NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 806, 2 May 1910, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY.

With a silent rapidity that is rather bewildering, the Budget has become law, after a year of the fiercest and most intense political fighting within the memory of most living Englishmen. Nobody can say—certainly, no honest Radical will protend—that the occasion is one for Radical rejoicing. And it is the honest Radicals, the people who not only approve of the new taxes but who believed also that the nation was behind them, whose opinions are the most important to the Government. To these the fruit of victory will already taste of dust and ashes; for they know that the decision of the nation was against, rather than for, the Budget, and that tho victory which they_ had hoped would come of a passionate national feeling has been achieved only by the grace of Mr. Redmond. who has cymoally tolerated a measure for which he has no approval, for no reason saving that it suits his book. It is obvious, on the face of it, that a policy established in such circumstances can have no long existence. Mr. Redmond's whim raised it up, and Ms. Redmond's whim can cast it down, even if it is not cast down without his assistance. The smooth passage given it by the Lords, wiil greatly weaken the position of the Government in its assault upon the "veto." The Lords may very well say: "We believed the Finance Bill of 1909 to be revolutionary beyond the limit of any mandate given by the nation in 1906, and we therefore refused to pass it without, a fresh consultation of the country. The election fully justified our hesitation, and although we believe the- majority is against the measure, wo must accept its re-enactment by the Commons as a direction to stand aside." It will also be pointed out that, as always in the past, the House of Lords has shown no desire to reject a measure that comes to them after an election upon it. The Radicals will then have to fall back ;npon the argument that the Lords do not' oxercise their revising functions as thoy • ought when ' the Unionists are in power. But two wrongs do not make a, right. Matters can be equalised, of course, by denying the Lords any power of revision at any time; but the obviously correct remedy is so to reform the Upper House, as to secure that it shall' exercise its proper function at all times. Since it is inconceivable that the Kino will create an army of new Peers, there will be an election very soon after the House meets. There are indications that the . Government intends to make Free-trade a joint issue with the destruction of the "veto." In the meantime, however. Me. Redmond's action in supporting tho Budget will, with cacn day , that passes, take on a deeper colour of significance, and the Government, when the polls are reached, will have to fight against the general knowledge that a Radical victory wi_ll_ mean Home Rule. The extra hostility that it will thus incur will, it can hardly bo doubted, scatter oven its present precarious majority to the four winds. The crash will probably como even before tho artificially and temporarily resurrected Budget has had any real operation.

One cannot help admiring the courage and persistence, as well as the tremendous industry, of Me. Samuel Vaile, of Auckland, the most painstaking and outspoken of the ,raany critics of. the railways administration of this country. Mit. Vailb, although ■ now very advanced in years and in far from robust health, shows no sign of ' faltering in his task of exposing the weaknesses of our railway methods, and more especially those of recent years. Most men would have been discouraged long ere this at the apathy shdwn by Parliament and the public to the disclosures made, but , Mit. Vaile goes steadily on adding to the accumulating weight of evidence; dissecting Ministerial statements and exposing their weak spots; analysing their figures and showing the hollowness of many of. the claims made;! ruthlessly laying bare what they ; have sought to conceal arid filling in the gaps which it has suited their purpose to leave unfilled. We have published bo many letters and articles from Mr. Vaile on the subject of our railways and their administration that our readers probably have already some idea of the amount of time and attention which he has given to the matter; but they form a small part only of 'his efforts. In 'this' issue we publish the latest of his contributions. He has on the present occasion brokon a lance with the Minister for Public Works, and, as usual in such Encounters, Mr. Vaile has left his antagonist in an awkward plight. There is no reason to repeat here what Mr. Vaile states so clearly elsewhere. It will be seen that the-Minister presented to Parliament a set of figures relating to railway expenditure which was quite inaccurate and misleading. We cannot, of .course, say wnere ' Mb. M'Kenzie got the figures from, but .the Minister must ta,ke the responsibility for using them and make whatever excuses ne can. _ If official figures quoted in Parliament by Ministers cannot be relied on, it is quite time a change was made somewhore. The public are entitled to, know the truth, whether it is pleasant, or otherwise.

The visit by Mr. Massey to what has been regarded for so many years as tho greatest political stronghold possessed by the Government is both interesting and instructive. The West Coast has been so solid for the Government that it has seemed hopeless for the Opposition to attempt to capture a single constituency there. It has indeed been regarded as practically a waste of time to even attempt any organising work there. Mr. Seddon welded the West Coast so strongly to his party that instead of Government and Opposition candidates fighting election battles there, the contests more often, than not were between supporters of the Government. But with Mr. Seddon's death the position is gradually changing. It was Mr. Seddon, rather than the Government, to which the West Coast pledged itself, and with the advent of Sir Joseph Ward as Prime Minister there has been a cooling-off of West Coast enthusiasm for the Government. Mr. Massent's visit appears to have been welcome, for the Leader of tho Reform party was very heartily received: It is only by such visits— not merely by Mr. Massey, but by leading members of the party—that the Reform party can hope to make its programme fully known to the people in all parts of the country, and by so doing break down the false ideas so sedulously spread by their political opponents that they are a party of reaction. _ No one who has listened to a public address hv Mr. Massey could believe any'tiiing of the kind j and if ho aud hi a

followers seized every possible opportunity of meeting the people face to face they would very soon be able to show the country which is the real party of sane _ progress. No doubt they are handicapped by having to pay their expenses out of their own pockets when travelling, while Ministers do their electioneering at the expense of the country. Still "something more could be done than has been done in the past, and public feeling throughout • the country is favourable to it.