NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1379, 4 March 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

To-day's cable newa contains au alarming account of the effect of the coal strike on British industry, and within a very little time they will be few who will not suffer in ono way or another. It is difficult to feel that right is on one side of the dispute and wrong on the other, because there is so obviously a large amount of right on both sides. One thing, however, is perfectly clear, that in supposing the coalowners to bo drawing "enormous" profits the miners are making a great mistake. For the present there is no talk of violence, and the Government's concern is limited to forcing a settlement of the quarrel. It has already gone as far as it could go with safety in undertaking to establish a minimum wage by legislation; and nobody will be surprised to see that the strikers have taken this concession as the cue for a sharper attitude on their part. One of to-clny's messages mentions that the line thu strike leaders are pursuing is condemned by. the pivss (it both political parties: ami probably a united opposition In the new spirit that bus dethroned the older leaders of trade unionism in favour of ihase who are promoting the syndicalist idea may (insist to (shorten the e* i ike aud to avert disorder. Tko Govern-

ment has allowed it to be seen Hint it intends to carry out its duty to protect lives and property, and will, jf necessary, send troops to the inning areas. 'One. must hope that then; will be no occasion for drastic measures, but every day will increase the probability of rioting.

There is one. aspect of the present political situation that will not for long escape the notice, of the public. We refer to the fact that the only anxiety of the "Liberal" party is so to reconstruct the Ministry as to hold the party together. It doubtless has not occurred to any single member of the party that anything else might conceivably matter. The interests of the country are of no_ consequence to our "Liberal" friends any more; it is not in the public interest that they are struggling with the problem of a new leader,, any more than it was in the public interest that they contrived to induce Messes. Payne and Robertson to dishonour their pledges. They could not fit the public interest into their plans, anyway. "But," it may be objected, "they are doing what any party has a rigjit to, do, namely, reorganising their General_ Staff in order best to carry out 'Liberal' policy." The reply to that is, first, that there is no such thing as a policy in the "Liberal" camp except the policy of clinging to office, and, second, that the carrying out of any policy is as far outside their calculations as is the national interest. No; the only thing they am concerned about is how to select from a grotesquely heterogeneous mob, almost everyone of whom wants office, and some of whom desire office for themselves less than they desire the exclusion of certain others—to select fromthis unpromising material a Ministry that has no practical policy to carry out. It is a grubby, sordid business enough, in which no high or even respectable purpose is involved; but it is nom: the less not without its amusing side.

Amongst the greatest services that Mr. Taft has rendered his country arc his rapid extension of non-poli-tical control of the Civil Service and his labours on behalf of public economy. In a Message to Congress asking for a continuance of the appropriations for the Economy and_ Efficiency Commission, the President says 'the Commission has cost the country 130,000 dollars, and has effected savings of 2,000,000 dollars a year already. The

spirit in which Mn. Taft approaches the business of economy would delight Gladstone. After citing some of the major economies effected, he mentions a few minor ones: "The abolition of hand copying in the offices, already ordered, will save over 75 per cent, of the several hundred thousand dollars which it is estimated this kind of clerical labour costs. A quarter of a million dollars can be saved by abandoning the pro sent needlessly circuitous manner of distributing the public documents that are sent out of Washington by mail. A very largo sum can bo saved in the travel expenses of the Government offices, possibly as much as half a cent a mile, or approximately 25 per cent., by using mileage-books instead of single-trip tickets." And on the general question he makes some observations of a kind that wo shall always endeavour to keep in the eye of tlie public of this country, ir which governmental waste and extravagance have been appalling: "In political controversy it lias been assumed generally that the individual citizen lias little interest ill what the Government spends. In my opinion, this has been a serious mistake, one which is bocoming more serious each year. Now that population lias become more dense, that large cities have developed, that people, are reijuirctl to live in congested centres, that the national resources frequently are the subject of private ownership and private control, and that transportation and other public service facilities are held and operated bv large corporations, what the Government does with nearly 1,000,000,000 dollars (JSOO.OOO.OflO) each year is of as much concern to the. average citizen as is (he manner of obtaining this amount of money for public use."

The appalling length to which a sloppy scntimentalism can carry unbalanced minds is illustrated by some recent discussions in America of the fiendish crimes of the M'Namara brothers and the other dynamiters in the service of the Labour terrorists. A New York clergyman, for example, the Rev. John Haynes Holmes, declared from his pulpit in the Church of the Messiah that the M'Namara brothers are "unselfish soldiers of a cause." This man also declared that ho "would rather be a criminal with blood upon his hands than be one of the leaders of the Steel Trust." He justified the villainous assassination of innocent human beings by the blowing up of the Los Angeles Times office, and added: "Human nature being human nature, dynamite waa inevitable; for what channels of protest have we placed before the working man except violence?" This reverend advocate of murder is widely supported by the Socialist press, in. which it is urged that milk companies that adulterate milk, match manufacturers, meat packers, railroad magnates, and mine owners are murderers worse than the M'Nasiaras. Of course every intelligent person can understand the difference between criminal or quasi-criminal carelessness without intent on the one hand and deliberate murder on the other. As the New York Post puts it: "We shall keep on trying to reduce the death-rate by sanitary measures and otherwise; we shall keep on trying to force upon 'Capital' more and more responsibility for the lives and the health of employees; but, if we are not to cut loose from our moorings altogether, wo shall keep the thought of these things in quite a different compartment of our minds from that in which wo placo our detestation of murder, or any of the basic sentimonta of civilised society. But can that community be considered free from a growing disease in which clergymen can speak, and find audiences to hear, such words as those of the Eev. John Haynes Holmes 1

The position of the Wardist party in its relation to the Labour members is compared elsewhere in this issue to the fato of the proverbial dog waggod by its tail. Quite another zoological similitude is, however required to describe the condition' of affairs which the Wardists are trying to persuade themselves that they have brought about. Everybody knows the hackneyed limerick— There was a young lady of Riga, Who wont for a rido on a tmev, Tlipv returned from the rido Willi the Inch- inside, And a smile on tho face of the tiger. The parable is singularly exact—even down to the local Wardist newspaper's rather premature assertion of "tlic solidarity of the Progressives," which is. of course, the smile on the face <>f tin , tiger.