NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1421, 23 April 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

When the English mail that arrived yesterday left London (on March 16) the great coal strike had lasted nearly threo 'weeks, and there was something very like hysteria in many of the appeals made to the Government to apply some strong legislative remedy. Of course a Compulsory Arbitration Act was suggested, and it is rather curious that tho strongest advocates of the colonial method of permanent coercion were amongst-the opponent's of tho Government. The Observer, for example, in long and emphatic articles, demanded tho adoption of this bad principle. "The only sure safeguard against crises like tho coal strike," it said, "lies in compulsory arbitration on the Australian model," and it declared that Australian experience had shown that in Australia "anything like the coal strike would be impossible." Fortunately, however, the truth about Australasian industrial compulsion is getting about in Britain, and somo leading Liberal journals, amongst them the Manchester Guardian and Westminster Gazette, pointed out very promptly that the experience of Australia showed that compulsory arbitration legislation neither prevented , nor ended strikes. It was not the Arbitration Act that crushed 1 the Brisbane strike; our own Act 1 was not thought about during the AVellington tramwav strike. The way in which Compulsory Arbitration Acts work in the case of a big strike is, as everyone in Australasia knows, something like this: The strike takes place; a general strike is threatened; the defenders of industrial order either stand firm (like the Queensland Government), or collapso and go upon their knees to the' strikers (like the "Liberal" Government here); ultimately the strike ends, either by the surrender of tho strikers or the surrender of the other side; and then, some time after (sometimes weeks, sometimes months) the Act is timidly brought out, and a mignonette_ seed (as it wore) is fired at the union. The Act, in short, ceases to exist in any reality so far as strikes are concerned.

3. The passion of the English mind - for Royal Commissions is upon the ■ whole an advantageous thing. It 1 leads to valuable explorations in ; regions where exploration is ncccsl sary and important, and it helps i towards the stunning, and often the ■ killing, of crooked fancies and unJ healthy crotchets. One Royal Com- ■ mission that deserves some notice is ; that which was set up in_ 1906 to in- : vestigate tlio whole question of vivi--1 section. For years the Anti-Vivisec- '■ tion Society had clamoured about the ■ heartless cruelty of t-ho men who i "tortured" animals, and stories of torture were multiplied and circulated with such impressive circumstantiality ijliat no little uneasiness was created in the public mind. Twelve specific cases of such alleged torture were brought before the Commission by the Hon. Stephen Coleridge, the able and ardent leader of the anlivivisectionists, and it is satisfactory to find that the Commission found that every one of these twelve stories were unworthy of credit. The finding of the Commission is an impregnable verdict for vivisection, and although the Commissioners recommend certain improvements in the law, their majority report states that ."experiments upou animals, adequately safeguarded by law, faithfully administered, are morally justifiable and should not be prohibited by legislation," and. further,' that "it is highly improbable .that, without experiments made on animals, mankind would at the nresent time have been in possession" of much "valuable knowledge in regard to physiological i processes and the causation of disease." Tb<] ngt result of th? Commit idoii ]uia bfiaa*. out onl}' to destroy.

the anti-vivisectionist position, but also to illustrate the ease with which tho sentimental disposition of the public can be worked upon by fanatics sufficiently persevering and Sufficiently careless about facts.

Although the proposed Arbitration Treaty between Britain and America was practically destroyed by the United States Senate, which ! fixed as the price of ratification an amending clause excluding from the area of arbitration every issue which it was the whole purpose of tho treaty to make arbitrable, the division was extremely close. lb was only by 42 votes to -10 that the lethal amendment was carried. The amendment was exactly what Mr. Hoosevelt had recommended in his famous Outlook article, and his friends have therefore been jubilant over what they fancy ir a blow to Mn. Taft!s prestige. There is reason to fear that the. Senate's decision, which it would be foolish to believe indubitably wrong, was tho result of political calculations. The fact that tho majority in favour of the amendment was largely composed of Democratic Senators suggests that it was Mr. Tai-t, rather than tho Treaty, that was voted upon. In earlier references to the .question we' have admitted a great deal of reasonableness in the opposition to an unrestricted treaty of arbitration, mainly on the grounds that to deprive a people of tho right to go to war is to maim that people's soul, that there are temperatures in national feeling that will burn up any treaty, and that it is therefore better to have no treaty than to have a treaty that may have to bs "burned. American opinion, however, appears to be largely against the Senate's action; and British opinion is almost solidly against it. In the meantime "the Pacifist millenium," as tho Pall Mall Gazette says, is postponed indefinitely.

Our "Liberal" friends ought to bo interested in the British Government's appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the Civil Service. The terms of reference of the Commission are now available, and are as follow:—

1. To inquire into and report on the methods of making appointments to, and promotions in, the Civil Service, including the Diplomatic and Consular Services and the legal department?

.2. To investigate the working and efficiency of the system of competitive examinations for such appointments, and to make recommendations for any alterations or improvement in that system which may appear to be advisable.

3. To consider whether the existing scheme of organisation meets the requirements of'the public service, and to suggest any modifications which may be needed therein.

The British public is fortunate in the fact that the Liberal party is as well-disposed towards the setting up of tho Commission as the Unionist party. The necessity for inquiry and reform is of course far less in Britain thai} it is in New Zealand, but in this country inquiry and reform have been fiercely resisted by the "Liberals." What finally decided the Government to appoint the Commission was the fact that the number of civil servants was being greatly increased, in a largo measure through tho passing of Acts creatine: new posts, such as the Labour Ex" changes Act and the National Insurance Act. _ Even so, there are far fewer civil servants in Britain in j proportion to population than in Now Zealand, where, according to a» statement made a couple of years ago by Mr. J. A. Millar, oneseventh of the population is dependent for a livelihood upon the State. There is amplo room for inquiry into tho whole question in New Zealand, and we trust that in the coming session the first stops towards investigation and reform will be- 1 taken.