NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1210, 19 August 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

—« . Our readers must bo fairly familiar by now with the curious tactics that the growing weakness of their Sedition has been forcing upon our. [inistcrialisb contemporaries. The latest device is simple suppression of facts and news. In the House of Representatives on Wednesday last an interesting and significant discussion took place, and lasted for a considerable time, upon the Government's foolish.and essentially unlawful, though technically legal, policy of boycotting certain newspapers in the matter of Government advertisements. Although they are nearly beyond the capacity for surprise at the methods of the Ministerialist press, most people will still be able to feel a little astonishment at. the fact that although they found room for most of the trivial, unimportant, and even uninteresting discussions in the House on Wednesday, some of the leading Ministerialist organs carefully suppressed every trace of the important discussion referred to. The suppression is of no practical consequence, since the continuance of the "boycott" policy'simply cannot be kept from the knowledge of the public. What is chiefly interesting is the fresh ligh.t thrown upon the latest workings of what we suppose we maycall the "new journalism," and the reflected light shed upon the untrustworthiness of , those journals practising it. Of importance also is the obvious fact that our Ministerialist friends have at la-st realised that the "boycott" policy is so damaging to the Government that it must be kept dark if possible. They .used to brazen it out, but times hare changed.

Mr. Justice Chapman did a very wise thing on Thursday when- he boldly inflicted a life sentence on a wretched creature who had committed a certain abominable offence. Our refefonco to the j matter here, it is necessary to say, is partly due to our feeling that wholesome strokes of justice of this kind stand in , some need of defence against that sloppy mess of weakness and folly _ in public opinion that is becoming confounded with real "humanitarianisra." His Honour was evidently moved by two considerations: first, necessity* for ridding society permanently of a thing as dangerous as a mad dog or a plague rat, and, second, the call for a powerful deterrent against sexual crime. The public mind has really grown very uneasy over the increasing number of sexual offences, and the majority of people will welcome Judge Chapman's well-timed recourse to extreme action in the case under notice and his severity in the case of another sexual offender. The Bench has made so many references to this class of crime that it might with profit present a general opinion to the Government for transmission to Parliament. The presentmethodof treating such criminals is notoriously inadequate. There is little sense even in a system of severe sentences when the subjects of them come forth from prison only to offend again. Severity is a fine deterrent, but something more is wanted than a strong deterrent policy.

It is surely a very extraordinary thing that sp much secrecy, should be deemed advisable by those gentlemen who arc privately arranging for a "public welcome" to the Prime Minister on his return from England. We gave yesterday some particulars of the movement that is silently being pushed forward—under difficulties, some of which may still threaten the settlement of the arrangements—and we should be very glad to give all the publicity possible to _ the affair with the object of assuring an adequate attendance, but the promoters of the impending function apparently have considered that although the Prime Minister is at most a week away, nothing must be made public. They may b" influenced by ,tho fact :that Sin Jo.sEfH .Wabd's perform*

anccs at the Imperial Conference arc regarded by most people as having been most unsatisfactory. But the fact that he signally failed to represent New Zealand opinion is quite irrelevant to the main fact that he is at any rale our returning delegate. His return, moreover, is different in one conspicuous particular from any of his own or his predecessors' returns from abroad. He is bringing back to New Zealand his baronetcy. In 1907 the arrangements for his reception on his return from that year's Conference, even without a hereditary title, were completed well ahead; the public was advised fully in long advertisements for a week in advance. Surely the Government's supporters ought to be far more enthusiastic now than in 1907 in their 'anxiety to do him honour. Why, then, arc his friends going about their labour of love with such inexplicable secrecy 1 They ought to reflect that, quite apart from the poor compliment they pay to _ Sir Joseph Ward in behaving as if ho were a delicate subject, they arc not treating the public fairly in the matter. One would almost suppose that the Wellington public is unfriendly towards the new baronet.

In the course of his contribution to the debate on the Food Duties Abolition Bill on Thursday night the Hon. J. A. Millar made a statement so extraordinary as to deserve some special notice. There was only one way, he said, in which the problem of-high prices could be dealt with, "and that was to limit by Act of Parliament the profit that any man could make- on his product." In further development of this grotesque idea, the Minister said that "unless profit were limited, the more wages were increased the more would cost of production and cost of living increase." This, he told the House, was "an economic law"! Now, widely as the different schools of political thought differ, they are all agreed—or, at any rate, all the responsible leaders are agreed—that to limit profits would drive down wages. No doubt some scheme of limiting profits could bo devised —it could be provided, for example, that every trader should hand over all his profits in excess of ascertain percentage, and that this should be divided by the State amongst the employees. But the obvious result, whatever Mn.. Millar may fancy, would, as everyone of intelligence will agree, be to discourage trading, and gradually to stifle all industry. It is really unnecessary to labout the point Mr. Millar knows nothing of economic laws, of course, any more than he knows anything of the laws of Newton, but he certainly ought to have remembered a speech in which, by sticking to plain figures, his colleague the At-torney-General showed that the profits of industry could not bear the strain of a shilling a day increase in wages. The Minister, we think, was probably remembering something he has read somewhere about profitsharing, which is another matter altogether. It is really appalling that a Minister of the Crown can talk such rubbish as Mr. Millar talked, and say he is laying down an economic law.