Heard and Said

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 90, 6 December 1912, Page 1

Heard and Said

That the man who says "It can't be done , ' is liable to get interrupted by somebody doing it. That in the same way the "anti" who cries "Socialism is impossible is being bumped every day by evidences of its possibility. That Professor Mills is always howling that the Federation of Labor and the Socialist Party ha»e no prolamines. That a political programme is generally all sound and wind, signifying nothing. That the little Professor ought to bo one of Massey's staunchest pals. That where can he find a more fairseeming programme than Massey's, with its "square deal to Labor" and promises of reform in matters great and small. That, ns Karl Mars says, every action, every positive step forward, is worth more thaJi a dozen programmes. Iflmt a fire insurance manager, in giving evidence in a case in the Napier Court, remarked that fire insurance companies had to take two risks —the physical hazard and the moral hazard. That he added: "I am sorry to say that in New Zealand the moral hazard is three times «3 great as the physical, and is lower than in any other country." That Kenvickj S.M., in a territorial case, said: "If I was an employer of labor I would not employ any fellow who tried to get out of his drill." That if The Worker was the employer of Ken rick it would see that his mouth was stopped from voicing his tyrannical private views from the magisterial bench. That an American visitor to this office expressed the opinion that he would sooner be a lamp-post in San Francisco than the Premier of New Zealand. (That this is rather rough ovi " God's Own," but it is only one of many jibes we have heard or read of late regarding us and our country or parts thereof. That a correspondent to the Wellington "Post," writing re the local trams, observed that of all the communities he had met in the course of his travels the *N"ew Zealanders seemed to be most afflicted with the disease called "swelled head." and it was most rampant in Wellington. That a great many of the people were tinder the delusion that New Zealand was the hub of the uni/erse, and that older and larger cmniiiiini- •- tits took the lot and exemplar. Jhat an indignant surf bather wrote to the same paper concerning the Mother Grundy regulations of the City Council re mixed bathing at ~ Lyall Bay. ■ yhat in demanding their rescission, he described the regulations as a "truly oppressive interference with almost the only pleasure he could extract from life in this infernal city during the summer time." -flint "infernal city" sounds somewhat strong, but is the appellation very far wide of the '!P"k ? jThat surf *>a:>')g, oven on the most favorable 'lays in this wet and windy village—and they are as few and far between as angels' visits —strikes us iis a decidedly cheerless pleasure. .' tWt any restrictions, therefore, which tend to rob the pastime of the smallest fraction of pleasure to be derived from it should be resisted, fliat if surf-bathing is almost the only pleasure to be extracted from life in Wellington during the summer (?) time by the correspondent quoted, we

wonder how lie fills up tin? hiatus in the months of abominable winter weather. That, according to the mover of somo recommendations re Sunday schools and scholars at the Presbyterian General Assembly, there are thousands of children growing up absolute pagans in New Zealand. That the root cause of the Waihi strike was tie sentence of extermination passed on the F.L. by the gold-kings of New Zealand. That the first part of that sentence was the dismemberment of some of the strongest unions in the Federation, and the Waihi strike was engineered with that purnose in view. That a Victorian parson said that some of the mines in Bendigo were veritable death-traps, and in the event of a fatal accident the Almighty would hold the directors and the management responsible for the lives lost. That of course the local Mine Managers' Association got up on their hind legs to describe the statements as claptrap but the preacher most likely was right. That one of our stipendiary magistrates tlic other day was lamenting the prevalence of perjury and the number of perjurers in-the courts. That not all the perjurers find their way into the "halls of justice"—a great i number find their way on the staffs J of newspapers, where they are allowed full scope for the exercise of their special gifts.