NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1632, 26 December 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

. The Wellington public will learn with a sympathetic interest that the Christchurch tramways .system is showing some of the symptoms of our own system. At Monday's meeting of the Christchurch Tramway Board, the Fares Committee made a rather doleful report. A good many months ago they had begun to consider the failure of the_ revenue to keep ahead of expenditure. Certain services were permanently curtailed, . and amongst tho economies were "tho withdrawal of concession tickets and passes on Sundays, increase in the price of special seaside excursion tickets, and the reduction of tho first section on the Woolston line to its original length."_ These economies, however, have failed to produce the desired result, and the committee is compelled to recommend further-reductions in the fare concessions and a further curtailment of the services. In view of the experience of the : two cities—Wellington and Christchurch—it cannot be urged that municipal tramways are nowadays; a success. -In .the nature of things publicly-owned transport services tend to lose money. There is no great incentive, so far as the managers are concerned, to good and economical management; indeed, the very advocacy of economy is treated as evidence of an antimunicipal spirit. And there arc many, incentives to waste; the popu-larity-hunting politician is natural- ,' ly an enemy of public prudence, and in any event thei public clamours for cheapness at anybody's expense. The experience of Christchurch and Wellington in this matter has been a, lesson upon the necessity for encouraging an unsentimental and businesslike spirit in the municipal public.

, An item of war news which has a medieval flavour was cabled from Constantinople to; the English papers by Router's correspondent last month. This, was ; the text of an official note issued .by the.SiiEiKH-UL-Islam. It. appe'ara ithateott'the*ad-'> vice, of the Military Council !and with the approval of the Council of Ministers the Grand. Vizicrate had ordered the dispatch to Hademkoi of about a hundred eloquent and influential ulema "with the object of uplifting the moral state and of exciting the. warlike ardour" of the forces at Chatalja. The communique adds that "the ulema are to exhort the troops in .words easy to bo understood by the common soldiers," and that "these orators have been chosen from among the most distinguished professors of theology and ulema in the capital." No doubt these orators have been exorcising their arts during the last few weeks. There' is_ no great difference between the spirit of this enterprise ' and the spirit of the nations in the "West, where it has. always been considered proper that on going to war an army should receive the blessing and encouragement of the churches. That it should be found necessary',to'dispatch a corps of orators to the . Turkish front, however, is evidence of the failure of the rulers of Turkey to keep the army in good heart. - Perhaps when next Britain goes to war, the "antimilitarists" ~ v/ill be consistent enough to'send; a picked force ot orators to persuade the soldiers.that the more unsoldierly and harmless they are the better they will be.

There were two remarkable facta in connection with the recent passage into law of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill (the Bill aimed against the "white slave" traffic). In the first place, party lines disappeared entirely—Mr. Will Crooks found himself a protagonist on the same side as Mr. M'Kenna and the leading members of the Unionist party. In the second _ place, tho House of Commons decisively voted for the lash for convicted male procurers. It was not to be expected that this decision would go _ uncriticised. The sentimental Radicals are always there, to object to good hard common sense. The Radical journals overflowed with hysterical protests against the "brutal," "infamous," "medieval," "barbarous" revival, of ! "torture. What! to uso one human being to _ lash the flesh of another human being! Horrible ! Thus to degrade ana brutalise a and high-souled procurer ! Infamous! Mr. Will Crooks, in the course of the debate, placed a heavy foot upon the whimpering sentimentalists. In response to an interjection, he announced that, if nobody else oould bo got to brutalise these ruffians by medium of a lash, he, Will Crooks, would volunteer with pleasure. Perhaps the evil of the "white slave" traffic has been exaggerated; indeed, there has been not a littlo of hysteria in the campaign against it. But in setting its approval on flogging for these offences, the House of ommons has given expression to, not a sudden anger of tho public, but the ordinary and permanent conviction of : decent men. The Act is refreshing in. a day when the drift is all towards 'flabbincss and cowardice in the treatment of crime.