NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1562, 4 October 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

It will be remembered that tho Hon. James Beyce, when he reached Brisbane, took occasion to remind one of his audiences that the English are not a_ declining people and that Great Britain was never more prosperous, powerful or peaceful than sho is to-day. One of the London Radical, dailies, seizing upon Mn. Bryoe's speech as an opportunity for whacking "colonial ignorance" and the British Imperialists to whose evil machinations it ascribes the state of mind which it imagines in the colonies, contrived to say some useful things. "Too many colonials," it said—and it spoke the truth, for even ten would be "too many"— "think of Great Britain noff only as the Motherland but as an .aged, exhausted and effete country, from the hand of whose people the torch has already fallen into their own youthful and vigorous hands." This objectionable frame of mind has happily passed away in New Zealand, although a few New Zcalanders may still fancy, as a good many more than a few Australians fancy, that England is "played out." The London journal referred to mentions that in measuring "the wealth and vitality of a people" one must not omit to take into account the nonmaterial factors: A nation is great not merely or mainly because of its industrial or military power, but also because of those intellectual, spiritual, social, and artistic activities winch express civilisation. Young peoples engaged in reducing waste places to the discipline of. man are naturally indisposed to rate thoso activities at their

true worth, but thej' are the forces which ninko a. nation's life rich and memorable, and give it its place in the hierarchy of nations. One may dislike the shrewd choice of the word "hierarchy" (with its subtle suggestion that the' world ought to be a Synod of sentimental and altruistic Powers) and yet admit the general statement. Nor can one honestly quarrel with the further assertion that."the Dominions hayn as yet produced no poet, artist, philosopher, or investigator to whom permanent fame is assured, and for all this higher inspiration they must draw, if they draw at all, upon these islands." The fact that this was said by an anti-Imperial paper for its anti-Imperial audience does not lessen ita truth. It will be accepted with humility by most New Zealand: ers, but it will not lessen their devotion to the idea of Empire. The friends of the cigarette—if it' has any theoretical friends (its practical friends run into millions)— must have felt a little concerned the other day when a cable message stated that the death of Baron Maeschall von Biebbrstein, the late German Ambassador to Britain, was due to excessive cigarette-smoking. It may comfort them to know that in a recent issue the Lancet gave the cigarette i> certificate of character. The Lancet, unhappily, has a way of saying different things at different times about the things we eat and drink and smoke. The pipe,_ the cigar, and the cigarette take it in turn to bo condemned. This time the argument is that not only docs pipe tobacco contain far more nicotine than cigarettes or cigars, but from a pipe more of the available nicotine gets into the smoke than from a cigarette or cigar. The conclusion is that cigarette-smoking_ is the least harmful. At the samq timo the Lancet suggests that nicotine is not the worst product of tobacco burning, but "furfural," which (wfiatever it may be) is plentiful in Virginia tobacco and almost absent from Turkish or Egyptian or Cuban leaf. The safe thing to do, therefore, is to smoke Havana cigars or Turkish cigarettes; and one is inclined towards accepting the chemistry behind this on the ground that it leads to another proof that what is cheap is more likely to be nasty, than what is dear. • The fact is, of course, that the wholo question is one of excess. Excess is always harmful, and as excess in smoking is encouraged by the cigarette, the cigarette is the thing to condemn.

The friends of political and administrative reform will have derived much satisfaction from the brief debate in the House on Wednesday upon Me. Edward Newman's suggestion that a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works should be established. The public has been made, through the reform movement, thoroughly familiar with, and beyond all question endorses, the arguments for the ultimate removal of public works expenditure from the direct and unchallengeable control of the Ministry. Mr. Newman's suggestion goes in the right direction: anything goes in the right direction which goes towards setting Ministers and members free from the temptation, to go wrong which resides in the present undemocratic system of allocating votes and grants. Tho time will come, must come, when skill in obtaining a share of the spoil will not be quotable by a member seeking re-election; when hostility to the Government of the day will not expose u district to. unjust tvnatmont'and indirect robbery; and when Ministers will be unable to bribe the constituencies with promises of grants. Only Mr. Hasan nnd Mr. R, M'lfeziE, apparently, stood ,up on. Wednesday tor the present tys-

torn. Even such hitherto faithful defenders of the integrity of the old Spoils creed as Mr. Fouhes and Mi:. Russell supported Mu. Newman's general proposition. Mr. Russell, by the way, supplied a very full justification of all the Reform party's contentions in, this mutter, when he said that he "had always felt that the voting of money for public works should not be dependent on the caprice or favouritism of the Minister." There is obviously a great gain, in having Mr. Russell in Opposition ; we hope ho will often say this, for the need for reform is essential to something greater than the interests of any party, viz., tho interests of the nation. To Mil. Hanan's strange objection that "the functions of Parliament should not bo reduced by the setting up of an independent Board" there is an ample reply in the obvious fact that tho reform advocated would knock the fetters o£ parochialism off Parliament and set it free to become a national Assembly. The Government will do a big thing for the country if, as the result of its reflections in the recess, it devises some real plan of reform in this matter.