THE WEEK, THE WORLD AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9100, 28 May 1908, Page 6

THE WEEK, THE WORLD AND WELLINGTON.

(By Prank Morton.) ) .(

The Cheerful City—And the Latest | / Stbiks What Remains? Certain Astonishing Aliens—Thh Fieb that Tailed. I am given to understand that money is. still tight, but everybody I seems cheerful enough. This is, indeed, a very cheerful city: perhaps" tha most cheerful city I have ever known, on u,e whole. The people generally ate fo indomitably determined to make the best of things that ;it takes them all their time to keep uj, the effort of the determination, and many opportunities of making are lost or overlooked. In view of some things that happen, and some things that threaten, it is not always easy to maintain that indomitably cheerful spirit. There is that insistent matter of the high cost of liv'ng. It is a thing so obvious that nobody thinks of disputing it, and everybody has come to take it for granted. But if anything happened to raise the cost of living materially above the present standard, the most determined cheerfulness would falter. There can, in short, be no sustanied cheerfulness a single step beyond the limit of endurance; and as far as the cost of living in Wellington is concernto, tne lunic of endurance is abov-i reached. " Meantime, the latest strike is a significant and ominous fact in the general consideration. The tramway workers of Auckland, finding it impossible to get quite al> they want from the Arbitration Court, have struck. The Arbitration Court was the weapon chosen by the trades'-unions to secure what was called justice for the worker, and especially to prevent the barbarism of strikes. The Arbitration Court having failed to do all the workers demanded of it, the workers are now having recourse to the old barbarous weapon. The strangeness of the position at least is clear; but I am not at all sure that the . workers can be blamed too sweepingly for the folly .of it. The Arbitration Court, as the chosen weapon of the workers, has materially raised wages; but the raising of wages has had its natural and inevitable effect in the raising of prices. That natural effect, however, was one that the workers generally ever really took into consideration at the outset. It is quite possible—l do not know; but is is quite possible—that the Auckland tramways workers really find it impossible to live with decency under present conditions. And i«- ia quite ' probable—it is, indeed, almost certain—that the Arbitration Court has now gone as far as it can go in the raising of wages. Any fresh increase would necessitate a prohibitive tariff'in regard to many - industries; and no prohibitive tariff ever yet helped the worker. Arbitration, in any case, is lound wanting. Wherefore, the Strike Barbarism beingthe only other idol to which the worker in his blindness can bow down, Arbitration is dethroned in favour of the older god. As far as the average thoughtful citizen is concerned, it takes a quite inordinate . cheerfulness and a quite invulnerable optimism to stand unflinching before these gathering forces of disturbance. If Arbitration is to become in operative as a remedy for industrial ills and grievances, the veriest noodle knows that the Strike Barbarism is abominably bad and useless as a remedy. What remains? That, as a gentleman somewhat prominent in dramatic fiction once remarked, is the question. The workers, of course, might study the facts of history and the general question of values; but the subjects are dry, and the average worker loves lighter reading. Or the Government might sturdily uphold the Conciliation and Arbitration Acts, and rigorously enforce the penalties the law provides against the offence of striking. For years past, democratic opptimists in other parts of the world have been belauding New Zealand as a country without strikes; and simultaneously doing homage to the industrial legislation of New Zealand as being, in effect, the open gate of Paradise. What will these democratic optimists say, in face of this changed position, and these gathering new disturbances? You don't know and I don't know. tio there we are! Turning to a less serious but apparently more important matter, 1 met a few days ago some members of the visiting British football team. My resulting impression ia that the ie men ara excellent advertisemdnts for the form of sport we dc most strenuously and consistentlj applaud. As a rule, your footballei in season can or will talk of nothing else but football. If he has any opinions on other matters, he conceals them. If he has any ambitioi.s aparl from the sacred game he is apparently ashamed of them. If he has anj other avenues of desire he does not talk about them more than he car help. But these British footballers, so far as I could determine, are quit£ different. They appear to be welleducated and well-informed. Thej have a notably good showing of th« quality, not to be expressed in English, that the French call savoirvivre; so that they could walk aboul a big hotel in- their scanty athleti< apparel without looking in the leasl VJlgar or out-of-place. They seem, ir fact, to be men quite at paace with a harmonious environment. , They car talk of other things than football; and that rs surely an amazing thing. Uno of them seemed to have read every English book 1 have been interested in during the last year or two. Another plainly knew all what a f citizen of Wales need know of Welsh Disadtablishment and associated vexed questions. In short, apart from the scanty athletic apparel, there was nothing in thtwe men I talked to that necessarily marked them as footballers at all-nothing, that is, except their ruddy health and excellent muscular development. I wonder how it id that we in New Zealand, who talk to much about our democratic institutions and enlightennuniß, s>o A;ry, much about ourfrejtijiirunJ uar oreadth of mind, don't sucee«>i in ureeding football teams of Una type, i wonder how it is that we, who aneer so readily and bo often Ht "insular English prejudices" and "English purochialiam," do run so persistently ana so obstinately into iutd. These, however, are not ques-

tions for footballers. Let us arise with loud shout! On Friday night in town, there was a fire that for a time threatened to spread and destroy the Post Office. The fire made a vivid splash in a dullish week, and the Wellington newspapers made a tremendous jot of it, and were thankful. As a fire it was not especially exhilarating or fine, and the amount of damage j done is not sensational. The Post Office escaped. Nathan's building ptill stands solid and four-square to every wind that blows. As the buildings actually destroyed contained | nothing of much value, and were to be pulled down within the next few weeks, there is even a probability that the fire saved a certain amount of expense to somebody. The point to ue made is that these destroyed buildings were old and rotten, and contained inflammable material; and that if the flames had spread to the Post office, great public loss and inconvenience must have resulted. With such a place as that burnt adjoining a great public office, it is the plain duty of the Government" to see that every possible precaution is taken to minimise fire risks. In this case, the public has yet to discover that any special precautions at all were taken. Meantime, it is well to remember that the bulk of the Government departments are "till housed in the Government Buildings—the huge pile we insensately boast of as "the biggust wooden builJirig in the world." If that building caught fire, it would burn like a paper bag. If that building were burned down the loss to the public would be enoi-muiia. It is at least apt to inquire whether the Government has any immediate intention of removing or minimising that risk. Shortly after the destruction of Parliament House, there was quite a scare with reference to Government Buildings. It was said that somebody —anarchists or agitators of some sort; dreadful people, plainly —had formed the dire design to set fire to the Biggest Wooden Building. Troops were, I believe, called out to prevent the consummation of those wicked plans. It was openly stated that the Premier, that most equable man, was very anxious indeed. The newest newspaper made a tremendous hullabaloo over the business. And then there was a sudden cessation of these noises, and the latest scare slept with its fathers. When the fire licks up Government Buildings, these things will need a lot of ex-plaining-away. As far as fires in public offices are concerned, prevention is vastly better than cure.