NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1236, 19 September 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

President Taft mgde an interesting and unquestionably wise use of his power of veto last month. Congress_ had passed a joint resolution providing for the admission of Arizona to Statehood, but the proposed State Constitution contained a clause providing that any elective officer, including county and State judges, could be removed from office by a petition signed by doctors equal to 25 per cent, of the votes cast for all the candidates for the office at the election. It was this provision that the President could not allow. It would compel judges, he said, to make their decisions "under legalised terrorism"; it was "pernicious in its effect, destructive of independence in the judiciary, likely to subject the rights of the individual to the possible tyranny of popular majority, injurious to the cause of free government." "Could there," he asked in his special message to the House, "be a system more ingeniously devised to subject judges to momentary gusts of popular passion than this?" In British communities judges are not elected, and can only be removed by resolution of Parliament—an immeasurably precious rule which, if in rare cases it may protect an unjust _ or incompetent judge in his office, is yet necessary to protect the judiciary from the mob from the Executive. It would be intolerable if a just judge who gave a decision that went against the popular passion of the moment were liable to removal and replacement by one who would be willing to be governed, not by the principles of justice, but by the will of the majority of voters.

The gentlemen who flaunt the banner of Socialism _ with such aggressiveness at jiolitical meetings nowadays seem likely to develop into a public nuisance unless they arc checked. No one has the least objection to them taking an active' part in politics and voicing their opinions at public meetings or anywhere else in reason—indeed, it is a pity that other sections of the public do not give the same keen attention to political issues. But they will have to placc a curb on their enthusiasm when they attend the meetings of political candidates, or the police will have to do it for them. Most candidates are prepared to put up with a certain amount of heckling, but there is a limit to the sort of questioning which a section of the aggressive Socialistic fraternity delight in.' It is not merely the candidate, tho audience has also to be considered, and on more than one occasion of late a few noisy persona have overtaxed the good nature of both candidate and audience. Last evening at Mn. Fisheh's meeting at the New Century Hall one of the audience—not a Socialist, we believe —made himself so objectionable by interrupting the .proceedings that ill the absence of a police officer Mti. Fisher found it necessary to leave the platform and eject the man from the hall. Unless it is made clear that "heckling" and "questioning"! must bo kept within reasonable bounds, thero arc possibilities of sen. ]

oils disorder when the heat of the election makes itself fell.

The naval agreement between Britain, Canada, and Australia has, as might have been expected, been cordially approved by the British press as a whole. The Spectator is careful to stress a point that New Zealanders especially should bear in mind. The agreement, it says, meets the difficulties of building lip a homogeneous Navy _ out of selfgoverning local Navies with admirable good sense, and it adds:

Is it not wonderful and encouraging that such a scheme should have emerged st) soon? It seems only the other day that there was an apparently irreconcilable conflict between the requirements of the Admiralty and tho ideals of tlie Dominion;; but the exchange of opinions has composed the differences, and we liavo before us a uniting plan which could not conceivably have been framed if tho problem had been approached in -tho state of mind of those whose one idea of bringing the Empire together is to draw the bonds so tight that they cut into somebody's flesh. This scheme is one more point to the credit of last Imperial Conference, which so far from having been a failure is now seen to have been by far the most important and productive ever held.

In fact, as the Spectator says, the scheme is a fine "illustration of how the Empire works out its salvation, responding earnestly and generously to particular needs as they arise, in spite of all the gloomy vaticinations of those who tell us that nothing is being done." A writer in the London Morning Post has complained of the Dominion that it has "carried the idea that empires grow and are not made almost to the extent of fatalism." If by "fatalism" is meant a resignation to complete inaction, this complaint is simply foolish. But if wo arc to read "fatalism" as an unwillingness to trust to patent devices hurriedly contrived in a steamer's smoke-room, it is no hardship to. stand in the dock _in such good company as the Prime Ministers of the other portions of the Empire, the best of the Empire's newspapers, and the great facts born of this "fatalism," of which the naval agreement is one and the revision and extension of the AngloJapanese Treaty another.

The activity which is being shown by candidates for Wellington seats gives promise of a spirited election campaign. Mr. M'Laren has been at work for some time in the East electorate, Dr. Izard is working hard in the North, and Mr. Moore also has addressed meetings in portions of the Suburbs electorate. Last night no fewer than three candidates were electioneering—Mr. Fisher at the New Century Hall, Mr. Fitzgerald at Kaiwarra, and Mr. Herdman at Wadestown—and despite the miserable weather they all had what must be considered in the circumstances good meetings. Mr. Fletcher, who is Mr. Fisher's opponent for the Central seat, attended Mr. Fitzgerald's meeting at lvaiwarra, and had a few words to say. So far Mr. Fletcher has not, addressed a public meeting in his own electorate, but is going round to the meetings of other candidates, presumably to pick up points which ho thinks may assist him in his campaign. It is a significant sign of the times that quite a number of candidates who have attached to themselves the label of "Liberalism" are verv careful to explain that they are of tho Independent brand. Unfortunately up to the present Independence and "Liberalism" in the New Zealand Parliament do not harmonise. Independent candidates arc very free and outspoken on the election platform, but when they happen to find a place within the walls of Parliament it is quite astonishing how their views coincide with the wishes of the Leader of the House.