NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1388, 14 March 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

0 The Hon. T. Mackenzie, in his speech at Middlemarch last week, made some references to the Reform party that deserve all the publicity possible, since they are exceedingly helpful to a proper estimate of the "Liberal" leaders and of "Liberal" methods. Mr. Mackenzie declared,' as plainly as words could declare, that the Reform party and the newspapers supporting the Reform programme had made specific charges of personal fraud against Sir Joseph Ward in connection with the flotation of the £5,000,000 loan. No language could be too strong for application to this outrageous charge. Here is the passage from Mr. Mackenzie's speech: Then the new members said, "How about keeping back information respecting tho ,£5,000,000 loan?" The Government said they had cabled Home for information and given it out as soon as they got it. In the meantime the apostles of truth and purity were going alxiut the country saying that the loan hnd cost ,£350,000, and that "Joe Ward" had pocketed .£121,000 himself. When a Minister, who is hoping to be Prime Minister, can make statements like this, things have come to a bad pass. Mr. Mackenzie knows that he cannot prove his wicked and baseless charge against the Reform party, but that does not deter him from preferring the charge. At the samo gathering the defeated "Liberal" in whose honour these nretty things were being said declared that when the opponents of the Government "found they could not shift him [Sin J. G. Ward].by impugning his ability or his legislation they tried to rouse the worst passion of human nature—the passion of -intolerance and religious bigotry." We are glad to be able to think that many friends of the Government will reprobate as much as we do such foul play as a statement of this kind. Unhappily the rank and file of the "Liberal" party are unable to control their politicians. There is some encouragement in to-day's brief cable message summarising the report of the Koval Commission on Vivisection. There is mention in it of "safeguards" and the "strengthening" of existing "safeguards" — a characteristically British concession to the agitating side—but there is clearness enough in the Commission's definite finding that experiments on animals are morally justifiable and ought not to be prohibited. This is mere sanity; but it is all the same something to be grateful for that British Royal Commissions can still be relied upon to return judgments that square with common sense. The ngitntion against vivisection has been conducted with passion and ability; if ever the "nnv lmiiinnilarianism" had n door that it could break through, this was it. Tlu , campaign against vivisection was bound to fail—for the present—ln>causc: its illogicality was, also for tin.' present, too cruris nnrl obvious. The assault upon vivisection is only onn phase of that social insanity whirh fey "psac? at any prirp," in religion, in poliHcß. in iiidnstrv, ntid jn society., in the course of his fine

essay mi The Xew Ifitwmiilariaiiixiii, which year by year becomes more urgent and mure apposite, the Into (i. W. Steevkxs put, the Inith of the. matter very brilliantly. "The blind horror of pain" us an evil in itself was the th'.-iiiu of his scorn. At the time of his essay (1H08) there was an assault being conducted against hospitals, against "the atrocities of hospitals." Vim will find flic wrote) in the writings of these apiistles [whose mission is to ilu away with ]:nin|' uUitchs im the aliueitics of ho.-pitaU . . . Hospitals, they tell us, an- shambles where human victims are vivisected t'»r the. em-iosity, nut In say the entertainment, of cold .scientists. We are exhorted in fervent rhetoric tu rise nil together and stop the butchery nf our fi'llow-nicii for a surgeon's holiday. . . . Von must not. cut to save a limb, (o save a life, to save ten thousand lives—because we eanliot bear to see the Wood." "The idea that pain is the worst of evils"—that is the motive thought of the anti-vivisectionists. In a few years, perhaps, we may find another Royal Commission on Vivisection reporting that it is better to lose a thousand human lives than experiment upon one animal. But in the meantime it is a relief to find that some of the anchors arc holding against the gale of folly. .Where are the demands for State paternalism going to stop 1 One of the latest comes from Mr. Reginald Bkay, a member of the London County Council, who has discovered that boys often make serious mistakes and that their parents arc not always wise. In particular,'he states, in a book entitled Boy Labour and Apprenticeship, that young people are apt to go wrong in their choice of trades.' "Boys, parents, employers, arc alike impotent to cure the evil; once again we are compelled to look to the State for help. The State must guide the.choice of boys as they leave school." His idea is that the new Labour Exchanges should undertake this duty and that youths should be subject to State supervision up to the age of eighteen. A few years ago this would have seemed like the rejuctio ad rtbsurdum of grandmotherly legislation, but Mr. Bray is quite serious. We do not know whether to wonder more at his calm assumption of the infallibility of the State, or at his implied opinion that parents as a rule do not care for the welfare of their children. _ There will, we suppose, be a reaction before we reach the point where the State (i.e., a huge body of Civil Servants directed by politicians hunting for votes) would select the parents, take the child from them as soon as born, and feed, clothe, and choose for him up to manhood or beyond, without ever giving him a chance of making a mistake.- Otherwise, we must go on to what is presumably the goal of the Brays, a happy time when two-thirds of the population will be engaged in inspecting the other third.