CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 119, 10 November 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

"THE NOBLE ART. - ' At one time a couple of mcii wlio approximated mo.st closely to tho bovine type c-onlil lie hired for a few pounds to batter each otlier with hare fists for eight hours. That was in the days before keen business men had thought about £1IH)I) purses, mbving picture rights anil "squaring'' the better mai> to lone." When, the .noble art.i>f sheer slog for a small stake was'objccted to by a nation Unit would cheerfully slog ten thousand black persons to death with soft bullets ami hard bayonets, there arose a howl that the 'Briton was losing liis grit and go, iind all the rest of it. The JOr/tish us a nation never went in for prize-fighting or even for boxing, any more than New Zealand as a nation goes in for football. Jt is the. few who fight and the many who watch. Most of the discussions on modern glove fighting are as farcical as the fights themselves. A large black persrm suddenly finds himself champion of the world, and decent, sober and brainy citizens of America, Britain and the colonies follow his career with worshipping eyes and ask him if he won't kindly consent to be a Freemason. British authorities are always the last to move in the direction of "spoiling sport.'' and when one notes that the British police serve lighters with notices that they must not box. it is an indica- j tion that it is time prize fights for purses died right out. One may believe that the Anglo-Saxon people still love a good fight if it is "si|iiare," but nowadays in other branches of "sport ' than boxing the cash aspect is so obviously the chief one that it is a sheer farce to use the i word "sport" in connection with it. i The modern prize fighter may punch his way to a thousand pounds in two minutes, but he dare not do it, i because he is under contract to keep it going so that the picture peoijfc can : serve up good hot films to the iflßions ' of people who deprecate prize fights like anything . The mildest maiden may see Burns "outed" in a picture without a tremor. There is not the slightest' doubt that glove-fighting for purses, is very nearly a dead art, nijt because the world loves broken heads and. jaws any less than it did.- but because the world ; is sick of fakes and carefully arranged "gate" drawing contests. It will be a. 1 glad day for sport when the moneygrubbing punchers, scullers, footballers, and the whole army of fakers who fatten on the credulity of crowds who supply the means are swept clean and sport is undertaken [or its own sake. Fan»y Johnson or Wells or Arnst fighting at their special sport for the sheer glorv of it! j THE ('I IHA PEST MARKET. The other day the Hon. J. A. Millar told a t'hristrhurch audience that it was a mistaken idea that they should always buy in the cheapest market, and asked New Zealand people to support local industry, as "charity begins at home." The average New Zealander is therefore to understand that "it will be cheaper in the long run'' if he gives I'ighlccnpence for a New Zealand-made article than one shilling for a similar article made at Home. It is indeed ' only the wealthy that can afford to be charitable to the industrial stragglers ! who are for ever begging the (iovern- , ment to increase the tariff on things we may bo able lo manufacture our- • selves some day. The ideal of a selfsupporting New Zealand is a very splen--1 did one, but it is never going to be , felf-supporting as far as manufacturers are concerned while* it ' : is empty and while it is penalised in every possible way to assist problematical local in- - dustrics. ft Is a feeble kind of busi- . ncss which depends on the dragooning of the people under heavy tariffs to ' keep it going and in which the conipeti--1 tion is made impossible bv Act of Par--1 liament. It is not true that the peoL , pie lire being assisted by the protection of infant industries which can only exist '' by selling articles at a large increase ■ over the imported article, and despite 3 tariffs, the great bulk of the articles in .] daily use in New Zealand are still imported and sold at prices so enormously in excess of the English, (ierman, French ■ or American price a* to be out of all - proportion to their value. Then, again. (1 ' New Zealand is absolutely wrong in encouraging an industrial (factory) class. Tt has already been shown that the e towns are filling much' more rapidly v than the country. The rural industries ] are comparatively undeveloped, and it is on these the State should concen-

-1 Irate. • Tin- mass of the people are pen- '■ alised by the high protection that aids i only small, unimportant sections of the . conimiinily. and these small sections are for ever agitating for a bigger legalised "cut" nut of the people's pockets. Mr. Millar is quite right when he suggests that, "charily begins at. home." The home charitv of the individual should ho in making his shilling do the best possible work for his own family. The hind of charity Mr, Millar means is the cliart ily of putting the sixpence into a man's pocket because he charges you that much extra for an article than the importer would. Your charity is much more homely if you keep the sixpence in voiir pocket for the benefit of your . family. i DOOMED! I low very large and unfrequented a 'place Australia is is rarely realised t until we calculate that N'ew Zealand 5 could be comfortably placed in a corner a! t lie uninhabited porlioii of the Xorthcrn Territory. It is a peculiar belief ol many Xeiv South Welshmen that Sydney is Xeiv South Wales and of the - Victorian Hint Melbourne is Victoria. |. N'o one knows so little of Australia as the average Sydney or Melbourne man. This preparatory to mentioning that t the Sydney detective force has said that : if our prize escapee. I'owelka, lands in , Xew South Wales lie is doomed!. Australia. as a matter of fact is the sanctuary; for the escaped rascals of many 1 countries. Its enormous coast line, is ; not patrolled by the Sydney detective force, and detectives, do not grow on gum-trees in ihc stupendous stretches of back country. There is no country

1 typical back country mail is tin- least *• J inquisitive person in the world. Hoi docs not care twopence what a man lia< been ur even what, his name is. lie cures about what lie is, and what lie can do. Even tlx; murderer who h:is escaped into the back country docs not 1 necessarily go around telling people about it, and if he manages to be on u stretch of live or six hundred miles witli a very ordinary policeman a couple of hundred miles away, lie is not neces-

sarily doomed. Wo imagine the wellmanicured detective force of Sydney examining every gum tree oil the Murruinbidgee for Powelka finger-prints, or enquiring among the men of the Riverina for a person who would distribute his visiting cards at every shearing shed, with a message that he was the renowned person who strolled out. of New Zealand gaols through open gates and doors. Powelka, carefully aided, might laud in ten thousand spots on the Australian coast, and lie lost for ever. The useful black tracker may. ofcourse, get to work (if .Powelka is in Aus-

tralia)' and no doubt the Sydney detectives who have "doomed" our celebritv have already cabled to Wellington for a pair of Powelka's boots to assist the trackers. .If Mr. Powelka calls at the Sydney detective office we hope Mr. Roche will be careful to close the door. Should he pay a visit to Diirlinghnrst it would be a convenience if the warders would leave a nice new suit, of clothes near the exit gate. It is. however, too much to expect that the kindness characteristic of the New Zealand authorities is also a characteristic of "the authorities who have been used to pealing with the hardest of har.d cases for over a century. i