NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1259, 14 October 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

The Ministerial journal in Christchurch, like a good many other supporters of the Government, is growing very anxious over the refusal of Labour to be dragged any longer at the heels of the Government party. In Christchurch, as in other parts of New Zealand, the Labour party is running its own candidates and looks like putting up a good fight in one or two of the constituencies. On Thursday last, discussing the situation, a correspondent, Mr. W. En60M, who, judging from the fact that the Ministerial journal devoted a leading article in reply to his letter, is a person of some influence in Labour circles, stated: 'fho Labour party aro fighting Messrs. Ell, Davey, Lauronson, and Witty, because they are subservient and docilo followers ot a part}' who wcro put into power to carry out reforms of a wide and far-reaching character, but which they have consistently avoided or ignored. In my last I instanced tho land question as being one wliich they had failed to grapple, and after twenty years of office wo are suffering from land aggregation, tho evil the Government were returned to Temcdy. That one failure is nuito important enough to warrant tho workers in withdraring their confidence, but there are many other valid and substantial grounds for their distrust. The Labour party in Christchurch sums up tho attitude of the members named very accurately. It could have added the name of the Rev. L. M. Isitt to the list if that gentleman is to be judged on his behaviour in Parliament. But the Labour party throughout New_ Zealand knows that in recent years it has received little more than lip-service from the Government and its followers; that whenever the party whip gets to work the rank and file of the Government party, who talk so freely' of their anxiety to uphold the rights of the workers, come tamely into heel like the "docile and subservient" followers the great majority of them really are. They will talk, of course, and they arc encouraged to do so by their leaders, ' but lip-service, however pleasant it may sound at first, grows wearisome in course of time. Labour has been a long time in awakening to the fact that it is nothing more than a political pawn in the eyes of the Ward Administration, to be used as best suits tho purpose of the two titled gentlemen who dominate the Ministry.

matter of taste. Sir John Findlay | , lias made it perfectly clear from the ; sort of stuff he has been talking at ■ his election meetings that .he feels : that he can only win the scat by i what in pugilistic circles would bo described as "all-in" fighting. In the circumstances it is not surprising ' that he should go electioneering at the Institute for the Blind. What, can very properly be taken exception to in connection with the visit is the blatant manner of his voteseeking—his direct promise to use his influence with his colleagues to secure special railway concessions for the inmates of the institute," and so on. A new form of "blind man's ' bluff" our correspondent calls it. As ; a_ matter of fact, it is doubtful if . New Zealand has ever witnessed such ■ an exhibition of brazen electioneering as that given by Sir John Findlay at Parncll—such desperate bidding ' for votes; such fulsome and foolish flatteries; such transparently threadbare tricks and devices. It explains to somccxtent how it is that, despite a certain cleverness and a considerable capacity for work, Sir John Findlay, with all his carefully-pre-pared and high-sounding professions of devotion to the interests of his downtrodden brother, fails to convey the assurance that there is any deep conviction behind his words, or that he is as much concerned about the welfare of his fellows as he is over the effect his appeals will _ have on them in the way of winning their support. Like his political chief, he is a poor judge of human nature — he judges mankind in the mass and classes them as mostly fools—and in consequence insults their intelligence by expecting to win their support with that transparent election trickery which has been • witnessed at • Parnell, and which has provoked ridicule from one end of the country to the other. The candidate, made famous by the illustrated comic papers, who woos tho voter through the medium of the infant prodigy of the possessor of the suffrage, at least knew something of human nature. The kissing of babies and the bestowal of packets of sweets on more advanced juveniles have perhaps gone out of date as electioneering strategy, but in view of his recent performances the AttorneyGeneral might well consider the advisableness of adding these innocent methods of persuasion to his extensive rc})ertoire. The recent fatality at Porima Mental Hospital, when one patient killed a room-mate, has provoked a very strong protest from the Auckland Herald, and wc must say that it is well deserved. Year after year the complaint has gone up of overcrowding in our mental hospitals. Proper classification of patients is prevented, their chances of recovery arc thus retarded, and the general conditions of life for these unfortunates aro made less bearable than they should be. The Herald, after reviewing the circumstances of the fataHty and the rider of the jury protesting against the crowded state of the hospital compelling the use of day rooms as dormitories, directs attention to the fact that not very long ago it commented strongly on a somewhat similar tragedy at Auckland, and urged the immediate necessity for extending the accommodation at the mental hospitals of the Dominion. And because it took up the matter strongly tho-then Minister in charge of the Department, tho Hon.' '- G. Fowlds, said "he could not help suggesting that if the general election had not been quite so near such a sensational article would not have gone through the press of the Dominion." And now this second tragedy has followed. Our contemporary, concluding a powerful indictment of existing conditions, says: For this murder is only tho crowning sorrow of a monstrous and unendurable burden, of ininmies and sorrows heaped by an indifferent and negligent Government upon the heads of'those whom even savages hold sacred, and for whom every pitiful man feels a most profound compassion. Tho gates of a mental hospital may closo upon any man or woman in tho land, upon tho fondest mother or the • most studious son, upon tho hardest working and tho most affectionate and tho most intellectual of rao.i. In these days of stress and strain, of menial excitement, and unrolaxing exertion none is safe. Yet while the Government exhausts itself making prisons like drawingrooms,, in pampering criminals, and in making pleasant tho cells of folons, it has no timo to snaro and no money to spend in giving to the mentally afflicted tho ordinary decencies of human life or ■ in making possible tin classification . without which murder and every other. . brutality is tacitly invited and encour--1 aged. . The annual reports of the officers in charge of the mental hospitals of the : Dominion show plainly that it is rei cognised by the experts that addij tional accommodation is most urp- , ently needed. This has been the case for years past, but although some- . thing has been done from time to . time, the situation has never been ; properly met, The staffs of the hos- , pitals do their best, under great difficulties in some cases, but the Gov- . ernment dallies. It is distressing to think that when the stimulus of votes is lacking it is so difficult to arouse ; the Government to a sense of its . responsibilities, even when the occai son is one which should appeal to the ■ sympathies of every person of any feeling at all.