THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9173, 22 August 1908, Page 6

THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.)

Vexed Railway Matters.—Onuii AND PuOIIIBfUON. SeNTIIIENTAMSAI and Hypocrisy. The Dominion Scouts. —Points in Bbikf. Certain remarks I made with reference to railway matters last week have apparently been misunderstood in some quarters. Thus my friends of the "Marlborough Express' take me to task in this way : "There is a stntence in a contribution by Frank Nbrton, published elsewhere, to which every South Island journalist, north of Canterbury, will take the strongest possible exception. It is as follows:—'Trie Main Trunk Railway is virtually open at last. There will now he a national line of communication from Auckland tD the Bluff, just as soon as the Government does the obviously proper thin«j and runs it 3 own ferry from

Wellington to Lyttolton. If wo are to bi at all consistent in the socialising of our principal services the Government must maintain this ferry.' The passage quoted doubtless expresses the convictions of large numbers of North Island residents, and not a few of those south of Christchurch, In the opinion of these people Marlborough is to remain peruuinently isolated, left on a side track, while traffic betwten North and South is

carrieii along her sa» mm, ;>y steamers. The idea ia iir.nlv t-mi bedded in the rr.inda of so many people that oar League will have a hard fight to dislodge it. Even in the estimation of many who ought to be better informed, the unfinished portion of *he line from Seddon to Domett is merely a local undertaking about which there is no need to hurry. That it forms portion of the great artery of communication between Auckland and the

Bluff never seems to enter into their calculations, and in most that is written about the completion of the Main Trunk not even the slightest reference is ever made to this unfinished gap in the line of communication. And-" And so on. Now, I never said anything at all with reference to the line from Seddon to Domett. I merely pointed out that any sea-link in the main-route of railway communication in the Dominion should be bridged by a Government ferry, and not left at the mercy and disposal of a private company. It stands to sense that the connecting termini of the main line in the North and South Island should be as close together as possible. Equally, there can be no sort of doubt that the main line of railway should serve as large a part of the country as possible. Just as plainly, the nearer together the connecting termini, the quicker must be the through journey. It has always seemed to me a strange, if not an absurd thing, that passengers from Otago should have to leave the train at Lyttelton in order to get to Wellington. Only, as 1 say, I did not go into this phase of the matter last week, merely because there was no J nead to go into it at that time. If . the ferry were only over a distance of two miles, I should still say that k ought to be controlled by the Government, so long as it connected Government railway limes. The main line of railway communication should certainly serve the whole length of the South Island, as of the North; but for the present, and for some years to come, it won't. Meantime, we have to take tilings as they stand; and it was with things as they stand that I dealt last v/eek. r . have been greatly amused at times in New Zealand to observe the horror with which good people have spoken of opium; and greatly interested to mark the unanimity with which people agree that opium, being chiefly consumed by Chinese, should be prohibited. This is a verv singular thing. Or, at any rate, it seems so to me; for I happen to know a good deal about opium. It was my fortune to travel through a large part of India with the famous upium Commission, taking shorthand notes of the voluminous evidence. In New Zealand, I have learned things about opium, things that the Commission never suspected or discovered. It wa3 found, in, India, that while opium-smoking in' excess was a vile and injurious habit, opium-eating was not, as a rule, productive of any very terrible evil. It was found that the warrior races of India, the Sikhs, and Kajputs notably, consumed opium in enormous quantities, and preserved their excellent physique One of the witnesses, I remember, the Principal Civil Medical Officer of Bengal, admitted readily that it was his own habit to take small quantities of opium when he was run-down or suffering any special strain of work So that we have this to consider —There can be no doubt that opium-smoking, in any degree of excess, is positively, injurious It is, therefore, a good thing for the Chinese that they should be prevented from becoming opium-wrecks. But it must also be remembered that among Europeans the opium habit seldom takes the form of smoking. Among Lancashire mill-girls the habit has sometimes taken hold, to the destruction of

body «and soul. These unhappy young women have gone to the most tsrrible lengths of dishonests and dishonour, in order that they might get—laudanum. Now, so far as I cm ascertain, it is neither impossibly nor difficult to obtain laudanum in Nov/ Zealand; and it rather seems ti;at we are leaving our own people exposed to the very danger from which we are bo careful to protect the Chinese. In all these matters t'ls-re is a good deal of what we call national hypocrisy. If opium came in free, it is not likely that the havoc it would work would be even remotely comparable to the havoc wrought by ah'ohol every yea:. In short, we are very careful about the vices of the Chinese, and mighty careless about our o'vr. And we are far too fond of making a stalking-horse of opium. We a vast amount of twaddle to trie detriment of our own race iq India over 'his very matter. Much of th; • 'hatter we hear about our forcing o; i,i a into China is in effect the verier, chiptrap. So long as the Chinese WM'it opium they will have it. There iy uoUole in China a strong revulsion of feeling sigainat the opium-vice; but it is sheer nonsense to twist that into a t'et'liug of indignation against Indian grower. In short, nations reform ut times, ud individuals do; and thv) Chiiiead, a very wise and prudent |

people, are turning against opium. It will not prevent them turning if we put every acre of India under opium-cultivation. Already, and for many years now, opium-smoking in China has been regarded as a disreputable vice, and it has never had that social sanction that we accord to a moderate degree of habitual drunkenness. Opium has never been the curse and shame of China, as alcohol is the curse and shame of England and many English-speaking countries. I am not a prohibitionist, merely because I do not think that prohibition wiil do the thing desired. Hut when I hear a man strongly supporting the prohibition of opium, while as strongly denouncing the prohibition of alcohol, I realise aga'n what a very humourless and stupid thing hypocrisy can be.

Wellington "Evening Post" is be- | ii;g made'the arena of a somewhat silly squabble with reference to the newly-formed corps of Dominion Scouts. The Scouts are all men who have seen active service. The majority are returned New Zealand tioopers from South Africa. Others are men of English regiments who served with honour ir. that and other wars. These men, like other men of their type, have little heart or stomach for ordinary volunteering. For that reason they have formed this corps of their own, and there can be no doubt that the corps will materially strengthen our arm of defence. But some of the ordinary volunteers are wroth. They urge that the Scouts should join ordinay volunteer corps. I don't sea why. The men are reef agents, to start witn. In any case, they will not in ordinary volunteer corps. It seems altogether silly to argue about the matter. Last Saturday night in Wellington the electric light failed for a few minutes But that was not the most extraoibinary thing noticed that evening. The extraordinary thing was the number of intoxicated boys about the streets. About ten o'clock the city seemed full of them. Wellington is putting up a sort of record | in this kind. It is one of the records | that the city has grace not to boast of. It would be an excellent thing to pass a law that any licensed victualler convicted of supplying liquor to any youth under the age of eighteen years should lose his license, and be disqualified from trading again in this country. The fact once proved, no excuse should be considered. As to that, we need a law with no loophole?. The unemployed clamour in Wellington has about fizzled out. The real unemployed are too busy looking for work to make any noise about it. The other sort are lying low waiting for the next likely opening. When the opening occurs, there will be more processions and virtuous protestations. These outbursts are sporadic. At a meeting of Socialists on Sunday night "a collection was taken up in aid of the bakers now on strike." A reminder of that sort is not without its uses. We'd forgotten that any bakers were on strike.