NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 838, 9 June 1910, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

In the course .of his speech at Grey Lynn last week Mn. Fov/lds made an appeal to the British Budget in defence of. the Government's present anti-agrarian policy and its intention to sharpen that policy' in tho future. "He urged," according to the Auckland Herald, "that, as provided for in the English Budget, a considerable proportion of the unearned increment in land values should go to the State." According to the Auckland Stair he also said that "the passing of the Budget in Great Britain was an epoch-making event. If New Zealand for the past 18 years had had one clause of that Budget in.operation, regarding taking 20 per cent', of the increased value of laud for public purposes, it would have meant £1,180,707 per annum." It is singular that" so earnest a student of the Budget should be unaware that agricultural land, which is the land specially singled out for spoliation by Mn. Fowlds and his allies, was specially exempted by Clause 7 of the Budget from the increment tax. This clause was looked upon with some suspicion even after it had bsen settled in committee, .and when the Budget came up for re-discussion in committee in the Conamoiiß on April

2Q Mk. Clancy moved so to amend the clause as to make it quite clear that the tax should not apply to agricultural land that has "no higher value than its market value for agricultural purposes." This was agreed to, and Mr. LloydGeokge stated in the course of debate, with perfect truth, that he had already "said that no purely agricultural land would be taxed, and," he added, "I still say so." We have noted this point before, and we are that Mis. Fowlds should by his mis-statement of the position make it necessary to repeat that nobody in the House of Commons has ever suggested the placing of an increment tax on agricultural land. Mk. Fowlds, no doubt, did not wilfully mis-state the purport of the Budget. He erred, no doubt, through ignorance, but it is none the less regrettable that responsible Ministers should go about the country talking in this fashion. What New Zealand wants more than anything else at the present moment is a restoration of confidence amongst, those who have money to spend and to invest, and the sort of talk which Mr. Fowlds indulged in at Auckland is not likely to assist in bringing this about.

In the English papers to hand by yesterday's mail Mk. Roosevelt's speeches in Europe occupy a great amount of space, and we wish that we had room to print copious extracts from them. \Ve may find space for some of them later on, but in the meantime we have room to note a very striking passage in his lecture on "Citizenship in a Republic" at the Sorbonne. He was "a strong individualist," he said, "by personal habit, inheritance and conviction," but he recognised that the citizens acting together as the State could do a number of things better than if they were left to individual action. At the same time he was opposed to Socialism,: "We should not say that men arc 'equal when they arc not equal, nor proceed on the assumption that there is an equality where it does not exist." He did not believe in levelling down, but' only in levelling up. The good citizen would ask only for liberty for others as well as for himself, and "probably the best test of true love of liberty in any country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country": .

Of one man in especial, beyond any one else (ho continued), the citizens of a republic should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to support him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the republic, that ho will secure for those who elect him, in one shapo or another, profit at tho expense-of other citizens of the republic. It makes no difference whether he appeals to class hatred or class interest, to religious or anti-religions prejudice. The man who makes 'such an appeal should always 1» presumed to makv it for the sake of furthering his own interest. The very last thing that an intelligent and self-respecting member of n democratic community should do is to reward any public man because that public man says he will get the pvivato citizen something to which this private citizen is not entitled, or will gratify some emotion of animosity which tliis private citizen ought not to possess.

We commend this bracing statement of a sound truth to the notice of our own Government. It is the sharpest attack upon the principle which they follow that we have ever found in so short a compass. One might almost imagine that Mr. Roosevelt had been amongst the New York audience to which Sin Joseph Ward explained his famous policy of sops.

The sensational if brief criminal career of'the man Powclka-was terminated sensationally yesterday by Mr. Justice Cooper. A sentence of 21 years' imprisonment, with the additional penalty of being declared a habitual criminal, which means an indefinite term of incarceration, must be taken to show that the judge who has presided over the trials of Powelka- regarded the prisoner as belonging to a most dangerous class of criminals. Sentences of such extreme severity are seldom imposed in this country, and we have no doubt that on this account there will be some disagreement with his Honour's estimate of what was necessary in this case. While we cannot fail to recognise the severity, of tho punishment meted out to the man Powelka, we are still more impressed with the fact that tho judge who presided throughout the various trials, who heard the whole of tho evidence and is familiar with the whole of the circumstances of tho nia,n's criminal career so far as it Was disclosed in Court, and who furthermore had special opportunities of judging of his methods and motives, is in a far hotter position than anyone else to determine, within the limits of the law, tho penalty which,, in the interests of justice and the public weal, should be imposed. Powelka's career of crime, as confessed to and as proved in open Court, proved him to be a most dangerous character. Numerous cases of breaking and entering and theft were confessed to; ho was proved guilty of a serious charge of arson; he was convicted of escaping from custody, and it has to be borne in mind that while no charges of using or threatening to use firearms were proved against him, loaded revolvers were found in his possession when arrested. While, therefore, tho very long term of imprisonment imposed may appear to some to err on the side of severity, the more thoughtful section of the community will probably feel that the public interest has been best served, as well as the demands of justice fully met, by tho strong view taken by Mr. Justice Cooper of the prisoner's crimes.