NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1334, 11 January 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

4 . The little function yesterday at which tho Minister for Labour made congratulatory remarks • concerning the action of the Government in providing workers'- homes .on the time payment system recalls similar optimistic utterances regarding the homes built by the Government in other parts of the country. Mr. Millar, perhaps, has forgotten that some time ago the Government bought land at Petone—some 550 sections in all—for workers'homes. This land is known' as the-,, Wilford and the Heretaunga Settlements. Of the 550 sections purchased somethjng like 525 have never been built on and arc merely used, we believe, for grazing purposes. In dwelling on the benefits conferred by the erection of these particular homes for workcia the Government omit to mention that the whole community in which , they arc erected is penalised to benefit the few. We are speaking, of course, of the | houses which are leased. The position was explained very clearly by the Petone Borough Council in a report'which' dealt with the subject so far as it related to these settlements within the boundaries of the borough. The lands in the Wilford and ITc-re-taunga Settlements, this report stated, to the extent approximately "of 73 acres, aro still non-rate-producing". Tho Government valuation of this land is £41,632. Iho Tates payable on it would amount to jfuoC 0?. 6d. per annum. This amount has to bo met by the Petone ratepayers, and to the owner of a section valued at .£250 this reoresents an annual levy of 4* 10d This is practically the amount that each section-holder pays in Petone because the Government some six years ago undertook the. purchase of expensive land for which they cau find no use. . i In other . words, the Government, which does not pay rates, purchased this land and thus robbed the Borough Council'of the rates which it previously obtained from the owners of the land. All private ownors of property, who are competed against by the Government in the matter of securing tenants for their houses, not only have to pay the ordinary rates, but are mulcted also in the extra amount necessary to make up the loss due to the non-payment ot rates by the Crown. Yet the tenants of , the Crown have all the benefits of the borough expenditure in the way of improvements and conveniences. It is doubtful even whether these workers' homes are let cheaper than privately-owned houses •it the present time, despite the fact that the Government pays no rates; and often, it is said, there are three or four of the twenty-five empty. We' have no doubt that "there are places in which workers' homes could be erected with advantage, but the Government appears to have made somo shocking blunders in its selection of localities to carry out its experiments, and the chief beneficiaries would seem to be the persons the land lias been purchased from. Some day, perhaps, the country will be given the full history of certain of these transactions. The revenue returns for tho December quarter of the finaricial year show an increase of over half a million as compared with the corresponding period of the previous year. Customs taxation yields an increase of £172,254; tho new stamp duties, with their increased drain on deceased persons' estates, account for £145,865 of the increase; and railways revenue shows an increase ox £187,765, We are not surprised that tho Prime Minister should tako pride in this indication of the "buoyancy" of tho revenue. His chief idea has always appeared to bo to extract as much, instead of as little as possible, from the pockets of the people, and to seek to persuade them that they should take pride in being able to bear the drain. Last year the revenue increased by over a million, and this year it looks as though there would be an almost equally large increase. When the Massey Government gets into office shortly we hope to see the new Minister for Finance relieving the taxpayers of the country of some of this drain on their pockets by means of remissions of Customs taxation and the lightening of the death duties on the smaller estates. Siu Joseph Ward is not in a position yet to publish the expenditure for the December quarter, but it will probably 'be found that there has been a substantial increase on this side of the public accounts, as well as in the revenue.

race—throe in (lie North Island and olio in the Smith. Section ISI of the Act states that every adult Maori is qualified to vote at an election of a member of Parliament to represent the Native race and Section 182 provides that every Maori so qualified is qualified to be a member of Parliament. The definition of Maori is given as "an aboriginal inhabitant of New Zealand, and includes halfcastes and their descendants by Natives."' Half-castes have the rijrht to enrolment as electors in the ordinary electorates, but in the event of their becoming so enrolled they cannot vote in Maori elections or stand as candidates for Maori seats. Apparently the Natives who are reported to be moving in the matter hold the opinion that Dr.. Fomare is not qualified under the interpretation clause of the Act quoted above. Whether or not they are correct in this view we cannot pretend to say, but it strikes us as very unlikely that a man of Dr. Posiake's acquaintance with public affairs would embark on such a contest as that which he has just successfully gone through with out first making certain of his right to be a candidate. ' The opinion on the political situation expressed last evening by Dh. Schone in his lecture at Victoria College is of interest as affording a visitor's view of the outlook in New Zealand politics. Dβ. Schone, we imagine, rather over-estimates the strength of organised Labour at the present time, while he perhaps does not fully appreciate how much the Reform party and Labour have in common. They may drift apart later, but the platforms of the two parties at present harmonise on quite a number of important issues; and for the time being onthe most vital issue of all—the cleaning up of the adir.mistration of the country's affairs. AVe quite recognise that Dr. Schonf, is taking a far-sighted view, and that the future rather than the immediate present is in his mind when ho forecasts a readjustment of, parties on the lines stated elsewhere. A good many people will agree with him in the opinion he expresses. The terms Conservative and Moderate Liberal possibly convey to our visitor a meaning which does not fit the parties they arc applied to, but the grouping is sound enough all the same. There are members on the Government side of the House more in sympathy with the programme of the Reform party than they are with that of the Ward Administration, and when the Government suffers defeat some of these members will find their way into their proper places. What the country needs at the present time is, as is hinted by Dr. Schone, a period of sound and' stable government on progressive, but not revolutionary, lines. There is plenty of room for improvement and ample call for reform, but the public generally, and the investor'in particular, should be relieved of the constant dread of some fresh ill-digested votecatching experimental legislation being thrust on them. It is the fear of what may next happen, rather than the actual effects of what has gone before, that has chccKcd industrial enterprise in this country, and bv bo doing hampered the rate of progress and injured in one way or another all classes of the community.