CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 79, 12 July 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

MR. BARR ON BACKBLOCKERS. "The backblocks settler," said Mr. Barr, in the Legislative Council, "is a very comfortably-off 'man. He certainly can't get to the theatre every oilier night, and that is a good thing for nim probably. He can't go every day to races, and thht is also a very good tiling for him. He has plenty of Iresh aid and fresh milk—not so thin as we find it in Wellington." Such a man, Mr.) Barr declared, was in a good because he had an assured living, while there were hundreds in the city who were not in that position, 'fhe only anxiety of the backblocks settler was I to make more than an assured living, and very often he was only waiting for the value of his land to be enhanced by improvements of communication to sell out at a profit and get away from J the backblocks. "The agitation for re-i lief of the backblocks settler," Mr. Barr' declared, "is altogether overdone." Mr. Barr probably speak!*" with authority, seeing that he is a Legislative Council-

lor, whose chief business is politics of one sort or another. It is interesting, in dealing with Mr. Barr as a critic of the bacikblocker, to mention that lie has been in New Zealand eight years only; that, during that time he lias spent most of his time working for organised city trades unions. The State must have discovered valuable material in Mr. Barr, for he had only been in this country for five years —and was practically a Radical as far as politics ■were concerned —before he was called to the calm seclusion of the Legislative Council and to the honorarium unci emoluments generally thereunto apperi taining

THE TRUTH OF THINGS. It is clear to '.he person Whose whole outlook is not bounded by organised city labor, that Mr. IJarr has not delved very deep into reasons, causes or the truth of things. He could iiave learnt nothing about the primary pro-, ducer as. a weaver; his knowledge would not have been increased as to the back country man while he was a mason; and as a telegraph linesman in Canada •he could have gathered xery little material for his conclusions that the agitation for "the relief of the backblocks man was entirely overdone." He will also admit, if he gets into his most Scotch mood, that he has gathered very little about the backblocker in the wilds of Cathedral Square, or found any reason for his antipathy to primary industry in the bush of Hereford street. Mr. Ban - could not have been a weaver if there had been nothing to weave. The backblocks man gave him something to weave. There would be no necessity for masons if the backblocks man did not produce the necessities of life on which all people—including masonssubsist. The towns of Canada expanded so that telegraph lines were needed, and Mr. Barr was required on them, but the towns did not expand by themselves. The man whom Mr. Barr says is too well treated was walking behind the plough so that Canada might grow and telegraph lines might be necessary. If it were worth while, it could be proved that the reason why Mr. Barr became president of the Canterbury Trades and Labor Council is because the backblocks man made such a council possible. There could be no> town trades and labor organisations but for the country outside the towns and the men who worik it. If it were necessary, it could he shown with absolute conclusiveness that Mr. Barr holds his post in the Legislative Council as a gift from the backblocks man. A town community cannot exist without a country community, and if the Legislative Council exists for any good purpose, it certainh' does not exist for the people who live on the real producers, but for the producers themselves. For any legislator to endeavour, hy suggesting that the backblocker is not worthy of /help, to hamper settlement of land—for that is what Mr. Barr is driving at —is menacing the country. We do not want a multiplication of trades and labor councils, a du-plication-of legislative councils, or a triplication of geaeral advisers. What is wanted more, than any tiling else 'is. more settlers, so that the trades councillors and the Legislative Councillors may draw their pay. And the person who comments upon the naclcblocker should be a person who knows his subject, and he can't gather the knowledge either in the Legislative Council or in Cathedral Square.

CAPTAIN COOK.

To-night Mr. Robert McNab, iormerly a Minister in the New Zealand Cabinet, will discourse on that great maa, captain Cook. It would be unfair to detail extensively the life of this famous circumnavigator; but to touch a little on what he performed for the Empire, u,nd for this part of it, is useful as illustrating the sterling British qualities 01 tiie man and the value of his magnificent example. It is admitted at once mat genius flowers and flourishes in xhe humblest soil. Indeed, it more frequently buds in the most unlikely place*, so that it is not an unusual thing to find a man who had begun life as a help to his father —who was a farm-laborer —and who was subsequently a 1 grocer's apprentice, soaring beyond the realm of sugar and brown paper and reaching great heights of unique usefulness. How Cook became a sailor aboard a merchantman, and how when there was hot work afloat he joined the Navy, are! known to every school child, but the; point for deep consideration is that outstanding courage, cleverness and devotion to duty cannot long go unrewarded. Cook began his remarkable career as a mathematical and maritime genius almost as soon as he joined the Navy. His surveying work between 1755 and 1760, his notable feats in the St. Lawrence River will be remembered for all time. Also his work then and thereafter was so "sound" that his charts are to-day as reliable as they were then. So Cook was "born," not made. In relation <to his voyages of , discovery in New Zealand waters, the extraordinarily lucid manner in which he sets down the result of his observations makes his journals 01 greater value than almost any of the books on New Zealand. His remarkable mastery over men, without harshness, was one of his chief characteristics. His plain everyday commonsense kept his men fa good health, heart and spirits, and his intrepidity in facing natives with no thought of either giving or receiving punishment stamp him as a man of profound individuality. To set out as Cook did on any of his voyages in a small ship like the "Endeavour," into the unknown, were feats of navigation wonderful for their accomplishment and utility. To such men as Captain Cook the Empire owes as much of its proud position as it does to the conquest of arms. New Zealand cannot know too much about the brave Yorkshireman whose instinct forced him to discover new countries and to make possible the, expansion of the Empire and the safety of its ship. The map of New Zealand, is vocal with the memory of Cook, for! he had the mathematician's instinct of, tabulating every fact gleaned and of naming every point visible. And Mr. I McXab, admiring the man and his' p-enins. is doing'<rood work in telling New! Zealand what it owes to Cook.