NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1525, 22 August 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

To the politician looking for cheap popularity nothing is easier than to demand very sternly that the Government shall grant "concessions" to somebody or other. AVe had an excellent illustration of this in " the House yesterday whoa some Opposition members tried to make capital out of the Reform Government's refusal to offer those concessions in respect of children travelling on the railways which the Mackenzie Government promised in its wild desire to promise anything regardless of the cost to_ the public. Tho particular concession refused by Mr. Harries was so obviously dishonest and so obviously bad business from the national standpoint that the Minister, instead of being embarrassed, was presented with a very good opportunity to preach the doctrine of honesty and sound finance, and he preached it well. Had he been dishonest, and indifferent to the need for sound finance, he would have said, "Certainly, gentlemen. Indeed, we should carry all children free up to the age of fourteen, and charge quarter fares to everyone with an income less than £300 a year." If he chose, Mr. Herries could outbid the Isms and Robertsons, but he knows two things at least which they apparently do not know. The first is, that the nation will suffer if the railway finances arc further weakened; and tho, second is," that dirt-cheap popularity ia ' about as durable as dirt-cheap things usually arc. The public is not the foolish unreasoning mob that these popular-ity-mongers appear to imagine, and it will applaud Mr. Herries. The failure of the vigorous opposition to our own City Council's determination to tighten up the tramways finances by making the public pay for what it gets indicates a local hardening against the open-handed demagogue which we are convinced is typical of a general returning to sanity on the part of the public as a whole. A couple of days ago a cable message reported Mr. Roosevelt as sayingat a Boston rally that "he sought to introduce the observance of the Ten Commandments and tho Golden Rule into American public life." This comes strangely from the roaringly abusive and faith-breaking man the world now knows the ex-Presi-dent to be. As the New York Post observed the other day, "the Colonel is a terrible user-up of language. He takes a common word and hammers upon it until it is battered out of shape and comes to mean exactly the reverse of what it did originally." The Post illustrates its point as follows: — "Tho square deal," for example, has become, under his handling, synonymous with all that is unfair ami tortuous. When ho first began to fling about tho epithet "liar," it startled people; soon itbecame a joke; and finally it got to bo understood as describing a man who told tho disagreeable truth. The latest phrase which the Colonel has set about perverting is "honest man." He declares that ever} . Republican elector who is am "honest man" will vote for licosovelt, even if he is on, the ticket as u, Tnft elector, and seeks to Ims chosen by the regular members of tho party. It is easy to see that this makes out the honest man. to be ono capable of the worst dishonesty imaginable. Really, the Colonel ought to leave us a few words that retain their dictionary and common-sense meaning. It is a coincidence that in the. same issue in which the cable message concerning Mr. Roosevelt appeared there appeared a short summary of a sermon by Mr. Laurenson, M.P., who said, amongst other things that "the Spirit of God must prevail both outside and inside the political field." This must have affected sober-minded New Zealanders exactly as the roaring piety of Mr. Roosevelt affects decent Americans. Mr. Laurenson, like some others L on the Speaker's left, is a terrible user-up of language. Under their handling "hireling and "liar" have come to hn understood as describing journalists opposed to Spoils politics, just as "traitor" or "backstnuber" in, Sir Joseph AVard's time, meant merely patriotic advocates of national prudence. _ The demagogue is much tno same in all times and ■places—whether he is found in Aristophanes or in Ilansdrd, in America or in Wellington. It is a pretty safe rule that the ultra-Radical politician who urges the spiritualising and Christianising of politics is nowadays the most violent and vicious breaker of the rules when he talks in Parliament. A notable contribution to the Ulster problem has been furnished by Sir J/rkdeiuck Pollock in a letter to the Manchester Guardian. Our own view of the threatened rebellion is familiar to our readers: we believe that Ulster will be wrong to fight, and that, whether the Government would be justified or not in shooting down the Ulster Unionists in the Inst resort, the Government will not dare to do it. Sir Frederick Pollock shows that morally Mr. AsQUiTir is bound to take the extreme strp if it becomes necessary. He censurus the theory "that, whenever a party in the State threatens armed resistance to the law tho duty of tlio Government is to yield to its demand under pain of lining morally responsible for any fighting or violence that may ensue." Sin Frederick is less precise i,n his language here than he ought to be : lie uses the word "responsible" where ho mcaus

"blameworthy," as his following argument' shows. A Government is certainly responsible for the consccjue.nce of its acts, but if its acts iiro food, the responsibility is not criminal; it may be a merit, or it may l)c a colourless thing. He goes on to point out that if a Government is to be restrained from acting because bloodshed-will follow its action, legislation will be paralysed; and he then comes to the real root of the matter with a question: "Did Abraham Lincoln commit a crime when he faced the risk and the actual issue of civil war against a formidable and resolute secession, equipped not only with warlike resources, but with plausible constitutional argument? Most men at this day, even Southerners, hold that it would have been a i/ran rifhtto if he had done otherwise." When Mil. Asquith shrinks from the consequences, this passage will doubtless be turned up again, and quoted to point the difference between the two cases. Lincoln faced the issue because he had Heaven and humanity on his side; but what has Mm Asquith 1

Wilful and reckless misstatement appears to be the only weapon of attack in the armoury of the enemies of political reform. We do not refer to -such foolish denials of well known facts as the wearisome misstatements respecting The Dominion, but to tho reiteration of untruths. When Jin. Fisher the other day showed that the Ward Government had been guilty .of jobbery in connection with some- Crown Law work, the Opposition politicians and newspapers followed up a quite irrelevant statement by the Invercargill solicitor with off-hand statements that the Minister had been refuted. Sin. Fisher took occasion to establish his charge more fully and clearly than ever, and although the facts are as plain and simple as possible, he will find the Opposition continuing to make brazen denials of tho whole job. To-day we record another example of the anti-Reformers' indifference to facts. Quoting an Auckland opponent of Reform, a Southland journal devoted to the cause of Spoils politics asserted that exactly similar conditions to those in Invercargill existed in Auckland, where the entire legal business of the Government Insurance Department remained with one firm. Mn. Fisher has obtained a report from the Insurance Commissioner in which this story is clearly shown to be a wild fabrication. The, Minister has done well to follow up the anti-Reform inventions in this matter. The enemies of Reform will soon give up their little game if they are pursued with vigour. Already, we should say, their dupes amongst the public are waking up.