NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1186, 22 July 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

No doubt it is nob altogether uncomplimentary to The Dominion that the leading Ministerialist newspapers display a really wonderful persistence in misrepresenting our writings. Our general rule has been to treat such offences'as of little account and as evidence simply of the fact that our criticisms reach, .the spot. Now and then, however, we have noted some particularly gross case of mis-representation, in order that the public may realise the lengths to which some of our "Liberal" friends are prepared to go. One such case calls for notice now. The Auckland Star, in an article on Thursday, opens a criticism of Mr. Massey with a reference to his recent Wellington speech, and on this point it says:

After it was over, The Dominiok expressed furious,indignation ,at the.,.small 1 amount.of .notice taken of it by Literals. Measured by' Uio ordinary standard of limo and space, tliere was plenty of tko speech; indeed'there was far too much. Far too much for the good of the Government, no doubt. But that may pass. The whole country knows that what The Dominion expressed its indignation about was the grossly inadequate column of suppression and distortion telegraphed by _ the Press Association as a report of thd speech. Similar indignation was expressed throughout New. Zealand, and not only by newspapers opposed to,the Government The Lytlelton Times, the one Ministerialist journal of influence, used stronger language than we did. On Thursday, the very clay upon which our Auckland contemporary printed the article under notice, the Christchurch paper referred to the Association's treatment of Mn. Massey's speech as "shocking. '■ Is it necessary to point out) the obvious term that only can characterise the Starts reference to The Dominion 1 Things are very bad with the Liberals when their journals can thus descend to a depth of reckless mendacity too profound for criticism to follow

In some quarters encrgc-tic attcraptr, arc being made to turn the edge of the public indignation aroused by the tramway regulations with which the Government, relying on its power to crush or_ outwit tho. municipal authorities in the darkness of private consultation, has so foolishly exposed its designs upon tho property and the independence of the cities. That the Hon. B. M'Kenzie has been impressed, for all his fierceness'and obstinacy, by the outbreak of public feeling that followed upen tho publication of the obnoxious regulations, is evident enough from his quiet tone in the interview in Chrisichurch which we printed yesterday. The public has quite enough intelligence to understand that the defenders of the regulations arc not concerned with the public interest at all, but arc anxious only to shield the Government, and the Minister for Public Works in particular, against tha indignation of the citizens. And against the Minister and his few supporters there arc ranged practically the whole of the local governing bodies concerned. It must not be supposed, however, that there is no. occasion for further protest; and we therefore trust that every citizen who wishes to prevent the city from falling under tho Governments control will give his personal support to the inrlisjnation meeting in the Town Hall on Monday night. If the regulations are forced upon the cities the Government will assuredly be punished at the general election. What is most necessary now is to avert the immediate danger by such :i vigorous protest as will cause the withdrawal'of the objectionable regulations. It is quite idle for the Minister and his friends to argue that the regulations were only a draft. Their chagrin at the failure of the plan of smuggling them through is the best indication of what was intended.

We reprint in another column a pungent little article from a southern journal on Sin J. G. Fixdlay's extraordinary address in AVhitfield's Tabernacle. One quotation from the address will attract great attention, as it deserves. Hi? felt (so the Minister paid) that, he could say that class distinctions had disappeared" [in New Zealand]. Hank and title, had no influence, and ho did not believo they ever would have any influence in New Zealand. Tho man was tho test. And within three weeks thie splendid democrat was happy, in the posses-

sion of the title that ho went Home to secure. It is said thai Sir John Fixduy may contest a scat as a lover of democracy. The List time h<; stoucl as an unfilled candidate, when "the man was the test," and ho was rejected. Can it be (hat ho thinks that a title will help him i We shall see. In the meantime the Tabernacle address will help the New Zealand public to know how much regard should be paid to any public utterances of the AttorneyGeneral in this country.

A novel extension of the idea of peaceful arbitration is reported from New York. The Chamber of Commerce of that great city lias been considering a plan for the introduction of the principle of arbitration as a means of settling business disputes, and a Committee of Arbitration has been set up of which great things arc expected. In an address to the Chamber on the occasion of the swearing-in of the. Committee, Judge Davis, of the Supreme Court of New York, was very sanguine. "Why," he a":ked, "should business men undertake long and expensive litigation for ordinary differences arising between them ? I think," he went on, "that it must be a habit — a bad habit, too. I am hopeful to predict, and I appeal to your experience to justify that prediction, that a very largo number of ,the disputes that are now- carried to the courts will be settled speedily and inexpensively under the scheme of arbitration just adopted by this Chamber." There nrust remain, of course, many controversies that will necessitate recourse to the courts under any voluntary scheme of arbitration—cases depending on facts that can ba sifted, or law that can be interpreted, only by the processes of the courts. It is to be hoped that some record of the working of the scheme will be kept. Before giving unreserved praise to the idea, there is one point to be considered. Docs not the establishment of the Committee of Arbitration indicate in American business a soulless intensity and cool impersonality that may be very necessary to a certain kind of efficiency but that are destructive of humanity in trade and commerce? May the plan not bo symptomatic of the squeezing out of man by the emotionless machine? Does it not, in its way, speak of a modern society in which machinery is replacing humanity—in which, ultimately, a man whose wife is grossly insulted by another man in his presence will lay an information instead of clubbing the offender on the spot? If it is and does all these things it is really nothing to rejoice over at all.