Currant Comment.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 8, 20 May 1893, Page 9

Currant Comment.

(By Touchstone.) Our new Colonial Treasurer w is already tasting the “sweets of office.” During’ his brief visit to Invercargill he received about half-a-dozen different deputations, and put them through as though to the manner born. Some Ministers dread deputations, and get rid of them as quickly as possible, either by promising to attend to all demands, or by snubbing the members thei’eof. Mr Ward adopts the happy mean, and scores accordingly. Thus, while he could tell the advocates of the leasing of New River Harbour plainly and cleai’ly that their case was px*actically hopeless, he could also satisfy the expectations of the Seaward Bush x’ailway supporters in a most satisfactory way. Big and little were well represented in the subjects brought before him, ranging- as they did from the asphalting of a footpath in Gore, to the construction of a. railway from Forest Hill to the “ Chicago of the South.”

Reader, did you ever try to “run” a newspaper ? If not, and you have a weakness that way, act on Punch’s famous dictum to those about to many —-Don’t! The number of people, even in this small place, who know

how it should be done, is wonderful. I lately noticed the editor of a religious weekly bemoaning his unhappy lot in trying to satisfy directors on one hand, and readers and contributors on the other. He thought the editor of a secular journal must be better oif. Nothing of the kind. Were we to exchange places, he would find himself out of the frying pan and into the fire. In proof of this, let me give him two examples out of many. Enter visitor. “ Capital feature, that weekly sermon.” “ Yes, glad you like it.” “Do you think you could publish a letter on religion that I have written ?” “ Well, I doubt it. Some people grumble as it is at the sermon.” Visitor : “ Let me tell you religion is what people want —they can’t have too much of it.” “ That ma} r be, but still I’m afraid we can’t make room for your epistle.” Exit visitor, leaving more in sorrow than in anger, however. Visitor No. 2 is announced —a subscriber this time. “Yes, I’m going to take your paper, but I think it Would be a great improvement if you would give us a lot of extracts from Reynolds’ newspaper and the Sydney Bulletin. Spicey bits about people, court trials, and the like—they’re the things that go down.” And off he went, leaving’ the occupant of the sanctum to solve the insolvable —- bring out a paper that should “go down” with everybody.

“ The scene in Tapanui the other night was for all the world like a heathen mission station, where trinkets were handed ont to uncivilised beings, and cherished as of enormous value. To the extent of over £2O our inhabitants must have handed over their solid cash for brummagem rubbish that would be bought by the dray-load. The show was novel, no doubt, but I see no earthly reason why people should be foolish enough to give their cash to travelling hawkers —at the expense probably of their creditors, or whilst some useful cause might be assisted. Those ‘ had ’ to any extent certainly deserve their fate, and I am qute certain that not a few will-remember a certain passing show and know better in future.” Thus a contributor to the Tapanui Courier. I fancy his remarks are not without local application, and that here, as there, good hard cash went in exchange for articles that the purchasers would now part with for a mere song, as the saying goes.

“ Miserable Melbourne,” as it is now called in contradistinction to Gr. A. Sala’s designation “ Marvellous,” is passing tbrougb deep waters, and is everywhere upheld as an example of what a city should not be. A recent journalistic visitor, Mr Walker, of Dunedin, giving his impressions in the Taieri Advocate, thus describes a scene that he witnessed in Collins street;— “ Men and women with white faces and a look that showed their fear of the misfortune that was expected, hurried to the doors of the bank, and immediately after reappeared with flushed faces and hysteric laugh, hungrily holding that for which they had toiled and laboured. It was a strange scene, and not at all a pleasant one. The work of reconstruction that is proceeding does not altogether commend itself to Mr Walker, for (remarks the Advocate) “ the main object of an apparently sound institution is to transform deposits into shareholders under the threat that there is no other acceptable alternative—that it is either shares or nothing.” Someone has said that men derive a certain amount of satisfaction from the misfortunes of their fellows, but there is probably more smartness than truth about the saying, and after all New Zealanders cannot afford to indulge a complacent attitude, for indirectly the commercial cataclysm experienced on the “ other side ” is bound to tell against us to some extent, although we have fortunately no “ boom ” reaction to struggle against. The Invercargill and Fortrosa sections of the Seaward Bush railway committee are old comrades-in-arms,

and time and space would alike fail were one to attempt to enumerate the speeches made, the resolutions passed in advocacy of that undertaking. They have at length decided to foregather,, and on Friday next the Invercargill team will journey to Fortrose and there take part in the joint effort-. At the meeting to discuss- details a member of the local contingent suggested that the Invercargill section, should swim across the Mataura to meet the Fortrose contingent. The gentleman who made the suggestion no doubt wished to symbolise the union of the districts that the railway will effect. His idea was, however, coldly received. There is precedent for something' of the kind, but although the committee would doubtless do and dare much for their line they are not prepared for anything so heroic as braving the Mataura. Had this been summer the proposal would have been less uninviting, but to play the part of so many modern Leanders in the winter —never !