NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 712, 11 January 1910, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

Some peoplo in Auckland appear to / have/.lost their heads'; oyer ■ the, Knyvett case. The wild talk j,hat .has,been going on since the. dismissal of Captain Knyvett; must have set;' tho; public 'speculating /;as to what;there is;in connection with the caso that has not been for the 1 circumstances as published, certainly: .'do/not; warrant the 'outcry that is being raised. We quite agree with the view I that the /proceedings at the: Court .of - Inquiry were not conducted in a satisfactory manner. The attitude of the, members of the Court -/towards .the 'pfficer'-oh trial was; not,, in keeping /with; the-.'recog-nised , procedure ol our Courts of Justice, 1 and the. merits of tho matter under; investigation'/were/in a' measure obscured by undignified and unseemly ■ disputation. .- Thore was a lack of dignity about the proceedings . that murt have; impressed the public unfavourably. .But . wliile this state of things is .to be regretted,'" it probably influenced public opinion in favour of, rather, than against, the; person ..pn'/trial, :and ,':shouldvndt bo allowed to obscure the- facts. Oh those facts. CAPTAiN Kntvett . plainly committed /an/, act which: laid; him open to the charge laid against him, and, whatever' his' motive may have been* ho must face, the consequences of his. act.... If- discipline is to be presorved in our.defonce forces, offences of tho kind under review cannot bo treated/lightly. As . a matter of fact, ■■ the tendency goes rather too far in the direction of leniency, as is perhaps inseparable from a voluntary, system.:' Captain Knyvett may have been a very excellent officer and very popular, but he, .like others, must suffer for his indiscretion;' On the facts available, the_ outcry that is being made in certain quarters in. his favour does not appear to bo . warranted, and is not likely to sorvc any good purpose. ■ Not alone in New Zealand has the permanent leasehold proved to-be a mistake and a failure. Somo years 1 ago Natal adopted that form of

tenure for a large block of land, which was divided and roaded with a view to closer settlement. Probably New Zealand had something to do with the form-of tenure offered to prospective settlerß. New Zealand is _ not quite the ■ remarkable land Ministers ' represented it to be in those/ days, j Then it was "a land without strikes," the Government had. "solved for all time the problem of successfully placing people on the land," and so on and so forth. The Natal Government haß seen the error of its ways, and, unlike the Ward Administration, frankly acknowledges that, the ..leasehold is not a success. We quote from the report of the Natal Land Board, as pubilished in the_ Natal Mercury: "One of the most important matters with which the Agricultural Department has had i to deal during the period iinde'r reiriew has been the Winterton Irrigation Settlement. This settle-, ment .was thrown open in:. 1904, but owing :to various, causes—chiefly,. it was thought, to the fact- that, tho lands were offered in leasehold tenure, which colonists are loath to accept—tho settlement was out of favour, and called for special attention., The Board, as a result of knowledge gained during frequent visits to the settlement, feared that the water of the Little Tiigela would prove to'be insufficient for : the large acreage (some 5020 acres) - served By the furrow. ; ■ Tho Board, therefore, in March of last year, recommended J that. the ; tenure be altered from leasehold to freehold, and that a ! portion of the land lying below the furrow, and furthest from ;the intake, be converted into dry blocks, and that the whole of tho dry lands of the settlement be so subdivided that each holder of an irrigable lot could have approximately 300 acres of dry land. Effect was given to the joint decision by tho 'passing of Act No. 39 of 15)08, and tho settlement is now relieved of a heavy monetary 'responsibility,: as half the /cost of. constructing the furrow was written off; freehold tenure has been granted, and the rearrangement of the, areas has-also been effected. Commonages have been laid off, as'also have roads, outspans, and a village. The irrigablo lands are offered at an average price of £9 per acre, and the dry lands at £2 an acre, under the-20 years' instalment sy'stem.''-:':The! facts ■to bo notod are that, under tho freehold system, not only the whole of the block here alluded to was immediately , taken up by settlers, but also that' five- other/: blocks-, which; have smcc been: thrown open were promptly secured. Natal lays down no. forbidding array of complicated conditions to_ bewilder, the public. The freehold is offered, and payment -is spread- over a Beries of years.

The leaders of the political struggle now proceeding m Great Britain appear determined to use the- overseas dominions as'pawns in tho gamo of party politics. ; ■ Whenever' possible somo: opinion of a newspaper or'a public man is'quoted to show : that 'colonial sentiment favours this or that plank in the platform of ono or other of -the two parties, and as no very gseat care is taken to probe the matter' before- .such- assertions ■aro, made, very. • misleading. statements" are sometimes set' in circulation. We have repeatedly pointed, out/the, danger / that is attached' to anyinterference, or attempted interference, by. the colonies in the domestic affairs! of - Britain; It seldom happens, that. any. attempt of' tho kina is made, but some colonial newspapers- do not scruple to endeavour to influcnoe public opinion at Home by professing: to voice, the sentiment of their : particular dominion on political ovents in Britain; the idea being that the party, whose/views the' paper favours will: quote its assertions, to the British. elector. The Manchester which,,. supports tho Government, appears to nave: been quoting. colonial ; newspaper . opinions in - this way. 1 The danger: .that lies -behind this sort of thing is not merely that the opinions quoted may not be truly; reprcsentatiye/ of colonial Mntiment, ; but/that a strong antagonism may/be/'ardused : in Britain to what may be regarded as an unwarrantable interference on the part of the colonies; We should strongly, resent' any . attempt by the : public or press of the Mother Country to interfere in our domestic concerns, and there is no reason to believe'. that .'the 'British elector views' interference .on our; part ins his' af- ; fairs any differently./. It .is,, of course, -.impossible to prevent irre-sponsible-newspapers or public men from making statements of the kind mentioned, but they: should; be discouraged in every way possible.