NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1635, 30 December 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

One of the most satisfactory features of the Christmas holiday season has been tho evidence it has, afforded of the prosperous condition of the people generally, and the conndenco with which they are regarding the immediate future. From all sides come reports of the heavy Christmas business done by the shopkeepers of the city. In many .cases the trade done is said to have been quite exceptional, and 'to have constituted a record, and the grumbling shopkeeper who we had rather grown accustomed' to at Christmas time is difficult to find. For some months past trade has been brisk in the city, and the ■ prospects ahead for the coming year are much brighter than has been the case for some ye&rs past. There certainly are people who talk somewhat pessimistically about possible labour troubles—apparently some of them regard this!possibility as the only cloud on the-horizon. Perhaps it is, but it is not at the moment a very black or a ■ very threatening cloud. Even 'the more militant section of the Labour organisations are beginning to realise that strikes are costly things, even when successful, and that there is no certainty of success however promising matters may look at the outset.

A matter which we overlooked at the time is recalled to us by an article in the Melbourne Argus. This is, the reply made by Colonel Seely, in the House of Commons, several days ago, to a Radical member, who asked him whether the Government was aware whether "conscripts" in New Zealand and Australia were obliged to obtain military passports before travelling from one district to another. This member .doubtless believed he was giving" publicity.to an unpleasant fact, which •'he had gathered from some New Zealand or Australian source. We are all.pretty familiar by now with the lengths to which some New Zealand "antimilitarists" are prepared to go in defaming our defence system. The point to be noticed on this occasion, however, is the reply given by the Minister. He simply said the Government was not aware of the fact, thus leaving the impression that.for anything he knew the most atrocious military tyranny might exist in New Zealand. The Argus censures the Minister for not taking the proper course: ho "should not have taken any notice of the question further than to say that it was -not his province, or the province of any member of the Imperial ( Government, to answer questions regarding matters under the exclusive control of one of the 'autonomous Dominions." One can best appreciate this point by taking the converse case. Supposing that Mr. Massey were asked whether he was awaro that the _ British Government were conducting -.a secret and unfair inquisition into the affairs of private owners of land, it would be most improper for him to make any reply other than that matters relating to British local administration would not be noticed by him at all. As tho Argus points out, there is always a chance' of something really annoying arising out of meddlesomeness between Governments and Parliaments; ■•:

It is an old discovery that if you read any general medical guide you will learn that you have the symptoms of so many 'diseases that you are really remaining alive without cause. It is equally true that the good people who concern themselves with tie dangerous things in,life on earth—medical, moral, social, physical, geological, and all the rest—are busier, than ever in discovering new menaces. One can more patiently bear the medical than the moral and social bogies. The latest medical bogy is, the common sneeze. Some investigations made by the surgeon in oharge of the_ Government Hygienic Laboratory in Washington aro stated to show that sneezing is one of our gravest social dangers. A single sneeze loads a hundred cubio feet of air with the seeds of almost anything from measles to cerebrospinal meningitis. If the world were logical, and thorough in its logic, it would isolate everyone who sneezed 'even once. But,,then it would isolate many other people, and issue millions of prohibitions. If we all took quite seriously the horrors that attend life on the planet we should all starvb in motionless .isolation. Our English critic of the 'menace of the sneeze says:—"We must be grateful to the men of science that they diligently pursue their investigations undeterred by our apathy, but the plain fact is that if a complete code for tho averting of death except from violence and old age be ever drawn up it will probably be disregarded, on the score of social inconvenience." Stevenson realised this long ago. There is nothing we can do that is not attended with peril. And if wo do nothing, our bodies are still there to do for us, being nothing lesß than "bags of petards, ready to go off at any moment. It is best, he urged, "to live and be dono with." And indeed most of us do so—oven those, wo suspect, who furnish us with tho eloquence about grave dangers of whatever kind. ,