LOANS AND GAMBLES.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14885, 27 January 1914, Page 6

LOANS AND GAMBLES.

Our derriurrer to the conclusion which Sir J. G. Ward drew from the success of the Victorian loan operation— namely, that it proves the wisdom of short-term gambles—appears not to have been agreeable to some of the Opposition apologists. Much of what Sir Joseph Ward said about the state of capita! was obviously sound (as sound as that two and two make four, and as unnecessary to be stated), some of what he said was disputable, but the conclusion which he said was a natural deduction from the success of the loan, was sheerly absurd. No serious attempt —indeed, no attempt at all—has been made to answer our main proposition, which we can re-state briefly as follows: That becauso in January, 1914, the Victorian Government floated a loan, successfully by offering to take 1 per cent, less cash than Mr Allen demanded, and got, one must not argue that it was good business on Sir J. G. Ward's part to raise a loan in a past year on the assumption that on a certain date a few years later money would be cheap, and renewal easy. But, of course, we may leave our general statement of tho case unexpended, because Sir J. G. Ward's defender, on coming to the point, can say only that a long-term loan is just as likely to mature at a time of dear money as a short-term loan, and that one is as groat a gamble as tho other. Wo had imagined that anyone could sco that in the case of a long-term loan the borrowing country has opportunities for making advantageous terms for repayment or renewal, while there is no opportunity of that kind in the case of a short-dated loan. The Wellington organ of the Opposition has also been expressing what we presume we must call its opinions, and very astonishing they are. Tho success of the Victorian Treasurer in getting his money by paying more for it than Mr Allen paid appears to this critic to be a. complete proof of tho justice of all the hard words spoken of Mr Massey by the Opposition! The Reformers, it says, •would 'lav.* obtained their money for £4020 a year less "had they only waited " two .years." It was not a case of the Reformers waiting. Some' debentures Tell due, and tho creditors could not wait. Money had to be raised What the Opposition critics really require to aid them in this controversy is some good example of a short-term loan raised by the Ward Government, and converted, on maturity, into a longterm loan on such favourable terms as to make the whole transaction, from beginning to end, more profitable than if a- long-term loan had been raised to begin with. If such an example were quoted, it would, of course, in no way justify the policy of gambling on tho future, but it would at all events show —what anyone would concede .without argument—that tho gambling policy niay sometimes succeed in respect of single loans. But even that small aid to controversy i s not available to our critics.

Tho contest for tho position of deputy-representative of the unions on tbo Arbitration Court bench has ended in the selection of IMr E. J. Carey, who defeated Mr "W". T. Young. It is impossible not to see in this result a significant comment upon tho state of mind of organised Labour at the present time. Mr Young was tho president of the Federation of Labour when tho strike broko out, and he resigned

only when the strike ended. Mr Carey is a prominent trade-union secretary* who, during the strike, was very fiercely assailed by the Federation loaders as "a traitor to tho cause," his chief offence being the despatch of a warning to Mr W. M. Hughes to the effect that the Federation was very much in the wrong. One may assume that Mr Carey's selection amounts to a condemnation by the unions of the Red red.-Social Democrat organisation. Rome very interesting things were said on Saturday evening at the pleasant little ceremony in Timaru in connexion with tho opening of tho waterside workers' new hall, towards the cost of which the Harbour Board contributed iMOO. In the course of his speech Mr F. J. Rol'.eston, the chairman of tho Harbour Board, struck the right note when he said that the Board's action, and that friendly gathering, meant that "if Labour was prepared to do tho fair thing by tho employer, they would find the employer would do the fair thine by Labour." Mr Rolleston was referring, of course, to tho loyalty to their duty displayed by tho Timarii waterside workers —a loyalty that kept tho port open, and enabled it to end the year with a wholly satisfactory record. In common frith other speakers, Mr Rolleston emphasised tho fact, which is assured of a very much more general and genuine recognition now than was possibly the case before tho Federation of Labour declared war on tho community, that labour aud capital are not the natural enemies of each other. Perhaps tho speech of the president of the union will be considered the most interesting that was delivered at the gathering. Ho endorsed Mr I?olleston's observations, and expressed the hope that that evening's function would bo the commencement of a now era. "A poor man's honour," ho added, "should be more to him than riches', and the men who suggested the breaking of agreements in a reckless or disrespectful way should be put over the breakwater." He urged all to cany out their agreements with their employers Uke men, and not to break them lightly. What the unionists as a body ouo-'ht to keep in mind is that self-interest Points, in this matter, in tho same direction as duty. Tho public mi Hit not have been so firm and active 'in meeting the Federation's challenge to a trial of strength had it not recognised that wrapped up in that challenge was a claim that organised Labour max dispenso with those rules of duty and honesty which no society can ignore and live. The gathering at Timaru makes it clear that that port can rely upon a long continuance of prosperous peace, for it could have no better guarantee of it than tho mutual goodwill, with no lose of rights or selfrespect on either side, existing between the watersido workers and the citizens. A cable message this morning records tho end of a strike which has been going on for some months at Beaufort, in Victoria. The cause of the strike was the refusal of unionists to work with non-unionists. Tho unionists asked the mine-owners to dismiss tho non-unionists under tlyeat of a strike, but the employers refused, md stood &rm, and a long fight followed, during which the mines were partly worked by non-union labour. The struggle was marked by some ugly incidents, tho worst being an unprovoked attack on a number of non-unionists at one of tho mines, which ended in two or three of the men being driven down the ehaft and nearly killed by things that were thrown down after them. The strike arose, not out of any grievance of tho men against their employers, but, as in the case of Waihi, out of a difference between tho workers, one section of which tried to play the tyrant. The attempt has failed, and the loss of nineteen weeks' work, apart from higher considerations, should convince the strikers th;vt the strike is a much over-rated weapon. The joy of the Bonapartists at tho birth of a son to Prince Victor, the Imperialist claimant to tho French throne, is a little pathetic. The chance of the infant ever becoming ruler of tho French is so slight as to be almost negligible. Priiice Victor is the grandson of Jerome Bonaparte, King of "Westphalia, and brother of Napoleon. Prince Victor, like his rival of Orleans, is an exile from Franco, and has issued manifestoes from time to timo, which have not caused any great stir. He is a middle-aged man, apparently of no great ability, condemned by his rank and ambition to a life of idleness. Perhaps since the Duko of Orleans' claim has bet-n clouded by scandal ho thinks his prospects have improved. But the glamour of Napoleon's name, which is his only asset, must fade with time. It is nearly a hundred years since the Emperor died, and a hundred years is a wide gap to bridge with sentiment, especially vrlien so formidaWo an obstruction as Sedan stands midway. The New Zealand politician is usually not a reading man. Hansard and tho newspapers are. literature enough for him. This rcav bo n<? it should be in a yonng country which, if ono is to believo the "progressive" talkers and writers, has nothing tc learn from anybody or any country or any pa.st age, but a recent address of Lord Rosebery's suggests that most of our M.P.'s may have dismal ends. Lord Rosebery was speaking as Chancellor of the Glasgow University, and hi* topic was the value of reading, or, as he put it. "literature, n.s an infinite refreshment and resource in the avocations of life." Ho quoted iho case of Lord Liverpool, who for fifteen years was Prime 'Minister. He had a very arduous time, '"but what he said was this—that the only secret by which he was enabled to go on through his arduous pilgrimage of fifteen years was his practice, regularly renewed and nover omitted, of reading for half an hour or an hour before he went to bed, in some branches of literature' wholly unconnected with his political and administrative pursuits." Sir Robert Walpole, on tho other hand, was no reader, and when he retired v.as utterly wretched, ''on his beam ends without occupation, absolutely disconsolate, only able to look back repiningly to his past grandeur and power, and so lost to all the comforts that his wiser successor had provided for himself." The evils of girls by means of competitive examinations during the period of adolescence, to which we re-

ferred on Saturday, were emphasised in a lecture ou "Woman's Health." delivered by Dr. Murray Leslie at the Institute of Health recently. As reported in "The Times," he said tho present educational methods of cram and competition caused widespread disaster. "It was an injustice to woman and to the race to expoct her to compete with man on purely physical aud intellectual planes, and the modern cry for freedom and emancipation had therefore its dangerous side. He pleaded for tho postponement of intellectual strain until maturity was fully established. A girl's life during early adolescence should be a quiet one —sleep, open air exercise, good fcod, and a systematic alternation of work and recreation." It is p-eatly to be desired that this sane advice shall bo heeded before tho cost to the race involved in the "emancipation" of women becomes very serious.