WELLINGTON ECHOES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 369, 21 April 1910, Page 3

WELLINGTON ECHOES.

(From our Special Correspondent). April 18th, 1910. After the storm of the Powelka chase, we have tue calm of the Powelka capture. There is a ilood of literature on the subject, and two lives have been lost, while the State has paid £IOOO for the business.

The week opened with the funeral of Sergeant Mcbuire, the soldier who fell in the battlefield for his country, and the immense attendance—the biggest at any funeral since the exceptional concourse at the obsequies of the late Mr. Seddon, showed the general appreciation of the service rendered by the deceased, and of his splendid character. To these the preacher, Archbishop Redwood, Vicar-General, in the church at the burial service, did ample justice, in the presence of the great throng that had got iiij leaving ten times its number outside, unable to obtain admission. It was one of the simplest, most eliective and most touching of discourses. As the cortege passed through the streets —it was taken through the principal streets—reverent crowds were at all points bare-headed and solemn. At the grave there was a crowd, and the faces of all were eloquent of the gieat QQca- : sion—so sad, so moving, so full of splendid memories.

It was a touch of the dramatic that the announcement of the capture of Powelka was made during the progress 'of tli-e funeral procession of—l cannot 1 say lis victim—but Qf the man vnow life was lost in <e6MG(iiieiice of hiss conThe public has ncit yet tited of talking l>i the courage and address Of the ■capturing flAi'ty, and one feels yec a shudder on reading of the filial rush in on the man who was afrn'ed and desperate. Indeed, the conduct of the Force, from top to bottom, comes out in a very fine light, ias one reads the account of the brief campaign of the chase.

What strikes one as less commendable is the feeling of an appreciable number of people. Some of us were astonished at the proclamation by the ipolice, warning the public of the fact fliat very severe .penalties are provided by the law. for those who harbor criminals escaping from justice. It turns out that there was no room for astonishment at the conduct of the police. The .astonishing thing is that a number of people, who ought to have known better, have expressed sympathy for the unfortunate quarry of so maiiy hunters. It is a good old British instinct which makes men feel pity for the man who is down, but to allow that feeling to extend to a readiness to shelter a man on whose tracks blood has been shed, is a perversion difficult to characterise in fitting terms. Expressions of readiness to befriend Powelka have been made in several quarters and it was the knowledge of this that hastened the publication of the warning of the ipolice against harboring. Podsnap was an amusing mixture of impulse and perversity. There are many Podsnaps, but they are amusing.

A member of the Press has got his deserts. The manager of the notorious newspaper Truth has been condemned to imprisonment for the publication in the paper of an article justly described by the sentencing Judge as "'purposelessly obscene." The "{purposelessly" was So used as to convey the impression that the only purpose of obscenity was to make money. It is fattening on garbage to the detriment of the young people of this country, and the gloating delectation of the swinish adults who buy. this paper, in their thousands. The deience set u.p was the impudent plea was that no one was responsible because the proprietor lives abroad. It was not in so many words but that was the purport of the plea, and if n had prevailed the .print could have gone on being "purposelessly obscene"—that is, for the making of the filthiest kind of lucre, for ever and ever, or until a righteous public indignation compelled the alteration of the law. But when thousands buy a paper which may well be described as a literary strumpet* where are we to expect any general righteousness oi indignation? Fortunately the law was found to be proof against such impudence of defence, and the manager has to go to gaol. He collapsed in the dock when he realised that the end was near. But the Judge told him that though he might not have been aware of what was going to be published, he 'knew the sort of .paper he had taken service in, and he, as manager, must take the consequences. It has 'been laid do.wn authoritatively by the Court of Appeal in this case that the manager of a paper is the publisher, even more so than the man who has the title of publisher and does the work of publication. Previously to this it was laid down that persons selling such papers must be regarded as possessing guilty knowledge sufficient to bring them within reach of the penalties of the Statute. Surely there is nothing left for the impudence of "purposeless obscenity" to devise for the corruption of youth and the pandering to the swinishness of multitudes. If it does so devise, and very probably it will find some means of keeping up its unhalI lowed gains, the Legislature, it has been hinted, may be invoked to bring the absentee proprietors who reap the advantage to book for their conduct. The?e should be enough inter-State goodwill to secure the .prevention of "purposeless obscenity" anywhere.

In reference to the proposal to extend railway communication from Masterton to WaipukuTau so as to help the State lines—the Napier trunk, by taking the traffic which, does not at ■present reach it, and conveying the same to some other' point of the trunk, the remark made by the Minister of Railways ought to 'have set public opinion going all over the Dominion, and if they have not, I, for one, will be very much surprised. It is a good time for borrowing money. The road bridges in places should be judiciously utilised for railway traffic under some "light" system, and the discarded from the State railways because they are too light for the work, would come in very handy for the purpose. No wonder that Mr. Donald, finding the Minister favorable to private enterprise in this matter so far as making no objection to its taking over such a work under good conditions, lost no time in communicating witk| Masterton. •

I It is not the first time the Minister has referred to the subject. Just before last session, he expressed approval, if. I remember aright, of some very similar .project. If the people who own property will consent to guarantee, he then said, the Government woufil have no objection whatever. This is practically what Mr. Donald lias brought back from Sydney as the last from the Minister on .the subject. The .point to consider is of the character of the light line to be built. Why not wait for the

Brennan mono-rail to be further developed? It has lately been tried on the full working scale and with the best results. These may not point to immediate success of the completcst, but the results are so good in the eyes of many experts that the ease is good for waiting for further developments with the utmost hope. Saving in cutting, in track, in ballast, in tunnels, in bridges, in every part of construction, such are the advantages the mono-rail offers to the railway builder, and to the railway owner it offers a speed and cheapness of working which are, in comparison with our system, absolutely fabulous. If private enterprise all over the Dominion waits for a while, it will not lose anything. That. all events, is the opinion of experts up and down, the country.

The death of the Hon. Mr. Holipes, M.L.C., makes one more vacancy m the Council. Mr. Holmes, who had filled many of the offices of local government in his own county of Westlarid with credit and modesty, had for some years before his death got past his work o») the Council. The Government has now two vacancies to fill, : $o names are suggested so far f can hear, with one exception. ,^ ome o{ t h e friends of the Hon. Richardson, once Minister for Public Works, who did such surprisingly good work for the Public Works system in the days of its infancy, was among the first batch appointed under the septennial system by the Ballance regime. He and two others were not re-appointed at the end of their terms, but it has been suggested that the appointment of a man of such eminent services and close familiarity with public departments of such great consequence, would be not only a graceful aft, but an advantage to the Legisla- ! tuve and the public service.