What Everybody Says.

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1789, 26 September 1874, Page 2

What Everybody Says.

"In multitude of counsellors thert is safety. — Old Provebs

The saying that lookers-on see the best of the game may be appropriately applied to the Thames Hospital Committee's proceedings. There is scarcely a person who has looked at the business which has occupied the attention of the said committee for the last six weeks but fancies he could set matters right in a brace of shakes, although If you are rash enough, to enquire how the clever one is going to do it, you may take your oath that you will get very little satisfaction. One says, " Oh ! they arc making it a party question." If by chance you pursue your enquiries still further, by requesting to be enlightened as to the particular party to which any member of the committee ma}' be supposed to belong, perhaps you will be told then that its " a cliqof'to compass somebody's deposition ana another's elevation.- Now, it would appear that the only party feeling yet exhibited has been on the part of some members of the committee, who,- on the strength of certain rspresentations, appointed a subcommittee to investigate a particular charge, and some outsiders who ought to have acted impartially, but who, instead, took a side from the first, and hare all along tried to induce others to do so. The sub-committee would appear to have done their part of the business, and furnished a report. Then came the explosion. 'J he general committee showed a disposition to heap dirt on their own beards- by coudeinning the sub-committee fordoing that which they had with reluctanceundertaken. Saidgeneralcommittee or some members of it—not finding the sub-committee's report according to their notions, setup their backs, andinsiitedupon a further enquiry. Sub-committee agreed most cordially, and proceed. Then comes the tug of war —of words—and a prttractcd one it appears likely to be. But the lookers-on had better remain contented in their position. Let the committee fight it out to the last. If in the end the enquiry is not satisfactory, the publi©—• everybody can mark their sense of the result by kicking them out of office. In a few months another committee will hare to be elected. By that time it is fervently to be hoped the present enquiry business will have terminated, and then the lookers-on can have their say an& pronounce an opinion in a manner that some of the present committee won't possibly like. ...■•'..-■■, That was a komethrust of Mr. Johnny Sheehan's at the New Zealand Lords. Of course everybody heard Johnny's speech at the banquet, or read it next day. He actually had the temerity to say that hon. legislative councillors were incapable 6f giving an impartial decision on—or a dispassionate, disinterested consideration to any question in which the disposal of the land was concerned. Everybody believes the young New Zealander to be right, especially as his assertion was backed up by the further statement that most of these same lords are large landed proprietors, ever watchful of their own individual interests. The,same conviction has been forced upon everybody in other i colonies. The conservative element in these colonies is an anomaly. In this wise. The " lords " are mostly men who in the early times became possessed of broad acres at a cheap rate through that exercise of ultra liberalism which alienated the fairest portions of the colonial estate at merely nominal rates, ' and, having feathered their own nests, these old birds would fain see the acclimatised fledglings building their nests on other trees and with feathers of an expensive: character. That is conservatism. Mr. Sheehan was right. He gave the best argument possible for ousting these old rooks from their rookery. If they can't legislate on the land question, they can't legislate for the people; because the colonial cry is •'the land for the people and the people for the land." When the provinces are abolished, the next best wing for the country to do will be to abolish the lords. If they must lord it, let them do it over their own estates, outside of which very little will be heard of them when the time comes for their superannuation. Some people hare a happy knack of saying things in a quaint style, and an instance of this came under notice the other day. A very small person was going along the street, and the little person's size attracted the notice of a bigger person who wouldn't say an unkind thing for the world. He didn't care to say " how small," or what a very diminutive person that is. He merely remarked " How awfu' near the groond is yon." For expressiveness tke saying was unique—in fact a piece of spontaneous " wut."