TOPICS OF TALK.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 233, 22 August 1873, Page 6

TOPICS OF TALK.

We publish, in another column, a copy of the petition emanating from owners of water, races in Naseby, which we have referred to in previous issues. The" petition was signed by 101 proprietors or part proprietors of water races throughout the district. The question • naturally suggests itself, What had the race proprietors of Clarks, St. Bathans, Blackstone Hill, Kyeburn, Hamilton, and Hyde to do with the question ? -Mr.'Bradshaw's signature, we may'sddf was attached as a matter of form, in order to make the memorial regular. The document speaks for itself, and needs no comment from us. We hope that, in future, petitioners in public matters will save us the trouble of hunting in Government offices and . pigeon-holes of legislative assemblies, by extending the very ordinary courtesy of handing us a copy of their memorials. Any other course is extremely unfair to the pub--ic, affected, as they must be, more or less by all movements of the sort. The success of the Government Scheme of Life Assurance appears likely to induce what we may call bubble companies to start independent and speculative projects. This has actually been done to a considerable extent already in Victoria. Mr. Yogel, referring to a criticism on the subject in a Melbourne paper, quoted the following reported utterance of a Legist lative Councillor in that Colony : "He gave the brief history of one of our Melbourne Insurance Companies, which he said was established in March, 1871, with business premises in the best .part of Collins-street, and a paidup. capital of £914. During the time it lasted—a period of eighteen months only—--it issued foi*ty-nine policies on well-selected lives, and had an annual income of £229. At the ead of eighteen months the- assets had dwindled down to £l5O, including the £914 paid-up capital and' premiums, although there had,, .been no>losses on the life fund." Alarmed atttheir position, the parties conducting the business immediately re-insured the whole of the lives, for which they paid £ll4, leaving £36 to represent the paid-up capital and the premiums received during the eighteen'months. This was not, according to the narrator's account, an isolated case. He knew other Insurance Companies to be in a similar position, but did not name them as they were still carrying on business. One thing must strike everybody who exercises but a slight observation upon what is passing - < around him, namely, that we have in 'Melbourne about twice as many offices as are necessary to do all the life insurance business of the place ; and yet new offices have been started lately, holding out larger inducements to the public." To guard against this, Mr. Vogel has introduced a Life Assurance Bill, which makes it necessary for all new companies to make a primary deposit of £5,000, and then, to guard the insurers further, all premiums, less twenty-five per cent, are to be paid into the Government, until the sum of £20,000 has been realised. This is a Canadian plan with this difference, that in Canada the first deposit is £20,000 instead of only £5,000. The Bill proposes to make it essential that all before commencing and while carrying on business, shall have a sufficient fund to meet probable contingencies, and also concedes the companies the benefit insurers in the Governuient Office possess, as to certain protection of policies from the operation of the Bankruptcy Act. To provide, in short, that the Government Office shall not have any extra advantage other than that offered by thoroughly good security. It has' been very cleverly said that •" a teacher is a kind of intellectual midwife.. Many of them, too, discharge their office after the fashion enjoiued on the Hebrew midwives : "if they have a son to bring into the world they kill' him, if a daughter, they let her live. is checked, boldness is curbed, sharpness is blunted, quickness is clogged, height is curtailed and depressed, elasticity is damped and trodden down, early bloom is nipped;

feebleness gives little trouble, and excites no fears, so it is let alone." If, instead of " teacher," we were allowed to substitute " writer," how. true this would be now. . The whole object, apparently, to be attained by the serial publications of the day is, if of the sensational novel class, to pirouette round the verge of indecent immorality, and yet escape, not unsinged, but un--1 reproved I —being indeed, on the contrary, relished ; if in newspaper literature, to wrap the modicum of truth —if, indeed, it be contained at all — carrawry or clove-like, in the thick encasement of chalk and sugar. Not long since the Press of this Province were copying from one another a paragraph to the effect that the man was yet unborn who could (in spite of modern art) write a sentence on a subject of local interest without offence to someone —thus tacitly recognising the saccharine wrapping process.. Fortunately it is still considered shameful to utter--or even imply—verbally a falsehood ; yet, at the same time, the truth in its bold form must not by any means be written. Nearly all the actions for libel have arisen from a too I plain statement in print of what is I true. An instance occurred the other day, when the Dunedin ' Evening Star' was actually threatened with an action for libel if it published what it was granted took place at a public meeting of the "Waste Lands Board. Perhaps this curious feature of newspaper literature is one reason why we allj as individuals, are so oppressed by the thought of what others think. People are educated to have a caricature of their actions and-words, if noticed at all, always before them, and " if, the bare truth, or even approximate truth, is painted too clearly they cannot bearit—twisting and turning like the coursed hare before the hound. We confess, to our mind, it would- be preferable if, instead of always thinking (before acting) What will be thought ? What will be said? the form of thought' —and it should require no merely, "What is right ? What is best? The carping tongues of the. croakers and ■ the growlers, the Sairey Gamps and Grundys of the day would then be appraised at their proper value. Opit latest advices seem, to fore- : shadow the very probable withdrawal of the Education Bill now before the Assembly. This Bill is not intended, if passed, to be forced 'upon the Provinces. " It was, in fact—(said the mover, Mr. Vogel)—like the Act under which the larger part of the Municipal institutions of the Colony were now established; —it was a permissive Bill." Provision is made in this Bill whereby common schools could be converted into superior schools—such as" Model Schools, Grammar or High Schools, and schools for the superior education of girls. We do not purpose, in this short paragraph, to run a tilt, through, over* or, as generally happens, entirely outside.all the difficulties of the Education question. The Province appears at present to have, the power of raising the grade of a school, Queenstown having lately, owing to the exertions of-Mr. Hallenstein, secured a Grammar School. An effort should be made to endeavor to get a Grammar School established in this district in the place of the Common School now in Naseby. A large number of boys are growing up, whose future position fully warrants a better education than what cau now be offered to them. These boys are entirely der prived of the State aid given to schools m Dunedin and elsewhere, owing to the heavy boarding expenses that would be- entailed by their attendance .at such schools. A good Grammar School would be a very great boon to this district; and one that would bring in much more remunerative returns than the present school, which we, at the same time, readily allow is quite as efficient as it could well be expected to be. A? good Grammar School would attract families to settle here, whose, movements otherwise, being deciH'eof perhaps by th'afc very want, are lost to ,us as residents. If this want is generally felt" it should be publicly expressed during the next few months. Memorials might well be prepared and statistics drawn up, to strengthen our

members in.an effort to. get.this accomplished during the next session of the.Provincial Council. It was satisfactory to note that Mr. Mervyn supported the Government on the tariff alteration. JSTo one can fail to see that it is fairer in every way to charge duties ad valorem than by measurement —the only question was the rate. Ten per cent, was ultimately agreed upon. Mr. Yogel would no"t submit to any amendment on a question which really underlay the whole Government policy, and notified that he should . accept Mr., Johnstone's amendment as a vote of want of confidence. . Mount Ida's member, as we see by the division list, supported the Government, thus fulfilling.the pledge given to his constituents lately, at the. Masonic Hall, JSTaseby. Mr. Shepherd, on the contrary—for the first time, we believe, figures openly in Opposition. The Bishop of Winchester's death —announced by cablegram—from a fall from his horse, will make a gap in the bench of English prelates not easily filled up. Better '• and more widely known as Bishop of Oxford he was a formidable and keen debater in the Houses of Lords and Convocation. He was astaunch Churchman, endowed with much sagacity and common sense, and as a polemical writer rarely excelled. The moderate High Church party will lose a tower of strength in the sudden death of Bishop Wilber T force. He was third bOn of the celebrated philanthropist William Wilberforce, and was born in 1805—being thus sixty-eight years old at the time of his death.