THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9091, 16 May 1908, Page 6

THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.)

If there were such a thing as Gilbertian tragedy, that is what the | state and style of Servia would remind one of. There was that squalid tragedy of thj assassination of the King and Queen, some years ago. It was abominable and inhuman; but what you may call the stag 1 e-setting was cheap and tawdry, the whole etftict more like grand opera than Ufa. So much so that the world in general mad-.' h fool of itself in its summing-up o. the thing. The king, who had been ks bad and silly a king aj need he, »'».-) indirectly extolled as a martyr; the quden, who had always been u very dangerous and unscrupulous adventuress (if no worse), was extolled as saint. Ignorance justified itself in hysteria. We really need to dissociate the idea of human worth and splendour from the idea of monarchy; and s.) we shuuld arrive at a saner and sweeter point of view. The murder of that poor girl in Australia las'- month strikes me as a thing more fiitiful and horrid than the murder of a thousand Dragas could be. Death is a great leveller, and the loathsomeness of murder consists primarily in the horror of the crime itself, and not in the social eminence of the victim. That however, is a point apart: we set out to talk about Servia. The atmosphere of Gilbertian tragady does not lift. The new kin* is no better than the old, and no less foolish. And the new Crown Prince is apparently more foolish than the King. Ths other day he was amusing himself by shooting the ash from a soldier's cigarette. He missed the cigarette, and killed the soldier. Then he put the soldier's body in a coffin, and sent it to the soldier's mother, "without remark." Tne thing is abominable, of course; but when before was abomination so absurdly conceived? It really seems to be about time that Servia became a republic. At any rate, things could be no worse and sillier. * ♦ * * * . * Wellintgon is really going to have a crematorium, and to that extent to come into line with the most civilised cities,of the world. I never pretend that my purely personal opinions are of any necessary value; but it always has seemed to me that our system of burying the dead-—and especially such of the dead as die of loathsome and venomous diseases —is an execrably vile system. I never met an intelligent man of any teligion who pretended or believed ,that it mattered much how a dead body was disposed of. I find it difficult to belike that any intelligent man could really approve of a system which makes of the poor, loved dead a * menace to the living. It is at best a very sickly and unwholesome sentiment that revolts at the clean destruction of a corpse. ****** If you are fond of good shortstories, get "The Four Million," or any other of the books of the master who signs himself "0. Henry." For he is a master—perhaps the greatest living master of this form. He "■" handles his episodes with the most adroit artistic touch, with the true artist's contagious pleasure. He uses English with marvellous dexterity and rare discretion—even when it is American English. He has colour, style, and an unfailing radiant sympathy. There is not in any of his ; f work anything approaching what the most censorious critic; could call the questionable note. And he amuses. He is, essentially and always, a superb story-teller. His is the art that conceal art: the art that escapes the ordinary reader's eye, and is the despair of the artist less accomplished and assured. He is a true dispel- ' ler of dulness, the vailant enemy of * insipidity and ennui. I am a cosmopolitan myself; but I am still enough of an Englishman to be sorry that O. Henry Vis American. ****** And, while I am on the subject of books, there is another I commend: not at all for what it is as literature (because as literature it isn't), but for the thought it inspires and the torpor it may tend to dissipate. "The World's Awakening" is an imaginary account of the great worldwar of 1920. If the Navy League once awoke, this is the sort of book it woud industriously circulate. The Btory is cunningly and ably told, apparently by an expert. , It shows what may happen in case of quite possible political changes at the heart of the Empire. In fact, it sounds a warning that cannot be sounded too often in our apathetic British ears—a warning which we in the Colonies need especially to take to heart. The deep-sea steamers trading with New Zealand are having great and " increasing trouble with their firemen, and especially with their British firemen. Men behave excellently on the voyage out; but, once they get to New Zealand, they leave their ships. There is a constant demand for firemen for the intercolonial trade, and the pay i 3 better than it is on the British ships. Wherefore, the British owners are in somewhat of a dilemma. They prefer British firemen to aliens; but they have more success in keeping aliens than Britishers. The trouble is really a very serious matter. Big ships ready for sea are delayed because they cannot get their proper complement for the stoke-holds. A delay of a ship means loss. ****** Did you happen to read about the modest witness who recently heightened the interest of proceedings in the Arbitration Court at Auckland? H 3 assured the Court of his conviction than the minimum wage in all callings in New Zealand shuuld be £5 a week. "For every man?" asked Judge Sim. "For every man. married ai:d single," said the faithful witness; "ao that they could build houses for themselves." Why should.one laugh at this devout idealist? Why not £5 a week? ' Wny not £10? So long as the duties wurtf raised sufficiently to prevent co.upotitiwri of imported goods, the mn-a in-jc: r of a minimum wage i could ma i ■* little difference. The worker d iwing expenses would jump up, and it would become exceedingly difficult for him to save anything at all; but he would handle more money, more money would circulate from hind ta mouth, the country would

have a yet higher polish of figures and statistics. I long ago discovered that the New Zealand worker gauges his success by the amount of cash he handles, and not by the amount and fulness of the life he gets. He is a grateful slave and pious devotee of the surface glamour of gold. 1 remember that, once upon a time, cer- | tain of us (simple friends of mine and I), being averse from gambling ' but fond of cards, used to play poker, j with counters for stakes. One night I won as much (in counters) as £3,421 2s lid. I was none the richer in fact, and somewhat the poorer in brainstuff and time; but I had a sort of glow, as though I were a millionaire for three minutes. That, I supposs, is precisely how the worker feels when he increases his wage by ten shillings and his cost of living-by ten shillings and a penny. Pierpont Morgan does not seem quite so far above him, after all; and a keener and more enjoyable edge is put to his pity of the Japanese worker who gets ten cents a day-if such an one exists. In a tram the other day, I was telling a carpenter that I had known good craftsmen of his order in Tasmania who only got eight shillings a day. His honest indignation thrilled me. "But," 1 said, "they got their houses for eight shillings a week or so; they could always add to their larder when they were in the mood to go fishing; meat and vegetables were reasonably cheap; clothes were not nearly so costly as they are in Wellington. Why were they so badly off with their eight shillings a day, after all?" "Poor beggars!" he said. When I swung off the tram at my house for which 1 am paying a good deal more than I paid in Dunedin, and fully twice as much as I paid in Hobart, he was still troubled. He was sympathizing acutely with the down-trodden carpenters of Tasmania.