-out creature that his fancy paints him. Indeed, we fear that our critic stands somewhat alone in his opinion on this subject. The Continental Press is certainly not imbued with the idea that the English soldier has degenerated since tho good old days of Waterloo and Inkermann. The general idea of foreign writers is that extreme rashness is a characteristic of many of our military undertakings, and that the averageßritish soldier is remarkably careless of his life, and is endowed with an amount of sang-froid in times of danger which render him, as Napoleon remarked, the finest soldier in the world. It certainly is good for no rnation to be too confident with regard to its army, but to fall into such hysteilcs as the "Lyttelton Times" has done and | to roundly assert that the glory of British arms has departed, is simply ridiculous. There has been much mismanagement displayed in the conduct of the Zulu war and, no doubt, there is a coward or two in the army, as there must be in every large body »f men; but the pluck of the English soldier at large is what it was, and we trust always will bo. To hold a lower opinion would be to libel a body of men who have ever been ready to do and die when duty called, and would, moreover, refieet, by implication, more or less severely, on a large section of our fellow colonists.

Ai tho risk even of being considered guilty of very discreditable conduct by Mr. Cass, we must again press for some information as to the progress of the cylinder experiment in the Waimakariri. Have all the portions of the requisite machinery been at last got together? Has the cylinder been sunk to its full depth ? Has the committee done with experimenting, and returned to the more sober business of providing Christchurch with a suitable water supply ? Having asked those questions, wo venture to express tho hope—lst, that wo shall never hear any more of the cylinder; 2nd, that when all the bills have been paid, a rate of one half-penny in the £ will bo found sufficient to cover tho expense.