NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1243, 27 September 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

In the London Morning Post of August 17 it was recorded that Mr. John Redmond had received the following cable message from Wellington: "Wellington to Kediiond, Aughavanagh, County Wicklow.— Present Asquith with Dominion's national gratitude. Glorious victory.—Martin Kennedy." The reference is to the passing of the Parliament Bill. Of course Mr. Kennedy may possess means which nobody else possesses of assuring himself of the feeling of New Zealand. Bufc we cannot help thinking that he is not quite fully entitled to request the Nationalist leader to present the British Prime.Minister with New Zealand's national gratitude. Indeed, we feel quite sure that he is not the accredited plenipotentiary of New Zealand opinion. It is therefore to be regretted that he mistook his feelings for a national inspiration. The habit of assuming proclamations in the name of the nation is not one that we can approve in private citizens.

Them was another discussion in the House of Representatives yesterday on the question of the Government advertising. A Government return, laid on the table s showed that la v st year the New Zealand Times received £575 for Government advertising, as compared with £9 received by The Dominion. Other similar instances of the boycott practised by the Government were quoted and no satisfactory answer was given. The reply that was at first made that The Dominion was a new paper, and that the Government could not advertise in every new paper started, has now been abandoned. Out of the mass of rambling talk indulged in by Sir Joseph Ward the only real reason given respecting advertising in this paper was the statement that the Government would not advertise in three daily papers in any one town. It is a very poor reason indeed. The question to be considered is not the number of papers, but the value received from the advertising in- any given paper.' _ But the Government know this quite well. They know that the public—whose money it is— would get better value for money spent in advertising in The Dominion than in the Government journal, but that does not influence them. They know that it is their duty in the case of a large number of advertisements relating to matters of publie concern—such as taxation notices, railway arrangements, etc.—to publish such notices in all the papers; but that docs not influence them. They wish to injure The Dominion and penalise those who read it; and so they boycott the paper as shown. They abuse the trust reposed in them, and they misspent! tho public's money—all for political party purposes.

We note with mingled amusement and regret that the Attorney-General has been endeavouring to extract from the defeat of the Laurier Government some consolation for the "Liberals" of this country. It is only natural that ho should say something, perhaps, since his friends have good reason to fear that Canada's throwing over of a Government decayed through its long tenure of power will strengthen the inclination of New Zealand to get rid of

its own degenerate "Continuous Ministry." The fact that the AttorneyGeneral ran hastily through Canada, however, does not excuse his readiness to give an explanation that is an insult to Sir Wilfrid Laurier. "In my opinion," he said to _an Auckland press representative, "the defeat of the Laurier Government was mainly due to the dwindling and weakening Imperialism of tho party in power," and he declared that the lesson for New Zealand is this: "That the public men and the party which stands staunchest for Imperial unity will receive the most widespread support of the people. If this test is applied to New Zealand, we need have no doubt as to where Sm Joseph Ward and his party will be after the next election" ! This quaint statement will no doubt be followed up by the discovery that Mn. Massey is an antiImpcrialist! As for the AttorneyGeneral's amusing attempt to contrast Sir Joseph Ward's Imperialism with Sir Wilfrid Laurier s, as exhibited at the recent Conference, we need only say that Mit. Asquith and all the other Prime Ministers were throughout on Sir Wilfrids side. We are reminded of the fond mother who went to 590 her volunteer son in the procession. Why, she exclaimed, "they're all put ol step but my Bill!" No doubt SIR John Findlay will in time to come regret his indiscreet ■ reference to the retiring Canadian Prime Minister. In the meantime the mail has brought us Mil. Boeden's election programme. There were eleven planks of policy outlined and the very first, which would be placed first, of course, as being first in importance was: Thorough reorganisation of the method by which public expenditure is supervised. The increase in what is known as ordinary controlled expenditure from 21,500.000 Uollais in 189G to nearly 74,000,000 dollars in 1911 is proof of extravagance beyond any possible defence. New Zealand is a pretty good second. The increase in the Departmental expenditure from 1890 to 1911 was from £2,297,307 k> £5,700,256, an increase of about 150 per cent. Other planks in the Canadian Opposition's policy were the construction of the Hudson Bay railway "and its operation by an independent Commission," and—let this be noted carefully—extension of Civil Service reform. This is the policy that has won in Canada, and that the Attorney-General is afraid will win in New Zealand.

It was not surprising that during the gravely dangerous industrial disorders in England last month the fact that Mr. As6.cith and Mr. Lloyd-George were endeavouring to grapple with the situation should have reminded the people of Mr. Lloyd-George's speeches at Limehouse, Newcastle, and Mile End during the "anti-Veto" campaign. -"In the East End," it was pointed out; "where the disastrous strike is hardly yet finished, the poorest of the , people were practically _ told to look upon a landlord as socially an ogre or a pariah who luxuriated on tho industry of the nation. It did not occur to him that his schemes for despoiling the landlord asserted a principle equally applicable for the despoiling of the capitalist class— a principle which has been openly £ reached within the past week at the ondon Docks as well as at Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow." One passage from his notorious Newcastle speech of October 11, 1909, is well worth reprinting:

"Tho question will be asked whether 500 men, ordinary men, chosen accidentally from among tho unemployed, should override tho judgment—the deliberate judgment— of millions of people who aro en-. gaged in industry which makes the wealth of the country. That is one question. Another will be: 'Who ordained that a few should have the land of Britain as a perquisite, who made ten thousand people owners of the soil and tho rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth? Who is it—who is responsible—for tho scheme of things whereby one man is engaged through life in grinding labour to win a bare and precarious subsistence for himself, and when at tho end of his days he claims at the hands of the community lie served a poor pension of Bd. a day lie can only get it through a revolution; and another man, who does not toil, receives every hour of the day, every hour of the night while ho slumbers, moro than his poor neighbour receives in a whole year of toil? Where did tho table of the law come from? Whose finger inscribed it? These are tho questions that will he asked. Tho answers are charged with peril for the order of things the Peers represent, but they are fraught with rare and refreshing fruit for the parched lips of tho multitude who havrj been heading tho dusty road along with the poonlc who havo marched through the dark apres which are now emerging into the light." The questions were put last month in the shapo of riots and mhotane, and we know what happened. The Government ordered the troops to fire on the victims of Mn. LloydGeorge's rhetoric. In the House of Commons on August 17, the Undersecretary for War was asked; whether, when the bugle was sounded, the first volley would be blank cartridge. The reply was that it would be unwise not to use ball cartridge throughout. Thus "the order of things the Peers represent" was defended. Thus was ".the raro and refreshing fruit" provided. Could there be any more damning commentary upon tho Chancellor's misleading of the unfortunate people who heard or read his incitements against "the order of things the Peers represent" 1