WEEK-END COMMENT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 3544, 8 July 1905, Page 2

WEEK-END COMMENT.

Russia in extremis 1 oms large in fie dailv news cable--, and occupies so much of pnh'ic attention as to eclip e evi-n the doings of the Australian cricketers in Euglmd, or the sayings in Parliament assembled of our own brand new/ Triumvirate Party —t e Taylor - Bedford • F'sher coalition. While Marshal Ovama is making his dispositions f Pi final yarding up of Linevitch’s ragged remnants in Ma i churia and Admiral 'Logo is settlius • ftai s at Vh.livo-t *k, tV- Czar Nicholas is confronted by still worse disi asters right at home. Internecine 1 strife rends his European dominion from the Baltic to the Black sea and from the Urals 1o the Prussian and Austrian boundaries on the west. “Unrest in Russia” has become a familiar heading, but the fearful trail of red revolution has never been so marked as in this year of grace, 1905. Sailors and soldiers of his Majesty, disgusted at the state of affairs in the Far East, and goaded to desperation by the treatment meted out to them by their superiors at home, have openly mutinied, and the people are in sympathy with them. Those troops still dominated by the authorities have been turned loose to restore order—with sword and bulletand blood is everywhere. Truly the great empire is in a pitiable condition. Exasperated beyond endurance, the people only await the appearance of a leader, and we should see Russia transformed. For years revolutionary propagandists have been at work, corruption has undermined the administration, and the time is ripe for the final act in the great national tragedy. Who is to take the leading part in that act ? Not till that act is played may we hope, we venture to think, for any permanent settlement of the Eastern trouble, which, so far as Russia is concerned, now assumes a minor phase beside the domestic situation. The dominant party around the luckless Imperial home will continue the pn sent suicidal policy unt 1 effectively dealt with by extermination. The hour is now, and again the question arises : Where is the man ?

A couple of ornaments of the New Zealand Parliament have recently been visiting England, and their approval of things they have seen has rejoiced the hearts of the simple folk there. The “ Manchester Guardian ” of April 29th says Two members of the New Ze aland Parliament, Mr J.

H. Witbeford and Mr A. D. Willis have been visiting Manchester this week in. order to see the docks and Stiffly ihe ecjuiplntient of the port for Handling NtffV produce.” Both gentlemen expressed ttsttfriisbrrient at the magnitude and equipment df the Manchester docks, and have Iffdrriised to make known far and wide [ll6 dxt’dledt dcrdidmodation for all kinds of imported produc'd, flffs eoldair stores for frozen meat, and the vast population surrounding the docks. They also, it is stated, visited the Royal Exchange and the Corn and Produce Exchange, “ and expressed the opinion that Manchester was far alidad dt London for catering lof bviyersd 1

AdmliUl Sir Cyprian on the British China station, advocates the need for fighting adrriintls in our navy, He Says that lit jtfeselit the higher officers are so cioHdcifned with the administrative work of the ridetsi that they have not time to devote to a thorough consideration and mastery of tactics, and this may lead to serious results in the event of war. “ If,” Sir Cyprian argues, “ the great captains of Nelson’s day, with their simple material, found it impossible to combine both these duties. It is riot likely that any officers of the twentieth century will be able to do so, considering the complicated nature of the machinery and materials of the modern warship. The Japanese have won great victories on-the sea. Yet the many high officers of their fleet to whom I spoke when on the China station before the outbreak of the war showed no inclination to postpone strategical and tactical studies for the consideration of questions of material. These, they said, could be perfectly well looked after by professional experts brought up to deal with them, and not to manage naval hostilities.”

Social “ evil ” questions are not usually discussed seriously in the open, in spite of their vital importance, owing to a curiously paradoxical squeamishness on the part of a prosily good public. And regarding details of such horrors, as have been perpetrated recently by several dastardly wretches it is perhaps well that they be not served up for the delectation of a voracious reading appetite; but the question of securing some degree of safety for helpless females is one nevertheless that the public cannot overlook, and it should, squeamishness or no squeamishness, endeavour to see how that safety is to be obtained. In this connection the measure now before the House to amend the law so that charges in certain cases of assault on females may be made within six months of the date of the crime should meet with universal approval. Punishment in such cases should include severe flagellation, which appears to be the only thing of real value as a deterrent where such degraded sensibilities are concerned. Then, regarding cases of illegitimate children, the present system of branding an unfortunate mother with the indelible scarlet —a system brought so prominently forward by a case occurring in Wellington—seems to us so inhuman, so diametrically opposite, to our boasted , “ British ” sense of fair play, as to demand a radical change. The finger of scorn is pointed at the woman whose sins find her out, but what of the man in the case, the destroyer of her fair fame ? He goes free, free as the air to pursue, in all probability, his work of destruction on the life of some other weak and trusting one. How much better would it be that, as the Wellington “ Free Lance ” suggests, no charge against the mother of an illegitimate • child should be heard in any court unless the father is charged with her, and no name of any such mother should be published unless in with that of the father. It may he argue 1 that the difficulty of establish ing evidence of paternity would lead to injustice to men. There is this possibility ; but what about the actual injustice to women perpetrated by the law as it stands ? Is that not to count for* anything ? And, again, there is another phase ot the matter not to be lost sight of. In the Wellington case mentioned the child, after being found abandoned, was given a name and put into a home where it might be trained and brought up to follow an honourable career. Though its entry into the world was wrapped m mystery there could not at least be any proved taint —socially considered—attached to its birth. Then the law set to work to i unravel the puzzle, and half succeeded. 1 That half was just enough to cast a damning slur on the child’s whole life, and thus a second creature is irretrievably ruined. Surely such things as these, unpleasant though they be to contemplate, deserve consideration from a more humane point of view than that usually taken to-day.