CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 268, 3 April 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A LITTLE SLANDER. There is a certain class of person in ; every community who is so concerned about bis fellow man that he condemns him on the merest rmnor. We get samples of this kind of thing repeatedly. People sit in their studies and write about "dens of infamy" they have never seen; attack, the characters of people they don't know; and generally make statements by way of showing that they only are the particular brand of person who ought to be permitted to walk the earth. A gentleman of this sensational type lately made it for the commander of the training ship Amokura to deny that his boys were permitted to drink alcohol on that gunboat. The person drew a pathetic picture of these abandoned children being separated from religious influence, and so on. As far as we are aware, only one unofficial person has been permitted to take a trip on the Amokura, and it is therefore quite unlikely . that the accuser who has been giving these boys a bad name knows anything about the matter. The trouble about damaging statements of this kind is that the particular class to which accusers belong persist in believing them. Everybody knov» that a trickle of slander may grow into a torrent. The person who happened to live on the Amokura for the better part of a fortnight during her first sea trip informs us that during that time he saw no sign of alcohol on board either in the hoys' quarters, the instructors' cabins, the officers' portion of the ship, the wardroom, or the commander's apartment. He saw no ill-behaviour of any kind. It heard no bad language, observed no breaches of discipline, and saw perfect control, decency, order, good management and excellent instruction. The accuser made a good deal of the fact that church services were not held on board. It was shown that the boys oil board were for religious purposes classed under ten heads, that the ship was in port each Sunday, and that the boys were sent ashore for tho purposes of worship—if they -ecided to worship. The other fact that the commander of the ship is a total abstainer from alcohol is substantiated by our informant. Some of these days public accusers, having dealt with the characters of the unfortunate earth and sea people, will discover something immoral about Mars and accuse the man in the moon of evil conduct. So many of the present-day moralists gather their opinions about human nature from observations of abnormal specimens that they are a positive handicap to human excellence. Their motto should be, "There is none that doeth good—except me." A COMPETENCE. Is money an obstacle to great effort or not? A recent speech by an English statesman raised the question whether certain eminent men, poets, scientists. \ and others, would have done so well if they had not been spurred by poverty. There is no doubt that the "curse of a competence" has hindered many a man from putting forth his most strenuous efforts; has beguiled him into an easygoing existence, working only so far as was necessary and agreeable, when, perhaps, he has had the brains to make a name if he had had to buckle down in earnest. Oh the other hand, it might be urged that genius—like murder—will out, and that if a man has commanding ability in any line, he will show it, even if he. is "hampered" by having money enough not to exert himself. Very few men have as much money as they want, and the man who has just enough to live on will want to work to get a motor car. Some of the world's greatest poets, writers and musicians have been forced by dire necessity to produce their masterpiece. Thackeray wrote "Vanity Fair" < because he lost his money; Balzac wrote i in bed in his attic because he had no 1 clothes and no money for a fire, and i hosts of others might, be mentioned— < but can one affirm that their "sacred fire > of trenius" would not have blazed, even 1 I if thev did have money? On the other ; hand. Gibbon could not have written the i 1 > "Decline and Fall" if he had not bad a I competence, and Ruskin and Browning ( were able, on account of their money, to a produce theid 'best work independent of i s mmediate success. Many a man who s

has had a small income has no doubt wasted his ability, but it is only doubtful if the world has lost very many masterpieces on this account. •'THE BRAIN OF THE EMPIRE." The Hon. R. B. Ilaldane has been raised to the peerage, and there will be agreement throughout the Empire that the honor has been conferred, not only as a recognition of his extraordinary services and genius, but because it may be necessary to give the House of Lords a leader of great distinction and power. He is now 55 years orage, and has been in Parliament since 188.5, representing Haddingtonshire, occupying the position of Secretary of State for War since IfK),l. He is a hard-thinking, never-tiring individual; lie is a. man of ideas, with the extra quality of urbanity of manner thrown in; and has done much to evolve order out of chaos in the administration of such an intricate department as that of War,- the territorial scheme, of which so much has been said on both sides, being his 'magnus opus." Mr. Ilaldane has been called "The Brain of the Empire." He began as "devil" to Sir Horace Davey, and subsequently built up a lucrative practice of his own in the highest courts. He has the gift of "getting things done," and, further, of persuading people to support his ideas. His attitude—backed up bv speeches and writings—on educational matters shows that he has seized the connection between education and national efficiency. He has a thorough grasp of scientific, problems, He formulated a scheme for the reform of the House of Lords as a Supreme Imperial Tribunal, and he has written many papers and delivered many speeches on Imperial organisation. He works all day and all night, and is an authority on everything. Although he is not devoted to physical exercise, lie enjoys the best of health. He understands the maxim thoroughly: "The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them." He is a maker of the bnllets which others fire. Of him an English journal once remarked: "Rotmid),precisc, and miraculously well informed, his quick" 1 stride through the lobby indicates his quick progress through life. Work is his , recreation, anu philosophic enquiry his diversion. After the famous long-dis-tance run on the Army Annual Bill, when he was in his place for nearly 30 hours, subsisting on a few hard boiled eggs and a basin of soup, he sprinted to his private room to dispose of the day's correspondence. Has an alert pair of eyes, critically pursed lips, and wears clothes which always seem too tight. Has the power of deflecting criticism; seems to persuade the views of other people rather than to control them; and steers the House after the manner of an ingenious big brother—as witness liis celebrated reference to 'strawberries and other jam-bearing plants' when the Labor men were becoming angry about tho Land Tenure Bill. An industrious and subtlo lawyer and a famous amateur in the cobwebby intellectualities of Germany, he has contrived to persuade all the general officers and all the military critics that his scheme of Army reform is right. He passed the Territorial Army Bill—establishing what humorists eail the Terriers—while nobody was looking.", That is the character of the man. Hu.mankind is a conglomeration of persons, not to be driven, but beguiled, along the path which is best for them." Mr. Ilaldane is the author' of "Tho Life of Adam Smith,' "Education and Empire," and "The Pathway to Reality."