NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1023, 12 January 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

It is high time that.the Government stated plainly, without qualification or equivocation, what are its; intentions respecting the Palmcrston dairy school. Tho public has probably not forgotten the remarkable and instructive history of this project. Tho school, after a long agitation and a sharp struggle between contending districts, was definitely promised in the autumn of 1908 by Mb. M'Nab, then Minister for Agriculture, who officially announced that the Government, hacl. decided that it would shortly be established in Palmerston. Nothing, had been done, however, by December, 1908, and when the -.contest for-the. Pal-, merston a second ballot the Government decided to use the; scheme as a political weapon.. Palmcrston was told pretty plainly that the establishment of the school would be imperilled unless Mr,. Wood, the Government's nominee, were elected; .but to its great credit tho district expressed its resentment at this shameless threat by rejecting ! Mr. AVood on the second ballot. In June tajstj. at a gathering in Pa-lmcrstpn, at which the Hon.' 'I'. Mackenzie was present, Mr. Bijick, M.P., recalled the fact that the Government was pledged to the establishment of -the school in Palmcrston. Mr. Mackenzie,. speaking; with surprising heat and emphasis, said that "thero would be'no dairy school.in Palmerston" so .long as he had other things to spend the Department's .money..upon.,- We noted at: .tho. time . that this was "a very striking "witness to. the lengths to which the Government will go.in order to. punish tlios6 districts which return members to Parliament who aro not pliant qrcaturcs of the Ministry. 'i|ie dairy school, we suspected, would be reserved as a card to be played on behalf of the Government nominee at the next election. In the meantime the Manawatu Standard calls attention to a statement by the New Zealand correspondent of the Pastoralists' Review to the cffcct that the dairy school project has' been definitely abandoned. The Standard thinks that this statement maybe taken as correct, and says that it is boy on d doubt that the Governmeiit has been influenced'by "political considerations.""The Minister would do the_ people of Palmerston a service if he would say exactly what he. intends to do. He ought, for instance, to answer the question:-. Will, he ..just, before the general election this year dcclaro in Palmerston, or. cause to be declared for him, that the school will'not be established or will be established, as the case may.be, however, the election goes? We are afraid that he will not. ' v :

Commenting yesterday upon the Hon. "T.' Mackenzie's complaint against the readjustment of electoral boundaries, we .pointed, out that the South Island, as compared with the North, is over-represented to such an extent that the redistribution which is. to bo effected before .the general election will, 'if votes aro;to be of the same value 'everywhere,, almost certainly involve the transfer, of four Southern scats to this, side,of the Strait. It should lie some comfort to Mn. Mackenzie and other aggrieved politicians to reflect that the system which worries them enables "Now Zealand-to avoid such glaring irregularities as are endured by some of the' older 'democracies. The over-representation of; Ireland in the Parliament of the United Kingdom is notorious, but it was put in a new. and clear light the other day by the Morning Post. It was shown that if Ireland were treated on tlie same basis as Middlesex it would have only, 27 members instead of, its prc.sent number of . 103. ' THel-Porf also published a table showing that the total number of electors in the constituencies of 29 of the most prominent Irish Nationalists in the House of. Commons was 150,883, or almost exactly tho' same number as were represented by six Unionists in the county of Middlesex. Thus, Mr. John." Redmond, .the dictator of the" Government's policy, has only 3104 constituents, whilst ono of the Middlesex members has 35,379. A vote at Waterford.is worth more than ten times as much as a" vote' at Harrow. The English electorates show similar, though less scandalous, inequalities among themselves. Bath, for instance, with barely 80(10 on the rol), has two members, while Battcrsea, with.over 18,000, has only one. The New Zealand system has at least-the advantage of being a system.

"We are given to-day a.' further selection of the opinions formed by Mb. Beeby, the New South Wales

Minister for Education, during the few minutes'ho spent-in-this coun-, try. Mr. Beeby is to be congratulated. He saw the public enjoying the Christmas season, and failed to see any signs o£ poverty"or distress; in which he had the same experience as the other visitors who confined their observation!! to the hotels, the steamers, and the railways. He failed to see the public debt. Having failed to see a singlo strike on board the train or in any of the hotels, he decided that the Government's administration of the Arbitration Act is "broad and sympathetic," and that both sides are compelled to obey it. He failed to meet anybody who remembered that on every occasion upon which there has been a strike the Government has gone upon its knees to the strikers. Having arrived at a time when the schools are in holiday, teachers and scholars being invisible, and nothing doing anywhere, ho was able to "notice" a want of uniformity in the methods in different districts, and many other things. _ He saw, as he rushed to catch his train, how rings and combinations had been destroyed by State enterprise. In short, we sympathise with New' South Wales. . .