THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1907. "A SCANDAL OF THE UNIVERSE."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8558, 18 October 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1907. "A SCANDAL OF THE UNIVERSE."

The Rev. J. J. North, of Wellington, is a gentleman who has been prominently before the public for a i long timo past, and as time goes on he becomes more and more a public entity. His utterances now and again are such that while they cause the i unthinking to laugh, make the judicious grieve. There is always a substratum of fact in Mr North's philippics, but he so exaggerates fact as to render his advocacy in the matter of reform nugatory. He appears to be oblivious of the virility of the aphorism that "a half truth is worse than an untruth." The reverend gentleman is now in Auckland—the Corinth of the South—and is engaged in issuing t'.e epistle of North to the I Corinthians. He has doubtless de- ! lighted the Corinthians, whose views i upon matters generally are provincial, and consequently narrow, but he I has astonished the Wellingtonians so far as it is in his power to astonish the cosmopolitanism of the Empire City. Mr North is nothing if not adjectival, and in Auckland he has excelled himself. He has informed that provincial town that 1 e was "as certain as thac he lived that Wellington is one of the scandals of the universe." This is going far, considering how little is known of the universe outside of the solar system by either scientists or theologians. But up to a certain point, so far as the New Zealand fraction of this globe is concerned, Mr North's statements are incontrovertible. It is perfeetly true that in Wellington syndicates "scoop the pool" in the matter of the available lands of tne city and suburbs, and that rents have become a tyranny. The "Kelly Gang" metaphor in this respect is warranted, and it would be well if others spoke out as plainly as Mr North where real grievances are in evidence; but when the rev. gentleman describes the capital city of New Zealand in the language indicated by the Press correspondents at Auckland, he goes beyond the bounds of legitimate criticism, ar.d does both himself and the cause he espouses infinite injury. The evils of landgrabbing and the increasing lack-—if one may use the paradoxical expression—of commercial morality are conspicuous enough in Wellington; i the "hotbeds of corruption" are also |

painfully in evidence; but the same evils are equally predominent in other cities of the colony. They are the result of greed, and greed is one of the most ineradicable characteristics of human nature. If, however, Mr North took the trouble to turn to the per contra side of the human ledger in even the New Zealand Sodom he would find much to modify his designation of Wellington as "one of the scandals of the universe." If he desires to bring about reform he must be just as well as vigorous, and he should understand that it is the paramount duty of the minister of religion to be charitable as well as tna\