CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 392, 18 May 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

MANN, THE TRADUCER. Tom Mann has gone to Africa, where Labor has welcomed him loudly. It South African Labor knew Tom Mann as well as English, Australian, and New Zealand Labor knows him, it would not have welcomed him. Tom Mann's method is to travel around until he can find a soft .place to land. If a country refuses to be fool enough to put up with him and pay him a large salary, he retires and uses his opinions against it as a* means of gaining the confidence of new supporters. When ihe came to New Zealand, his fame as a London publican and as a Labor disorganiser in England gave him some sort of place. Pretending always that he was a worker, he did ho stroke of labor in New Zealand. Mrs. Mann, however, taught music. The workers of New Zealand took a very short time to discover the true Mann under the frock coat, and the gallant knight of discord went to Australia, where, for a reason never discovered, he (persuaded the workers that he was a Personage. At any rate, Labor paid him at the rate of £6OO a year to misrepresent it. Mann created much disturbance in Australia, but he did no work. He found it necessary to leave Australia, and, although he had been treated very much better than he deserved to be, he went to South Africa, where he has opened a campaign of abuse in regard to things Australasian. Mann would have seen no reason for abuse if either country had kept him in idleness and had given him a large salary for misrepresenting them. Nobody can quite understand why Mann should be considered of sufficient importance to set the cables going. His whole public career has been one of misrepresentation of the workers; he is not a typical worker in any sense of the word; and he has no sympathy with any workers who cannot pay him six times ia worker's salary. Mann as a critic of the colonies is particularly puerile, and although he stormed and raved at Home, he never on any occasion did an ounce of good for his fellow-countrymen. He spent their money, however, and this seems to be the whole aim and object of his lift. Happily the worker of the world is making up and is able to discriminate between the drone and him'self. It is to be noted that the worker in South Africa is rather above than below the average nmn in intelligence, simply because thousands of men of hi<jh intellect have drilled into manual pursuits for the big wages offering. On the surface, as New Zealanders know, Mann is a plausible person, whose heart bleeds for the people he misrepresents, and momentarily the South African toiler may take him to his bosom. Subsequently, however, Mann will find it necessary to go to Canada and slate Afrikanders, and from there to somewhere else to slate Canadians. He always proudly boasts, with one white hand thrust into his black waistcoat, that he is a mechanical engineer. South Africa should get him to give some samples of his desire and ability to toil at his trade.

FINGER-PRINT IDENTIFICATION. The police method of identifying criminals by their finger-prints is rarely questioned in New Zealand, although it has ihad a comparatively short trial here. A large number of criminals 'have been •brought to justice by the use of the system, and apparently so few mistakes are made that legal quibbles will never lead to its disuse. Like many other marvels, the finger-print system was used by Asiatic peoples long before Britons 'had emerged from saviagedom, and in China for at least five thousand years every person uv/ho has committed a crime and who has been subsequently released has been required to leave either a toe-print or a finger-print. In many Eastern countries so much reliance is placed upon the infallibility of the finger-print that the ''signature" of an illiterate person is invariably made by finger-print, and is accepted in all documents as legal. This, as may be supposed, is a much more satisfactory method than the British way of allowing an illiterate signatory to affix a mere cross with a pen held, by a responsible person. There is no doubt that the modern police finger-print system has reduced the chances for successful criminal acts. The photographing and classification of finger-prints is a matter of great caire, but it is quite wrong to suppose that finger-print experts are necessarily men of genius. Any average constable might become a finger-print expert in a short time. A curious point in relation to the comparative ease with which criminals are identified by means of finger-prints is wi&t even the most intelligent of them take no means of throwing the police off the scent. This shows, perhaps, that the average criminal is a creature of impulse, and when he goes a-burgling he neglects to proI vide himself with gloves or finger-stalls. 'As crime is more easily -detected there will be less inducement for the burglar to operate, although it might be proved that many Law-breakers love crime more for itself than for its emoluments, fn short, finger-prints or no finger-prints, a good many criminals cannot help being criminals.

THE KINVS CONSIDERATION. The small acts of every-day thoughtfulness and consideration make life livable. The gentle word, the 'prompt assistance, the ready sympathy are much more valuable than money. There is nothing that makes the world look more gloomy to a man than the absence of friends or of human sympathy. It has lately been very evident that King George is able to see things with the eye of the people, and that he Jias recognised the enormous dislocation of business that must inevitably result on the death of King Edward. Although he is himself suffering the .sorrow that a son must suffer, he bias shown that he does not wish the neoiple of the country either to spend their time in gloom, or to lose in a monetary sense. Be sees that under ordinary circumstances that business would be carried on as usual, and has shown a deep concern for the welfare of the people by his consideration. Emnloyer.9 of labor were thanked by the King for promising that the dislocation f>f trade occasioned by King Edward's funeral should affect the workers as

little aa possible. There is no cpicr-lion that if King George had been an austere personage and selfish 'he could have greatly upset the national life for a long period. By his tact, discretion and consideratenesa during a very remarkable period, King George has laid the foundation for a perfect trust between himself and his subjects.