THE WEEK THE WORLD AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9172, 21 August 1908, Page 6

THE WEEK THE WORLD AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.) Suggestions foe the High Com- -j mission kiishii\ —Patrols and Kevol- j ] Who is to succeed Mr Reeves aa ' High Commissioner in London? No- '■ body, knows yet, and the Government will probably make no announcement of its intentions till the end of the session'. Meantime, all sorts of names have been mentioned some uf tnt?m very foolishly. With the iiio.-it foolish sugg n stions I netd not coiiijpm myself, since the primary pu pose of tnese notes is not to increase tiie gtiety of nations. What sort of man is required? That is a q'eation that seems to trouble robody. It is assumed that the appointment will be purely political, as New Zealand appointments are apt to be. The first political probability is Mr Hall-Jones. 1 dare say that Mr Jones would do as well as any other man vvl.o is likely to get the post; but that is not the point. My idea is that tno man available who is best likely to serve the country should be appointed. You smile? Well. I don't wonder at that. Let me get back to Mr Joneg. He is no longer young, and no longer vigorous. He h is administered his department very whenever his health ha 3 permit ed him to be in office. He is a man of unquestionable persjnuJ i.i ..t'gniy. inet'o is ujiniii}-; 100 cor i«'i to his detriment. qualificaticns for this post should be positive. , Negative virtues never helped the world in any big matter yet, and I don't see how much the negative virtues of Mr Jones are to help the country in London. I have not a word to say to his discrc-dit; he has won the respect of the country, and he deserves it. There comes from an obscure paper in Auckland the suggestion of another name—the name of Mr J. H. B. Coates. It is a good name in Wellington, where a thousand people, I dare say, mention it with unction in their nightly prayers. Mr Coates is a bank-manager. He stands, I should say, about six feet three. He is sprightly in conversation, and has a not unplensing wit. He is wonderfully quick at figures. He has excellent health, and a contsitution that might stir envy in a Mexican mule. He ha i qualities for the post. I hive no doubt at all that he would tie a much greater success as High Commissioner than Mr HallJones could hope to be. He golfs. He has some knack of anecdotage. Ho has sufficient confidence. Socially, he would be a success. But —here is the main thing to be considered in his case, when all is said —one imagines Mr Coates reading the paragraph in the Auckland paper with his tongue in his cheek as he emits a dry chuckle at the simplicity of these islanders. It would not pay Mr Coates to go to London on any such occasion. There are scores of men in the country, as fit for or fitter than Mr Coates for the post, who would not take it, for the same reason.

There is (since it is up to me to do some suggesting) Mr George Fenwick, of Dunedin. There is also (since he would see nothing unreasonable in the suggestion) Mr Mark Cohen, of Dunedin; but his modesty would prevent him. Mr Fenwick would do; for he must stand in any unbiassed reckoning as one of the best men in the country. Mr Cohen wouldn't do, if only because his confirmed habit o| oratory would make him tedious to the trivial. Let us look at the thing honestly. Mr Reeves is a distinguished man of the world, an admirable diplomat, and, on a general view, one of the ripest scholars that ever brought, credit on New Zealand abroad. His qualifications for the post were exceptional, and it wiil be a bad thing for us if we go back. The man who might succeed him with honour and distinction is Sir Robert Stout. I'm afraid that Sir Robert is out of the question, and I'm sorry for that. I have not mentioned Sir Joseph Ward, because he ha* definitely put himself out of the tunning. Sir Joseph would be a better-man even than Mr Reeves himself. He might be even a more brilliant success as High Commissioner than as Premier, though the statement smellrf of heresy. In any cjsc, the appointment is a very important one, and if it is conferred on a weak or ineffective man it will be an ill thing for New Zealand. Other names I have heard mentioned with some qualms and misgivings are the namt>3 of Captain F. M. B. Fisher, Captain R. J. S. Seddon, Mr J. L. Kelly, Mr E. Gallichan, Mr Andrew Collins, Mr W. Wallace, Mr W. J. Culver, Inspector Seed, and the Prophet Rua. It is understood that King Mahuta has reluctantly declined. What is called a regrettable in-

cident happened in Auckland the night before the American Fleet sailed for Australia. A naval patrol was taking a drunken bluejacket to the wharf, and a crowd of onlookers decided that the patrol was not treating the man gently. Some hooting and hustling followed, and the officer in charge of the patrul ordered his men to craw their revolvers. Then, happily, a posse of local police intervened and the incident closed. Over this alight matter, a few sentimental busybodies are whining remonstrances. Well, there should be remonstrances of a sort; but the blame should fall on the hooting niio(igmi.-j, and not on the patrol. The Amencian naval patrols assigned the Auckland police over and over again during the week of gentle riot, and the behaviour of the patrols won the admiration of many quiet citizens. For hampering the patrol the crowd merited punishment. The drawing of the revolvers was a merj incident; but if the revolvers hud been us3cl it is difficult to see how t >e Americana could have blamed. I know that quite well that experiences with drawn revivers aiv apt to he disconcerting, bica.;sj I've had some; but if I were hustled by hooligans and had a revolver handy I can imagine myself using it with a certain amount of satisfaction. You can fire a revolver witnout hitting anyiing; you general.y < o, at th ) start, but still produce the desired etftct. If the Americans had firad over the heads of the hoodlums, ar.d the hoonlums had scattered iu a shrieking panic, the episode wtuld have delighted me. Our little «"< bs arj far too ready to asume a dangerous license. We really need to get'our ideas iruo focus with regard

to these matters. The nian who sticks a revolver into my face is a wicked ruffian; but the man who runs a foul drain under my windows is a worse ruffian, if only because he is more treacherous. The chances are that the revolver-man will miss me, even iJ he fires. But the bad-drain man mav easily slaughter my whole family. Equally as criminal is the adulterator. If Igo into a hotel and a man gives me poison in place of whiskey, the man richly deserves to be strangled in the slowest possible way. if a man sells me bad meat when I pay for goad meat, hanging is ' too good for him. The burglar who filches my property is a vastly better and more gentle fellow than the rogue who filches my health. I have met one or two exceedingly philanthropic burglars in my time. Once in Sydney I had gone for one of the loir? night-walks that used to be my habit, and 1 called at a nocturnal coffee-palace to get a fried pork-chop. Sitting at my table there was a sturdy man in the garb of an artisan. We lapsed into conversation, as men being the friendliest creatures under heaven will at any opportunity. We talked of life and literature, of wine and song. I found that he had travelled far"and looked on strange things. We had quite a pleasant chat over the dregs of our coffes. He promised to meet me some Saturday and show me how to catch red bream at North Head. But a clay or two later, I lojked into the Police Court ard found my man in the dock. He winked at me carefully, and I was sorry to hear that-he was a burglar well known to the police. We never went fishing together, because for •some mcnti'.s or years afterwards h-> was closely occupied with other things; but 1 have never ceased to be sorry. Whenever 1 see a burglar condemned to five years' gaol, while a wiiV-u ater gets off with four weeks or less, I realise anew what a farce the criminal law is. This has been a disgression; but I dun't think 1 have anything else to say just now concerning the general subject of patrol and revolvers.