CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 47, 4 June 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

KNYVETT. Mr. Knyvett, an ex-captain'of Auckland Garrison Artillery Volunteers, has obtained a good deal more notoriety than he deserves. Auckland people have become really incensed about Mr. Knyvett's troubles, and the injustice done to him. Mr. Knyvett was a volunteer and has lost nothing except his' commission. Under the military system of any power in the world, Mr. Knyvett would have been punished if, on the report of a court of inquiry he had been found guilty of insurbordination, or of the military "crime" of criticising his superior officer, and who, on their recommendation, punished him. Mr. Knyvett is a very good soldier, but we hold that even if Mr. Knyvett were the most distinguished soldier in the Empire's Army, he is bound to abide by the decision of his superiors; that if he does not so abide, he is guilty of breach of regulations; that if he breaks regulations, he should be punished; that his' superior officer may punish him; that if a court is set up to deal with his case, the decision must be final; that there should be no appeal from its decision; and that mo civilian interference should be allowed to influence the Defence Department in its obvious' duty. •It is now stated that this young man who caused such a flutter should be the reason of a Bill which will enact that his case shall be heard all over again. The promise of such a Bill is a direet slap in the face to the military authorities. Any dominant military man or court of military men, having decided in a matter s'uch as the Knyvett case, would resign their commissions rather than allow discipline to be destroyed m the way now proposed. Mr. Knyvett knows, having been a soldier, what would have happened to him under service conditions, had he been guilty of insubordination. His superiors know,' too, what methods they would have taken. They are now evidently coerced into allowing the whole paltry matter to be civilly ventilated.

A PRINCIPLE AT STAKE. The Knyvett caste is not a matter for civilians; for the people of Auckland, or for anyone else than the predominant officer in New Zealand. If the Chief of the General Staff is not allowed to bei master of his own department, he is! obviously not fitted to be in it. If; machinery is to be devised to permit Mr. I Kmjwetti, |a junior officer, to maike! charges against the Chief of the eral s'taff, there seems to be no reason why Mr. Knvyett should not take command. The Hon. George Fowlds men- 1 tioned in Auckland that the Government would not allow any mass meeting to dictate to the Defence Department what it should do in the Knyvett case, but at the same time he promises a Bill that will permit Mr. Knyvett to again obtain more limelight and to open the wretched proceedings again! The worst feature of Mr. Fowlds' speech is his nromise that the new commandant, who has not yet left England, shall s)et up a hoard to enquire into the allegations made by Mr. Knyvett against the Chief of the 'General Staff, Colonel Robra. Nothing more preposterous has ever been promised. The whole thing is de-' structive of discipline. The mere sug-J gestion that a strange officer, who probably never even heard of Mr. Knyvett. shall at once enquire into the conduct of the supreme officer in New Zealand because Mr. Knyvett and the: Auckland public are angry, is the heignfc of comical absurdity. Any Imperial of-! ficer, on carefully reading the case, would uphold the decision of the Court of Enquiry whether, in his opinion, the finding was correct or not. Any Imperial officer who succeeded Colonel Robin, and at once enquired into his conduct, would' he unworthy of his place. We sincerelv hope that the commandant-to-be will refuse to be badgered into the position Mr. Fowlds promises excited Auckland-, ers he shall occupy. That any distin-] guished officer should be made to dance to the tune piped by a section of excited civilians with whom he has no concern is highly- typical. Colonel Robin does' not object to an enquiry being made into his conduct. But he ought to very, strenuously object. He is absolute master of the situation if he only knew it, I but evidently he is going to allow him-j s'elf to 1)6 dictated to by an ex-captain | of volunteer garrison artillery.

: r Tt|'""* r """' , ''i .-ni_ 'T^l^f'???"'?' CREMATION. The idea of the cremation of the human body jars on the susceptibilities of the majority of people. People who see individuals die, and sorrow for them, possibly do not consider the palpable fact that the whole population of the world is renewed every seventy or eighty years, and that the countless,' million's who die make, room for the succeeding generations' return to the Earth Mother. In the great scheme of nature, the dead human being is of as little concern as the shell of the chrysalis or the fallen limb of a tree. Nature does not concern herself with her creatures' disposal of their dead, and carries on her untiring work whether in their view the disposal is reverent or otherwise. In the presence of wholesale death, man, for his own protection, takes those precautions that will ensure the health and comfort of the living. He looks on death with less abhorrence, he conceives it to be a natural tormina tion of activity, and that, as it cannot be averted, so it may be regarded as an unavoidable occurrence to be treated in a commonsense way. Tf you take a city like London, where there are sfcven or eight millions of people, vou must realise that in seventy or eighty years practically the whole of the present population will be underground. The vagaries of existence, the" rush of commercial progress, absolutely preclude the rever-| ent treatment of those bodies. Old churchyards and cemeteries vanish, building and streets appear, and it is realised that wherever one may tread in London, the heart of the Empire is one vast burial ground containing tens of millions of bodies. The thought is abhorrent, but the truth is patent. Tt is certain that in the near future hygiene, and the necessitv of keeping the | living alive, will demand that cremation

'be the only method of disposal of the dead. The necessity for such disposal is not yet apparent'in New Zealand, although the disposition to use the most reasonable sanitary method is shown in the cities. The subject is a gruesome one, but of more than passing interest, and, with the growth of New Zealand cities, will form a serious problem for executive corporations.

SECRET COMMISSIONS. Lately it has been shown that some southern medical men still keen up the delightful practice of obtaining '-secret commissions" from chemists. It therefore follows that the larger the amount of drugs poured into a patient, the more thriving is the doctor's hunk account. It is to the financial advantage of the medical man to treat a case Venuirinir fresh air, sunshine and fruit with ehemfeais. The idea is: -Here is Mrs. Rrown Jones never happy unless she is swallowW* 'something. 'You could not get a jblianco of her custom if I did not send her to you. Therefore, T demand a share of the profits." It is all very nice and gentlemanly and honest, is it not? New Zealand is always slow to step uii the sacred corns of the professions, and although an Act based on the English law to render secret commissions ilfesal has been .promised, it has not arrive! yet. Of course, medical men are not the only offenders', and, happily, only a strav medical man would debase his great calling by this scheme of fraudulently treating patients. Even lawyers in one or two towns in New Zealand when writing letters of demand threaten a suit if "this sum, together with my costs (so and so) is not paid." etc. 'The public is to blame. If it allows itself to be bled, so much the worse for it. and so much the better for the bank-books of the men who apply the screw. Manxmen in excellent positions seem not to realise the dishonesty of the secret commission dodge. It is common enouali for treasurers and secretaries of onrinisations when paying accounts to ''get a cut," and anything that is customary seems to become honest by habit. The pilferers of society are not merely those persons who are gathered in by the police. The police harvest is generally gathered from the class that is too ignorant to hide its tracks. A halo of respectability should in reality be only worn by people who have earned it, and an act to make secret commissions illegal mighit lead to some very interesting dolling of aureoles.