NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 184, 30 April 1919, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

Electors will be well advised to write down in advance before* they go to the polling booth to-day the names of the candidates they intend to vote .for. With four different voting papers to mark, and a large list of candidates to choose from, they will find their task facilitated by adopting the, course suggested, and also minimise the risk of error or that of making their voting papers informal. The voting _is done by placing a cross (x) opposite the name of the candidate or candidates the elector desires to sec returned. • In v the_ Mayoral contest, of course, there is onlv one candidate, to be returned; for the Harbour Board four; for the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board 14; and for the City Council 15. The polling'places are numerous, and will be found set out in our news columns this morning.

So far as the unfortunate 'dispute which has arisen at tho Pcacc Conference turns upon the disposal of Fiume, the best solution undoubtedly would be to neutralise that port and make it freely available to all the countries interested in its use. One of yesterday's messages stated that a thousand of the population of Fiume escorted the National Council on a visit to General Eiuzoli to 'express the city's determination to be annexed to Italy. If this could be taken as an authoritative expression of the desire of the population it would carry great weight, but it is almost certainly a partisan move. Italians are slightly in the majority in Fiume, and_ may thus be enabled to dominate its governing body, but, nearly one-h&lf of the people of Fiume are Slavs, and it may_ bo taken for granted that this section -ofi the population is absolutely opposed to annexation by Italy.' The case is essentially one for compromise, and .the obvious line of compromise, as has been said, is to neutralise Fiume and make it a free port.

Attempts made from time to time to' prove that the Russian Bolsheviki are not as. black' as they are painted are decidedly unconvincing. Yesterday, for-instance, a message from a Stockholm correspondent quoted a "Bolshevik statesman," who was not named, as protesting against the "grotesque misrepresen 7 tation by hostile newspapers of Lenin's marriage laws." The "statesman" in question asserted in effect that these laws simply made marriage compulsory, and provided easy facilities for divorce. The truth has been clearly brought out in evidence before a. committee of the United States _ Senate, which has lately been investigating Bolshevism. Mr. Francis, late American Ambassador to Russia, testified that in varioijs provinces the Bolsheviki have "nationalised" women. He added that while, so far as he knew, the Central - Soviet had not issued "nationalisation" decrees, it had decrced that a mere notification of intention to the Soviet was sufficient to establish either marriage or divorce. In a decree, ■ issued by a local Soviet, which was laid before the Senate Committee, the following provisions appear:— .

A girl having reached her eighteenth year is . . . the property of the State. Having registered at the Bureau of Freo Love, sho has a right to chooso a cohabitant husband from among the men between the ages of 19 and 50.

The consent of the man is unnecessary. The man . . . has no right to make any protest. T?he right to choose is also given to men. , . .

Men liavo tlio right to choose from amongst the registered women without the consent; of the latter.

The opportunity to choose .a husband or a wife is to 'bo presented onco a month.

In face of such evidence that the Bolsheviki have degraded the relations of the sexes to an infamous level anonymous denials count for nothing.

The Petone Borough Council has decided to write to tho Railway T)epnrtment, asking it to put on a football train, leaving Wellington nt 2.15 or 2.20 p.m , commencing from Saturday next.