NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1220, 31 August 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

The Australian public a few days ago was afforded another striking illustration of the dominance of the trade unions over the Federal Government. Keferring to the contract for military felt hat* the ActingMinister for Defence (Senator M'Gkegor) spoke quite plainly: "I was nol approached by any uuion secretary in the matter, nor was Senator I'earco "to my knowledge; but in any contract put before me, where a firm adhered to union rates and conditions and offered reasonable prices, I would give preference to that firm over Mesa's. Anderson and Co. or anybody else who has always been resisting unionism." Upon this the Arr/us very justly comments: "Thus all the ripe money-plums which the Ministry has it in its power to give away are to go to the Ministry's friends." _ The public interest docs not obtain a hearing at all. The principle,' of course, is the principle of "blacklisting," and, as the Argus t points out, in phrases exactly applicable to the Waed Government's "black-list" of newspapers, "black-listing in such circumstances comes very near to blackmail. The dark colony of corruption is seen developing in this policy, from whatever aspect it is viewed."

Some extremely curious but suggestive things are said by the Duncdin Star, a Ministerialist organ, in an editorial on "Now Zealand and the Empire" in its issue of Monday, it is good enough to say, respecting "the discussion of Imperial topics," that it is "quite ready to admit that it would be unreasonable to taboo or to deprecate criticism," but its practical application of this principle is as follows: So long as the spirit of (lie criticism is solely related to Imperial motives, the Prime Minister will have no right to complain if members of the Legislature animadvert pointedly upon tho line of policy which he thought lit to follow aL' tho Conference, lie deliberately refrained from taking Parliament into his confidence respecting the most important of the proposals which he brought before the Conference, and it. would be futile t'o deny that a very largo section of tho community regard his elaborate scheme of a Defence Parliament as impracticable, if not radically unsound. What wo do strongly deprecate is the disposition, which lias been manifested in some quarters, to deduce from this particular error or failure the general inference that tho prestige of Now Zealand has not been adequately maintained by Sir Joseph Ward in t'ho councils of the Empire. It has even been suggested that he has caused the Dominion to appear absurd, and so forth. The absurdity is all on the side of the rather malignant critics who talk in this irrational manner. Of course, we do not know whether the British, people considered New Zealand as absurd as the Conference, in the light of the extracts we have printed from the Blue Book, must have considered Sir Joseph Ward. We hope not, however. But the point to be noted is the Star's idea of tolerance of criticism. If the Prime Minister is criticised by, say The Dominion—for we do criticise him now and then —what will tho Ministerialist advocate of . "reasonableness" say. J it will not care whether the criticism is sound or not. It will not care even if it agrees with the criticism. It will simply impute wicked motives to the critic. When it ventures to disagree with the Pkiue Minister itself, the. average Ministerialist organ would be angry if we imputed hishonest motives to it. But in the converse case it rushes forward with charges "of "malignancy" and all the other language that tho Government hopes will make a good substitute, for a policy. We have reached the stage, in fact, when, if an opponent of the Government says that two and two is four, he will bo instantly accused of bitter party bias.

Mr. J. M. Twojiey, proprietor of the Tcmuka Leader and an ex-racra-bcr of the Legislative Council—he was one of Mr. Sebdon's nominees —explains elsewhere how he came to make the statement respecting the settling of £30,000 by Sir Joseph Ward on his heir in connection with his baronetcy. Sir Joseph Ward, in referring to the statement in question said some very harsh things concerning its author and it is rather pathetic to note the reply which Mr. Twojiey makes to them. "I can assure him," he says, "that hi),did me an injustice"; and he continues:

Sir J. G. Waid is evidently determined that none of his old friends shall go near him. I do not want to. I am publishing this statement to put the truth before the public. As for my viciousness and maliciousness, there was a time when Kir .T. G. Ward did not think me so, but I ceased to be of use to him, and ho ceased to set any value on me. I have now reached the age "when passion waits upon the judgment." In a few years at the best I shall be gone, and a little later Sir J. G. Ward will have to follow me. It is therefore not worth my while to quarrel. I shall only say pood luck to him, and God bless him. Good citizens should always pray for their rulers.

This is really very handsome of Mr. Twojiey. Perhaps Sir Joseph Ward will rise to the occasion.

The notion that "the State' , has a "right" to the "unearned increment" of land values is not yet embedded in British jurisprudence, even although it has satisfied to the dignity of embodiment in the Britisn Statute Book. The insuperable difficulty in the way of its final acceptanco is a difficulty of logic. It may have a temporary success here and there—wherever the demagogues can persuade the ignorant that what the State raises by pillaging one class is distributed over the general mass of tho nation, and not, as is actually the truth, partly wasted and partly given to a special class or clique—and may do much damage, but it cannot fit into any permanent system of law. The customary argument is this: that increment of yours is not due to yoiir exertions, but to the State, which is to say, the community, to the growth of trade, and population, and so it really belongs to the community. But if this is true of land values it is true of almost everything. The rediictio fid abmrdum is well stated in a passage resurrected from an article in the Quarterly Review for 1833:

Xexl it , may occur to him . . . lli.it he" should have taken lime to sift that strand argument of Hio Chancellor nf the Exchequer by which I ho seizure of church property was justified, lx-fom he had "ivra it his vociferous assent'. "The Slflle," said Lord Alt horn, •'w'a«' jii.-tified in appropriating to itself any increase in valuo that might necruo to "the property of the Church when that increase .was created by an act of State.'

Therefore tlio State would be justified in seizing (he increase in value of a homo when (lint increase was created by a licence to foil ale and spirits, which Hie State had granted it; Hie SUto would be justified in spiy.hu; anv increase in value cf a district of waste land, when that increase followed upon an act of enclosure which the Stale had passed; tho litate would have mi im-onteslnblp claim lo any increased value accruing to properly in the funds from a legUlativc "action on the currency"; indeed, the Stale would he justified in inakin;; free wiih any man's private properly, (o any extent, seeing that its entire value Co the individual was derived from liis secure, possession—a security which, he owed altojTcllicr to tlio Slate.

The logic is unanswerable. And, depend upon it, if the principle is ever established, the Socialistic dreamers will take care that it is pushed further and further. The ultimate damage of it can only be averted by an initial prohibition of it.