NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1085, 25 March 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

Our evening contemporary, in a somewhat belated reference to the secret hearing of an action now before the Law Courts, displays a good deal of anxiety in..an endeavour to. show that it is quite a natural thing that such actions should be heard in secret. It is ' very apparent from its statement of the case tii-t it is either ignorant of the full facts or that it has a very unfortunate way of presenting them. It states, for instance, that "the case in question is a matter of adjustment of accounts in an estate-of which the defendant was the trustee, and this adjustment has .been the subject of legal argument for some years, and at different times has engaged the .attention of three- Judges." The action now before the Court is not a question of the adjustment of accounts or anything of the kind. .The adjustment of accounts was completed months ago, and legal argument formed a small part of that portion of the proceedings. The question now before the Court is whether a writ of attachment shall issue against the defendant, the cxtrusteo, for non-compliance with a judgment of the.Court that ho shall pay a» ''sum amounting , to, several thousand pounds due to the beneficiaries in the estate of which he was trustee.' A writ of attachment, as wc have pointed out in a previous article, involves the personal liberty of the person concerned. It is not surprising, perhaps, that our contemporary, with its seemingly inadequate knowledge of the facts, should display such indifference to the very grave principle involved in the insistence of the Court on such extreme secrecy in a case of this kind. Why such secrecy should be insisted on wc do not profess to know—we do know that it is most unusual, we believe unprecedented in such an action, and wc are strongly of the opinion that- such secrecy is not in the public interest. It is not necessary to repeat, at the present stage of affairs, our reasons for holding that view—a view which, as we have shown, is shared in so widely- by- our contemporaries throughout the Dominion.

Tiie _ speech of the Leader of the Opposition at Kaiapoi on Thursday evening did not break any new ground, but it nevertheless touched on' various matters of interest and concern. Possibly the point in Mit. Massey's. speech which, best illustrates the methods of the present Government was his reference to the question of taxation and defence. One of our strongest objections to the Ward Government is its devious methods—the pretence of virtue ■which masks its maladministration, On the question of defence, for instance, the country has a very proper sense of the necessity for some better system than that which prevailed until very recently. Very few people begrudged the extra expense entailed by the changed conditions, and the Government was quite well aware of this. But what is the,result? As Me. Massey pointed out, under the pretext that it was necessary to impose increased taxation to ensuro a proper system of national defence, the Government collects something like three times as much as is required to meet the increased cost of defence. And when protest is made against this unnecessary increase of taxation Ministers turn round and assail their critics for objecting to what has been dono to meet the cost of our improved defence system. It is a flimsy and dishonest reply, but the public generally do not follow financial matters very closely, and if they trouble about the question at all they probably have not a very clear idea of who is right and who is wrong. The Government trades on this lack of interest. If the public would only concern themselves a little more with the details of the country's affairs the outlook for Ministers would be very bad indeed. The shipowner nowadays appears to be fair game for all and sundry. When he is not in trouble with some union or other for some breach of some award or other, or some point or other which has cscaped his vigilance, he is liable to blackmaUfrom a ring of firemen, or the .victim of

some burst of activity on the part of the Marino Department. Tho owners of the steamer Clan Menzies appear to have had more than their share of misfortune on the- recent visit of the vessel to New Zealand. On arrival at Auckland some of the firemen are said to have deserted, and in consequcnce when the captain wished to move the vessel on to Wellington he bad to pay extortionate rates to local men to secure their services. On the eve of his departure for England a number of the steamer's firemen signed off, and when the captain sought to replace them he found himself in a very awkward position indeed. According to tho Auckland Herald: It is alleged that the disengaged firemen in port, realising Captain Turton's difficulty, banded together ajid decided that whichever man was engaged he should.not accept less than JESO, or .El a day, for the voyage to London, in addition to keep. The visiting skipper's first knowledgo of such an agreement having been arrived at was when he went to engage the men. Ho found about a score of stokers awaiting him, and on asking each man whether he would consent to lie engaged ho was met with a general demand of t SSO for tho voyage. Captain Turton and the agents were not inclined at first to entertain the proposal, but as tho men held command of the situation, seeing that the steamer, which had a large and valuable cargo, could not get away without tliem, they were compelled to meet tho men bv offering them '.£45 each for the voyage". After considerable negotiation this olTcr was accepted, and the steamer got away. This experience, it is stated, is not an exceptional one. It is further asserted that in one instance a fireman who signed on at £10 a month was severely mauled by his brother stokers as an evidence of their disapproval. Before the Clan Menzies left New Zealand waters and its troubles behind it, the captain was rudely upset by a visit from the officials of the Marine Department. It appears that amongst the vessel's cargo from Wellington were 47 dumps of tow. At Auckland this was taken out of the hold to make room for other cargo which was to be stowed below it in the hold. The cargo taken in at Auckland, however, was more plentiful than anticipated, and in consequence there was no' room for the 47 dumps of tow which were sent on to. Australia by the Wimmera for transhipment to England. The _ Superintendent of Mercantile Marine promptly claimed that in carrying tho 47 dumps of tow from Wellington to Auckland and no further, the Clan Menzies had come under the New Zealand Coastal Shipping Laws and would have to pay all hands the New Zealand coastal rate of wages. As a result the captain, despite .his protests, had to pay £32 extra. The Herald states that as the freights from Wellington to Sydney direct or via Auckland, and from Auckland to Sydney, are the same, coastwise shipping, by the carriage of tho tow up the coast by the Clan Menzies, did not suffer in tho slightest, but rather benefited, inasmuch as the Wimmera earns as much on the consignment in taking it from Auckland to Sydney as she would have done from Wellington to Sydney, and she had tho advantage of the space on the way up from Wellington. The extra handling of the cargo also increased the earnings of the local wharf-labourers. Under these circumstances it is contended hat the case is such as does not come within tho scope of tho Coastwise Shipping Act. But whether it comes within the scope of the Act or not it must strike the public as a little curious that our Government Department should be so desperately energetic in bringing to book an unfortunate sea captain for doing something which injures no one; while it at'the same time displays so little interest in assisting to protect the same captain from the extortionate demands which the firemen have been making on his purse.