NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2315, 24 November 1914, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

'A group of the noißy gentlemen who delight in tho designation of 'militants" and who are largely of the "Bed Fed" persuasion attempted to dominate the meeting of the Reform candidate at Berhampore last evening. Unhappily for their purpose, Mr. Wright rather enjoys an encounter of this description, and in the exchanges which occurred the "hecklers" had little occasion to congratulate thomselves on their efforts, As a matter of fact, the "Bed Federation"- appears to be somewhat subdued just now. It is on its good behaviour because it fears to arouse the peoplo and damn its chances of winning an odd seat, or two. It is lying low in tho hope that its past violence and acts of lawlessness may be forgotten. This is neoessary if the Wardist-Social Democrat combination is to secure control of the country's affairs, as the Red Federationists devoutly wish. The more the public are reminded of the wild and lawless conduct of the Red Federation during the strike and of its disorderly conduct at public meetings since, the less likelihood is there of the electors casting their votes for Wardist or Social Democrat candidates. The public, we suspect, is not likely to be deceived by the Budden falling off of "lied Fed" activities. An unkind elector wanted to know last evening whether Mr. Turnbtjll's candidature for Wellington North in the Wardist interest was a, joke. Very properly Mr. Turnbull assured him that it was not a joke, and this' assurance must ho accepted. The reason for the inquiry probably is to bo'found'in the fact that the candidate appeared,to have a very slender acquaintance with politics, and w'as. plainly disinclined to wrestle with the complexities _of those troublesome public questions Bome knowledge of which is usually considered essential in a candidate seeking tho suffrages of the electors. Still, it was Mr. TurnbhWs first public meeting, and if he knows very little of politics to-day, it is still nearly three weeks to election day, and we have known candidates who learned quite a'lot in three weeks. The clamour which was raised by Sir Joseph Ward and his friends not long ago about the state of the electoral rolls has died away, and it is hardly likely that any attempt will be made to revive it, in face of the official facts concerning the rolls which are now being made public. The Electoral Department, with all the evidence in its possession, claims that tho rolls are cleaner than they have been for many years and as complete as it is possible to make them. The figures for the City rolls are published in another column, and while it will te seen that the totals, except in the case of Wellington Suburbs, have dropped to some extent, this is fully accounted for by the thorough purging which the rolls have undergone this year. The rolls of 1911 were admittedly in many cases overloaded, and would have been considerably reduced in volume if they had been subjected to such an exhaustive revision as has been carried out this vea,r. At the same time such efforts havo been put forth on the present occasion to secure the enrolment of all qualified electors_ that the rolls .in a number of districts will show an increase as compared .with 1911. The Wardists and their friends, of course, will not retract the wildly exaggerated statements which they made about the methods adopted by tho Electoral Department to ensure the compilation of clean and reliable rolls. They made a great stir until they were confronted with the facts, and then simply relapsed into silence. The number of mare's-nests discovered by the Wardists during the past few months must be very disquieting to those fair-minded people who still labour under the erroneous idea that the shoddy Wardism of to-days is the Liberalism of a bygono day.

It is on record that Mr. T. K. Sidey, the Wardist candidate for Dunedin South, severely criticised tho action of tho Government in re-, gard to borrowing as compared with the borrowing transactions 'of the Liberal Party. Mil. Sidey's severity is not the sort of thing to make anybody lio awako at night, but it is interesting to briefly review the facta ly. which it .was inspired. ,Tho

broad position in regard to the Government's borrowing operations is that it has borrowed less than the Continuous Government did in an equal time, that it has obtained its loans on much better terms, and that the only abnormal features in its borrowing proposals for the immediate future relate to provision for certain reproductive development works which were consistently' neglected by the Continuous Government in a way that might very well have provoked Mr. Sidey'b severity in a superlative degree. The whole of the figures upon which these state-' ments are based are at hand. In its first twenty-seven months of office the Massey Government raised approximately £1,000,00(1 less in new loans than the Ward and Mackenzie Gov- . ernmdnts did in their last twentyseven months. Tho totals for the respective periods were:—Ward and Mocbenzio Qov■monts v£10,031,950 Massey Government J9,078,680 Putting the matter in a more compact form, tho Prime Minister stated at Invercargill the other evening that the Publio Debt increased by £5 Vs. 4d. per head per annum during the last' two years of _ the Ward Government. while during the first two years or the Keform Government the increase was £4 9a. per head. It is true that the' Government has also borrowed to renew the short-dated loans which were raised by Sir Joseph Ward and Mr. Myers at great and unnecessary cost to the country, but the responsibility for this rests with tho ward-Mackenzie Governments, and while it may be a fit subject'for Mr. Sidey's severity, the matter is one between him and. the leaders of Mb own party, who indulged in the costly luxury of short-dated loans, for which the country has since had to pay the piper. As to the cost of raising loans, the Finance Minister put some interesting facts on record during one of the dosing debates of the r session. The following table shows the cost per cent, of loans raised at the periods indicated Ward QoTommont.' '£ B. d. April, 1910 1 16 1 November, 1910 411 5 Mackenzie Government. October, 1911 .'. 5 11 Maesey Government. February, 1918 4 5 '4 October, 1913 (renewal, 1911 lo " n ) (US U 3 3 January, 1914 4 13 That is to say, tho Government has brought down the oost per cent, of raising loans from £5 Is. Id. to £4 Is. 3d. Mr. Sidey pould have been wiser to have left the subject . of borrowing severely alone.