NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1557, 28 September 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

In New Zealand we arc accustomed to the strange way State projects have of costing far more than the experts estimate. This is not always the experts' fault; it is due to tin inherent viciousness of State management Much interest has been aroused in Britain by the failure of the Insurance Act to conform to the estimates of its cost. It was estimated and promised that tho annual charge on the State would at the most bo £1,470,200. Yet the provision that must be made for tho charges up to March 31 next amounts to £2,228,728. Upon this the Daily Tcler/raph observes that "if the State's contribution has been so much exceeded in the first year with benefits running for only three months, the scheme will prove more costly ; n subsequent years than calculated by tho actuaries." The Telegraph toes on to show that the cost of administration alono will exceed the estimate of all possible costs. Of course it will. Whenever the State starts out to do anything—whether to build a Hutt Road, found an old age pension scheme, rebuild a Parliament House, establish a hydro-electric station, duplicate a railway section, or anything else—it always exceeds by a more or less substantial percentage the estimate originally made.

There is only one feature of the periodical attack on The Dominion t'rom the Radical section of the House which occurred yesterday that calls for attention at the moment. That is the statement by Mr. Isitt that we misrepresented him when we assumed that he sympathised with the tactics of the Waihi strikers. We should be sorry to misrepresent tho member for Christchuroh North, or anyone else. Our opinion was formed on the necessarily condensed report of his ( speech published in tho press, in which he was shown to have said that he was in entire accord with the speech of tho member for Otaki, who, it will_bo noted, while condemning the strike as a tactical blunder, considered the Miners' Union "had taken a legitimate course in its antagonism to tho other union." Mr. Robertson is reported to have also defended thc_ strikers as follows:— "It was admitted on all hands that the conduct of the strikers up to the time when the polico entered Waihi was good. Evidence in the police cases had only brought out the fact that there had been some 'booing and hissing' by the strikers. Mr. Bell: 'They were terrorising a cripple.' Mr. Roberston said that he was not prepared to say that they were." It seemed to us that Mr. Robertson was rather apologising for, or at least attempting to excuse, the conduct of tho strikers, and as Mr, Isitt endorsed his remarks, we judged him accordingly. However, since Mr. Isitt disclaims all sympathy with the tactics of the strikers, wo are very pleased to make tho fact known.

The Hon. 'James Allen has not had to wait long for an official Australian approval of his ideas upon naval defcnce. The Prime Minister, Mb. Fisher, is reported as having "expressed delight" at Mr. Allen's references to the Pacific, which "indicated a state of mind and policy very closely in touch with Australia's naval defence policy." There are New Zealandors, we know, who become suspicious when Australia makes an offer, or appears in the guise oi a friend. There are others who dread the absorption of our nationhood into Australia's. Caution is a very good thing, always; but in this case caution need n6t forbid action. The Dominion has often enough in the past few years suggested that a naval arrangement with Australia might be entered into by New Zealand without compromising us in any greater degree than Britain is compromised by her Ententes and Treaties. Mn. Allen made it clear enough in his speech that he was not announcing the decided policy of the Government; he stressed the fact that the Minister for Defence in New Zealand is not in charge of naval policy. There never has been, indeed, any naval policy in this country: for 21 years Ministers have carefully avoided letting New Zealand have one. Ifc is a good beginning to have a Minister at last publicly outlining the facta upon which a policy must be based—such facts as the natural identity, up to a point, of Australia's and New Zealand s interests, and the necessity that our country should do something positive. Mr. Fisher's little push to the New. Zealand Government is most welcome. The Government cannot deal with the matter in a hurry, but it can easilv encourage discussion that will help forward the establishment of a definite national policy.

As "Ulster Day" approaches, the tension of the Home llulc situation becomes more dangerous. Yet the signs become more numerous that a firm stand by Ulster will prevent the passage of the Home Rule Bill. Very significant is the appeal made to Canada by Mr. William O'Brien, that fine and patriotic Catholic Nationalist leader, to persuade 'the Ulstermen that their fears of a Dublin Parliament are groundless. Groundless or not, those fears exist, and they will kill the present Homo llulc Bill. Since there is, unfortunately, a large section of the colonial public convinced that the anti-Home Rule movement is Orange from top to toe, it may be as well to quote from a leading article in the London Tabid of August 17 on the duel between Mr. Churchill and Mr. Bonar Law. The Tablet, we need hardly remind our readers, is not only one of tho best weekly nowspapers in Britain, but is the most authoritative Catholic organ in the world outside Rome. Dealing with Mr. Churchill's pretence that Mr. Bonar Law was claiming for the Opposition the right to resort to violence, rebellion, and bloodshed in order to opposo tho Government, the Tablet said:

Hitherto there has been a Second Chamber able to force a dissolution by rejecting any measure which it believed was, for whateverreason, contrary to tho wish of tho majority of the people. The revolution elfccted by the Parliament Act has removed that safety-valve from the Constitution. Tho consequence is that an Opposition, which honestly believes that a given measure would be repudiated by the yeoplo if an opportunity were granted it lor expressing An opinion, must either acquiesce ill what i= ex h.vpothesi a legislative outrage or else counsel active resistance to a law passed under such conditions.

The Tablet nlso points out that formerly the House of Lords whs always there "to act as the guardian of tho nation, ami to see that no Minister used a temporary majority in the Commons to misrepresent tho wishes of (lie people." 'This power of the Peers," it adds, "was rarely used and never misused." The. Tablet- does not say so, but it obviously must think, as we think, t.ljat Ulster' will ha wrung wjion, or if, jt. fipbtui hut it says vary bluntly that the Governs.

monfc's troubles "appear to bo of their own making." • It becomes clearer every clay that the Catholics of the United Kingdom arc not, as a whole, at all favourable to. tho Government's Irish policy.