THISTLEDOWN.

Te Aroha News, Volume XI, Issue 1722, 16 March 1895, Page 2

THISTLEDOWN.

“A man may jest and tell the truth.” —Hobace. Perhaps the most remarkable instance of the advance made by Japan in the last quarter of a century is the way in which she has kept her claims and the justice of i her cause advocated from the'first by Japanese writers in tho leading English and American reviews. The defence of the Chinese position has been confined to white men, who have held official positions in China, and whose advantage of presumed .impartiality has been -discounted by their i comparative ignorance of Chinese history; Japan has had her native ohampions. *. % * * | I was pleased, though forestalled, to see my views on this war so well expressed in a leader the other day and would only add to it that the peace apparently now in-progress, form the most critical stage of the very critical position there ex--1 pounded. If Japan be wise, warned by the example of Alsace-Lorraine, she will make no claim for territorial cessions; China is sure to prove even; more determined than Frh'nco to regain in the end any land lost by her, even if European powers permitted her to cede any. It must not be forgotten, too, that any difference between the mediating powers may very easily be fanned into war. France has for some time been going in for a policy of bounce and bluster with .England, and evGn hdr official language has, on occasions, been decidedly warlike, and the brilliant success of the Japanese has fired the imagination everywhere of the military element whose influence will consciously or unconsciously be in favour of a bold policy. Soldiers and sailors would be more than human if they were not dazzled by the prospect of brilliant deeds, rewarded with crosses and promotion. . We all know the imitativeness in destruction of the little men of our households; let them but get hold of a tomahawk, or a hammer and nails and they must go for something, and men are but children of a larger growth and must feel at all times an itching desire to test the destructiveness of their torpedoes, 110 ton guns, Mauser rifles, and such at present comparatively Untried toys. Even the Te Aroha Rifles are probably anxious to beat ‘ the furriner ’ in a more bloody and decisive way than they did the Thames Navals.

In reading Mr Martin’s decision that wives cannot be reckoned assistants Jwhere they help their husbands in shops, what strikes the lay mind most impressively is the elaborate process of reasoning by which he arrives at bis conclusion. I could understand a wife being classed as an apprentice or articled clerk, for she pays a heavy premium for the privilege, but an assitant —No ! The latter gets some wages, however small, she gets tucker, lodging ami clothes, and has often to scheme hard and' use plenty of soft sawder to get a moderate amount of the last, while as regards the first, by the time she has cooked it and helped all the family first, as seems the custom out here, she is probably sick of the sight of it; when all appetities are satisfied she sits down and the ragged, rejected fragments, neither hot nor cold,;are hardly calculated to tempt her jaded palate. The premium, or rather premia, which she pays for these and such other privileges as washing, scrubbing and darning, are heavy enough in all conscience, a mother’s and a wife’s, paags, worries and anxieties. Ds--cidedly, if an assistant she is at the bottom of the ladder. ■x ■ * # *

: South Australia appears more iu sympathy with our present legislative ideas than any of the other colonies, whether or not due to the link between them of a common connection with Sir George Grey, I know not. Compulsory arbitration is there the law and in giving the franchise to women they have gone one, if not two, steps in advance of. us, as Women are there eligible for election to Parliament and are allowed to vote, as they are here, by what are absurdly enough called electoral rights. Sir George Grey’s idea 1 is well-known; he would make the Legislative Council an exclusive woman’s chamber, and judging by the debate in the,House last session some such arrangement appears most in favour there, though some would make a third chamber confined to worhen. Advocates of a second chamber support it as a check on hasty or panic legislation, claiming that it is a realisation of the proverbial', appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober. If the Council were composed solely of women, some might say the appeal was reversed and with three chambers the ladies would probably rule the roost, unless representation in the male houses were confined to the middle-aged, excluding either young or i old men as equally too susceptible to female seductiveness. In fact women might con- | ceivably lose more than they gained, as male | electors, in self defence, might pile their, i votes on those whose wives were_ most shabbily dressed as most smile-proof. I * * * *

i The manager of the Cassel Co, has apI peared in print in defence of his company, and had he confined himself to the ! refutation of the 'alsard exaggerations cf those who asserted his people levied a tax of 8 to 10 per cent on gold mining in New Zealand in general, and 34 to 36 per cent on Waihi in particular, he would have scored a distinct, though unnecessary, success as no one accepted such palpably erroneous statements. But when he goe3on to speak of the * very moderate royalty * charged, and says that ‘ it must be apparent to any thinking persons that any mine, unable to make profits by its use, would make .very large losses ’ without it, he is speaking, to use. a colloquialism, through his neck. Seven and a half can hardly be called a very moderate royalty, the threat of disputing the validity of the patent reduced this to 21 percent in Sou l h Africa, and the difference leaves a margin which would satisfy, a good many Auckland shareholders who never see a dividend at present. The man of straw, Mr Greenway, has given an un- ,' if iehdiy- '.prop ’ to those down, but vou tl;e main ."ssuo, I fancy Ms company’s best prop is the inability of separate mining companies to enter into an' expensive fight with a wealthy concern. . Cqmbination would Eoon settle the question. '

By the way, I notice he uses the word ‘apparent’ in the sense of ‘evident/ a misuse frequent even in the editorial columns of the Herald. As a rule Press English outside of America is wonderfully good, especially considering the haste in which much of it is written, but this is an exception and what is pardonable in a leader written perhaps on the spur of the moment, while the ■ divine afflatus is on or, on ,the contrary, against the grain as well as agaipsi't) me, is net to be excused in a cor-: respondent who has time to study his language. The errois all the more to be condemned as there arc in this case even more synonyms than usual even in our language which is so rich in them. We have ‘ evident ’ or ‘ easily seen/ ‘ manifest/ or ‘ taken in the act/ * obvious ’ or *' what ycu can’t help stumbling against/ and on the other hand ‘ apparent/ 1 seeming 1 ’

‘plausible,’ and a few more all counting different degrees of untruth in appearance. While on the subject I may add that‘latter’ is a barbarous corruption too often used in the reading matter of a paper for ‘ last,’ while in the advertisements we invariably have water flavoured with brass pushed on our notice, when carbonic acid gas is the ingredient, by the misprint of ‘aerated’ for ‘ aerated.’ I'aypx.