CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 202, 5 December 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A CLERICAL APPOINTMENT. During his recent visit to New Plymouth Canon Ivens impressed all who were privileged to hear him speak with the breadth of his ideas, the variety of his knowledge, and his- approachability. It is gratifying, therefore, that he is to become vicar of St. Mary's Church, the congregation of which is to be congratulated on the appointment of a man whose intellectual attainments have been so splendidly demonstrated. Canon Ivens has a record of achievement in, the English parish he leaves that any clergyman might be proud of. New Zealandera are well aware of the influence for good that may be exerted by a mam of strong personality, earnest and eager to place Ms gifts at the disposal of the community. Men of commanding personality and influence are not common, and the community, no less than the parish, which can recruit such men adds an asset to its possessions. Although there is a wide field for the energies and the eloquence of eminent churchmen hi England, there is gratification to New Zealanders 'that a man like Canon Ivens can be spared to minister in a. country where conditions are so dissimilar. A strong man, no matter of what denomination, is always welcomed to a new community, and there can be no doubt that the new vicar of St. Mary's, by his broadmindedness, his tolerance and ability will be a force, not only from an Anglican point of view, but from the point of view of the whole community. There is a wide field for the activities of Canon Ivens in Taranaki, and we trust that he and the people may mutually esteem each other. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT. The person wno remains in his armchair and remarks to the carpet that he could have saved John Smith or Henry Brown from drowning, or have dragged him from a falling tree, or have rescued him from a running belt, is not the kind of being who is on the spot when his lifesaving, services are needed. There have been armchair critics in New Plymouth who have been careful to mention that too much credit was given to Messrs Hardgrave and Stroud in rescuing from possible drowning young Hancox at Te Henui beach. The simple fact is, ol course, that Hancox was saved, and that the armchair critics did not save Mm. It doesn't matter to a man, woman or child who is in mortal danger whether the rescuer swims, walks, drives or crawls—as long as he gets there at the moment he is most useful. We have a particular contempt for the armchair critic. In his own imagination he could win all the naval and military wars, he knows exactly why Barry didn't win the boat race, and is sure that if Jeffrieshad taken his advice, Johnson would have been a beaten man. The point for

the armchair critic is that he didn't try and made no attempt to walk, run, jump or crawl to the rescue of a man. The man w'ho makes a liibit of doiuir things on the "spur of the moment" isn't much of a critic—he merely docs what instinct tells him to he right. The person who apparently knows most about swimming is he who stands on the bank, well muffled and goloshed, and gives instructions to the person in the water. It would injure him to get wet. Everybody knows the "footballer" who plays with his mouth and the runner who runs with his tongue, the lip fighter and the dining-room admiral. The worst of it is that modest fellows who just peel off and dive in when the occasion offers take these individuals seriously. And there is another phase. The public goes mad over a sculler who pulls a. boat a few strokes faster than the other fellow, and gives a medal or a piece of paper to the man who hauls lives out of range of the Old' Man's scythe. And curiously enough, the armchair critic is after the cash all the time, and the man of deeds wants to hide his head or give the credit to the other fellow. The man who has never had a foot in a stirrup is the man who laughs the loudest when the colts buck the lifelong horse-breaker over the stockyard fence. SAID THE FARMER.

A gentleman who is engaged in the raising of domestic animals, in conversation with a News man after the Show, philosophised with some conclusion: "You're right," he said. "Folks do take a heap of trouble breeding the proper style ot cow or the right style of weight-carrier or the big chested, staunch plough-horse. Did you ever wonder why somebody didn't institute a show of men, women and children? We push out a calf-kneed ewe, condemn a narrow-chested horse, andl we are told that if we want to get the best tests, we must cull out our poor cows and be careful about their sires. Sometimes, as the star attraction at a bazaar, they show babies—not calve 9 or foals or porkers or puppies—but just ordinary everyday human infants who are going to people New Zealand someday. That's all rigiht—it's good, especially if the judges know natural condition from the patent food kind. Why not go further? Does showing animals induce owners to improve their stock? Of course it does! I'd like to see the same interest and enthusiasm about the physique and health of men and women as about Herefords, Clydesdales, Jerseys, Romneys, bulldogs or white Leghorns. I'd like to see a show for human beings, all classes and good prizes. Do you think the fathers and mothers of fine strong boys and girls wouldn't take an interest? Do you think the boys and girls wouldn't like "the old lady" to win the first prize in flhe "Mother" class. If I got the red ribbon for the best sixty-year-old on the ground, it would help me to live another twenty years. Yes; you can write it down if you like. I've got six boys, and four girls I'd like to nominate for the first Taranaki Human Show, and if I'm spared up to the time it happens, I'll enter too if there is a sexagenarian class. What a splendid entry in all classes one 'could have got on 'People's Day!'" And viewing with the mind's eye the great concourse of old and youmg Taranaki people, the News man admitted that the best of Jerseys made a poorer show than the best of human being 9.

AN ARMY OF VAGRANTS. There are fewer unemployed and persistent and incurable vagrants in New Zealand than in any country in the world, and the smallness of the proportion is an indication of the general fitness of the people, the diffusion of prosperity, arid the organisation of society. What a tremendous problem the vagrants ol other countries present to local bodies! The taxation, of the fit to keep the unfit existing is shown by British returns published quarterly. Gloucestershire haa about 600,000 people, not an excessive population for an area of 1225 miles of splendid country, and yet in a recent three-monthly .period 30,070 vagrants were admitted to the various watchhouses in the country. The largest proportion of these people are adult men, and the point for the working Britisher who supports these unemployable is that they do not attempt to do anything but wander from union to union, eating the people's food. If one county in England has such an enormous proportion oi workless or unemployables, one can imagine the seriousness of the problem over the whole area of the British Isles. The curious point is that no system ol philanthrophy suffices to eliminate born laziness, and the professional pauper if left to his own devices, has neither the strength of .will, nor the wish to be anything but a burden. to the people. There is no satisfaction in the usual unctuous bit of fatalism, "the poor we have always with us." The chronic unemployable in England and in New Zealand (we have our own proportion) is "on a better wicket" than the thousands of folk at Home who are ceaselessly employed until death at starvation wages. That is to say, t'he year-in-year-out loafer who transfers from workhouse to workhouse and does no work, is infinitely the better off of the two classes. While Britain carefully tends the perambulatory loafer and fills his stomach at every "union," she does not really aittack the problem of getting justice for the overemployed, whose meagre earnings never buy such good food as is obtainable for nothing by the unemployable.

A LITTLE CLOUD IN THE EAST. Attention 19 being given by the Indian press to the situation on the BurmaChinese frontier. The Rangoon Times is responsible for the subjoined statement, which it says it derives from an absolutely reliable source:—"ln no direction has China made a bigger advance than in the re-modelling of her army, and nowhere, it is said, in the Chinese Empire will be found better specimens of her soldiers than those which she is placing in such suspiciously large numbers on the frontiers of Burma. What is more disquieting, too, in more ways than one, is that it has been discovered that drill instructors are in many eases Japanese, and, no doubt, it is by their adyice that the frontier forces have been furnished with the very latest weapons as regards both big and small arms. In fact, as regards big guns, in the case of any disturbance of our relations with China we should find ourselves much more badly situated than we were in South Africa, for the Government of Burma, so far as we can learn, has not until lately suspected that any external disturbance could arise on our north-east frontier, and thus have never considered it necessary to place men or guns in any strength there. Yet there are sign 9 of coming trouble that must give the Government of Burma reason for some uneasiness. We mean that there is cause to believe that the Chinese are intriguing ■ across the bonier with semi-independent States, with the result that sOme of the Shan chieftains are becoming insubordinate, and even insolent, and appear to resist any interference with their authority, even when they are behaving in a manner that would be impossible for an English official to •overlook."