THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9160, 6 August 1908, Page 6

THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.)

The Hazardous Trek.— England and America —A Little Reason.— hEi'TLiNO a Strike. —Mrs Besant Again.—A Word About Oratory.— Missions and Hindus. Parliament maunders on. For the moment, members are looking forward with manifest warm sighs and lip-licking- to Friday night next. Oil that night a train-load of legislator; will set out across the steeplechase of the Main Trunk, bound for trie re note part 3 of the dim and desolate north. A large number of members will be of the party If the train reaches Auckland in time, the Parliamentary party will take part in the banquettings and speech-makings and otherwise help to swell the loud hurrah. I hope that the members will have a good and sufficient tin:e, and I bupe that the Americans will enjoy themselves quite a lot. But I hope most of all that th-i populace of New Zealand will not lose its head and act 111 a silly manner. I don't suppose that there's a man in the Inland loves Americans better than I do. But every time a local magnate gits up and emits googoo about "our natural ally," I want to laugh. _ It takes a terribly long time for an idea to penetrate into an Englishman's skull, and Scotmen's (with skulls impenetrable), often go wrong by instinct. Else it would not be necessary to point out at this late day that nowhere else on earth are the English hated so cordially as they are hated in America. American Statesmen distrust us, the American people (as a people) rather curiously despise us, They say that we are either great hypocrites or great fools. The American nation never has forgiven U3 since first it found us out. All this talk about blcod being thicker than water is the most mulish and preposterous twaddle. The Americans, as a nation, are only very distantly related to the English. lam sufficient of a Cosmopolitan to care little what one says of the English, end less what one thinks. I should like to see a closer union between England and America. When the members return from Auckland, it is to be hoped that some serious attempt will be made to grapple with the work of the session. Very little has been done so far. What cm only be called the collapse ol the Arbitration Act has caused deep unrest in all the industries of the country. The tendency to strike is becoming more marked and general as ea;\h day passes. The policy of coddling labour unions and malcontents in tha labour ranks continues. The Government ofjNew South Wales the other day gave Australasia an excellent lesson in the art of settling a strike; but probably nobody in authority in New Zealand noticed it. strike had befallen in New Zealand it would be gathering strength now, just settling into Its stride. Ministers would be making speeches to placate it. Members of Parliament would ba kowtowing to it. The great body of the people, schooled to meekness, would suffer inconvenience and loss quietly. Commissions would De set up to peer into the employers' business. Magistrates would be sent here and there to investigate this and that. Any man daring to hurt a striker's feelings would be frowned down. And somewhere about October the thing would be inequitably adjusted, and the strikers, blushing beneath their crowns of martyrdom, would have to go back to work. New South Wales knocked out the most recent ominous strike in a couple of days. Recorded thus bluntly in New Zealand, the tiling looks positively indecent. The other night I went to bear Iv'rs Besant lecture "Man, the

Mnster of His Destiny." I had not seen her for at least ten years, and it must be nearly fifteen since I :\i-n travelled in her train out in India. 1 have always remembered htir as a very noble and notable woman, and the lecture last night merely served to confirm my earlier impression. She has for long been the finest woman speaker of her time. In this country you rarely or never hear a public man speak accurntely. Mrs Besant thinks logically and clearly. She knows exactly what she wants to say. And she says it. She says it with extraordinary simplicity and force, but with the grace and magnetism of the true orator—a thing that even the adroi test politician cannot assume. Oratory in politics is a }ost art; but I would urge that accuracy in political statement is necessary to clear undertanding. Her addresses burn with humanity and a very winning altruism. The lady was talking a sort of refined or modernized Hinduism—-v.-ry beautful and noble and stimula ing. She was preaching a religion whose origins are lost in the very night of time—that used to be a favourite phrase of hers, I remember. It is a religion with a marvellously powerful appeal to the intellect; but a religion that was already ancient at least five thousand years before Christ. Its scriptures are the most ancient books of the world, so fur as our researches have yet gone. But to-day we send—not our seers or our wise women, but the converted tradesmen and nice girls of our suburban churches, to persuade the Hindu to desert his ancient religion. Th- pathos of the thing always app:akd to me irresistibly when I was a boy in India. I have sef:n it over and over a H 'ain —the sincere pleadings and investives of the busy,: little inis.-ionay with vestcr.lay'a date scimned all over him, and the wonderful patience and tolerance of the Brahmin's spiritual face. And later I have looked round our own crowds, 0 i sidewalks and racetracks; I have looked into thy turbulent disorder O- my own heart; and noting the squalor and vanity of all these things 1 have wondered when the Brahmin missionaries are going- to set forth to r.'leem the Western contamination lro:n itself.