CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 91, 26 July 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

A WORD ABOUT HORSES. Sir George Clifford, the well-known New Zealand racing man, whose opinions are generally sound enough, has put forward the extraordinary theory that racing improves the breed of horses for military work and commercial purposes. The racehorse is as surely a decadent as are the men in the "indeterminate" wing of the prison. "He is artificially reared; artificially fed, his work is unnatural—and he is no earthly use for anything but racing. He lacks everything hut pic- j torial and beauty and an ability to] sprint. The fact that he is as delicate as a .hospital patient disposes of the theory that he can give to the equine race .the necessary power and endurance for military or active commercial work. Racing has done more than anything else to deteriorate the breed! Qf horses. The long-distance galloper is a thing of the past, and the horse that counts nowadays in the world of sport is the horse that throws the whole of his stimulated energy into the shortest possible sprint. The idea that any breeder of gallopers designedly rears and trains them in order that"their progeny may become chargers, coachers, or 'bus-horses is too absurd to need refutation. It is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain troop horses and strong, active sorts that would be capable of saving a man's life. The motorcar has done something to make the breeding of good horses unpayable, and if hunters and coachers and chargers are wanted, nobody goes to a racing stable for them. If breeding horses for sprinting improves the equine race and makes chargers possible, teaching all our youngsters to "train fine'" and to ''break nine I ougilit to give us some tolerable navvies in time. Which, of course, is all very , inconclusive and illogical. New Zealand has much to be proud of in her horses, ' but there is no need to get overjoyed j because a thoroughbred can win immortality by galloping home a fifth of a | second better than the next thorough'breti. His progeny is not going to do much for us when wc are galloping out of range, nor will his 30ns,and daughters

haul our buggies safely through the winter mud of Taranaki. Racehorses are not bred to improve the breed. They are nurtured to spur the excitement of the people and to put money in'the pockets of the men who aVe "improving the •breed."

A MINISTER FOR GAMBLING. The Hon. .T. A. Millar, one of His MaMinisters of the Crown for the Dominion of New Zealand, lias stoutly declared that he is a gambler, that he has always gambled, and that he always will do. Tt is very frank of him. It does not particularly concern anybody what Mr. Millar, private citizen, does, but it matters quite a deal what Mr.. Millar, Minister of the Crown, advises, by his example, other people to do. He was frank enough not only to suggest that he had man's natural predeliction for gambling, but he voted for the

retention of the licensed bookmaker. Bv his sturdy defence of gambling, lie the political head of great departments of the State, sets a bad example to the people of the departments, and generally, in a country which contains a very large number of imitative people, he is the great apostle of betting. It is, of course, hardly wonderful that Mr. Carroll, another Minister of the Crown, should have voted for the retention of the bookmaker, or that Mr. Glover's profession would induce him to vote against the penciller, or that Mr. Wilford, late Chairman of Committees, chairman of the Harbor Board, Mayor of Wellington, and eminent lawyer, should set an example to the people. But it certainly is strange that the "strong man Millar," the man who was a radical fighter for the worker, the people's "Jack," should utter the absurdities of which he was. guilty in the debate on the question. Mr. Millar knows that his friend the worker needs very little temptation to spend Ms money on gam bling; he knows that there are book makers in Wellington that own rows of houses made from the workers, and he places life insurance and other forms of security against poverty in the same category. The. life insurance companies must pay out, and if there are thievdnjg l companies the country has not yet dis-| covered them. It is competent for a Minister of the Crown, a Judge of the Supreme Court, the Mayor of a capital I city, or anybody else to indulge in any weakness they affect, but as private per-j sons only. The late King Edward was a gambler, the last Lord Chief Justice of

England was a gambler, Cecil Rhodes was a gambler. But as far as we can ascertain, neither one of them carefully sowed the seeds of the worst kind of gambling by openly supporting it, and not even Cecil Rhodes would have held that life insurance for the benefit of a widow or orphans was in the same category as the transactions of a bettor. If Mr. Millar has very definite views that can only do harm when they are expressed, why does he express them? It may be very honest to be adamantine in one's opinions, but shouting "Down with reform!" from tho housetops is a very poor pastime for a Minister who is pinnacled as a pattern for the worker.

AN EVERY-DAY STORY. Here is a story. It was told in a southern police court, but similar facts might be gleaned in almost any town in New Zealand and elsewhere. Man

charged with being idle and disorderly. Wife and three children. "House untidiest I ever saw, your Worship." Children without any clothes at all. Defendant never worked. He stole a little and drunk a lot Said he had been repeatedly to the bailor Bureau to get work. Proved that he had not called in three months. Wife bravely lied that "Bill had been trying to get work," She herself went • out washing five days a week and earned one pound. And here is the point. Said tlhe Chief Detective: "The only thing to do is to make him work." If that man (and hundreds like him) stole anything

from a tradesman and was captured he would go to gaol—unless hi® wife paid the fine. But for some inscrutable reason Ihe is allowed to steal from his wife day in and day out. He earns notihing out of gaol. He earns nothing in gaolJ If he were sent to gaol, good people! would hate to employ the wrfe of a gaol bird. (He is a liar. He takes an oath! to support his wife, ait the altar or be-! fore the registrar. There is no law in New Zealand that can, compel a man to support iliis wife if he has nothing on! which to support her. There is the "idle and disorderly" law, which pun-1 ishes his wife and children as much as 1 it punishes 'hint The State in this ca®e,! as in most others, "remanded the man so that lie might try to get work," forgetting that work was poison to him, and that compulsion was the only wea-| pon that could be used. They manage, these things better elsewhere. In Geir-j many—but not throughout that Empire | —the State giives a loafer fair warning that he must work and must support, his family. It watcfoes him. If he J doesn't work, the state, or the State's | servants, arrest him and compel him to work in a public gang—and the State! looks after the family, paying itself from the proceeds of the loafer's work. The gravest indictment of the New Zealand system, in our view, is that while tihe; country yearns for strong healthy peo-j pie, it permits children to live in squalor, and stinking rags. It allows loafers, both of the pauper and the gilded pest' kind, to cumber the ground, and it per-, mits womea to be the worst kind of white slaves. Any policeman in New I Plymouth could to-day put his 'h'and_ on j a case the essentials of which are sefc| out in this paragraph. What is the State going to do about it?