NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 768, 17 March 1910, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

There are over thirty thousand electors on the municipal electoral roll, but on a liberal calculation not one-tenth of the number recorded their votes yesterday at the election of members of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board. While this lack of interest on a very important public question is to be deplored the result of the election must, on the whole, be regarded as satisfactory. The successful candidates are in almost every case ex-perienced-in hospital _ and charitable aid administration and we have no doubt that this has influenced those electors who did their duty in recording their votes. At the same time amongst those who were, unsuccessful are men whose services would have been of very great value to the country and who, we trust, will again come forward. As we pointed out yesterday the public had very little to guide them in casting their votes on the present occasion. Many of the candidates did not even trouble to address them through the press or give the slightest indication of their views _ on hospital or charitable aid administration. On the . next occasion _it is to be hoped a livelier interest will be shown in the very important issues involved. A keen, election campaign on the subject of charitable aid administration would have a most wholesome-effect.

To those of our readers who are interested in the railways finances, the Ministerial organ in Christchurch is bo well known for its delightfully obstinate eccentricity in doing anything with , figures . save understand thorn that we feel we owe it to their scrap-books to quote our contemporary's latest tour de force. For the last five years for which the complete figures are available the net returns on capital in the case of the North Island railway lines have been: 3.70, 3.60, 4.11, 4.28 and 3.78 per cent.; and in the case of the Southern lines 3.03, 2.99, 3.02, 2.71, and 2.64 per cent. For the current year so far as it has gone (311 days) the net earnings are:

Net return. Total capital Re tarn cost. per cent. £ £ North 410, M 6 13,010,612 3.14 '■South' 427,888 15,817,986 2.70 The Government has to earn interest on £13,040,612 worth of railroad in this island and on £15,817,986 worth in the South. And it does what the table shows. That, one might think, is plain enough. • But see what Southern_ ingenuity can do, as shown in this splendid passago from our Christchurch contemporary's latest struggle with the facts:

But' in the cost of the South Island lines is included a sum of £1,104,232, tlie value of the lines handed, over to the Government by the. provinces. If this sum is deduoted, the cost of the Southern railways to the Dominion stands at .£13,841,477. Then, for the purpose of comparing the results obtained from railways constructed by the Public Works Department in the two islands, we may fairly deduct the purchase price of the Wewagton-Manawatu line and its estimated . earnings from the North Island figures. Taking the cost at a round million and the earnings at 5 per oent. upon this suin, we have the total cost of the Northern lines reduced to .fi11,744,754, 'and their earnings Jo .=£360,446. A simple calculation will then show that on this basis the Northern lines have paid 3.06 per cent, upon the cost of their construction 1 during the first ten months of I the financial yeaT and the Southern lines 3.09 per cent. .

It sounds like the horse chestnut turning into the chestnut horse. "We are not contending," our contemporary adds, "that tho comparison proves that the South Island lines are better investments than the North Island lines are." We are very glad of that; to want such an exquisite little trifle • to "prove" anything would be as inartistic as to assert a . utilitarian purpose for Shelley's Ode to a, Skylark.

Lord Kitchener has scored a strategical victory oyer; those who would have been delighted to seize the occasion of his departure from the Dominion to give nim a fitting "send off." There were no bands on' the wharf, no great gathering of the public, no popular demonstrations of enthusiasm when our distinguished visitor departed yesterday, simply because the public were in complete ignoranoe of Lord Kitchener's intention to leave. It was perhaps characteristic of him that, his work here completed, he should have preferred to slip away quietly, almost secretly, rather than face the ordeal of a formal leavetaking. Those who may experience some disappointment at the thought that Lord Kitchener should _ : have been allowed to dopart withoutsome popular recognition of his undoubtedly great_ service to the Dominion may derive some consolation from the fact that our visitor's whole career goes to show that he is better pleased if permitted to escape such demonstrations. Moreover, Lord Kitchener left them no option in • the matter—he has completely out-manoeuvred hia admirers; and the intelligence department of the public, the press, has been nicely duped. Even in little things Lord Kitchener's plans "make I good."

Mr. P. Hally, Conciliation Commissioner, goes to' Napier to-day to deal with the dispute in the tailoring trade, and to make some arrangement for a conference between representatives of the wharf labourers and their employers. Hr. Hally also has a couple of West Coast coal mining disputes to deal with, and the council in the Wellington saddlers' dispute, which was adiourned to enable employers Outside the city to be represented, will shortly be resumed. The Amalgamated Society of Engineers are also asking for a conference with their employers in 'toil district.