NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 304, 19 September 1919, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

According: to an announcement made by the Prime Minister yesterday the general elections are less than three months away. Mr. Massby's estimate that Parliament will close clown at the beginning of November and that the- elections will be held in the first or second week in December suggests that the campaign will be short and sharp, but forecasts of this natiure are liable to bo falsified. For one thing, the two main parties in Parliament are already at some disadvantage, for whereas they, .under the party truce, abandoned their pre-war organisations and party propaganda, the La-bour-Socialists seized the opportunity to develop and extend theirs. And for weeks' past Labour-Social-ist candidates have been actively campaigning while members of the Reform and Liberal Parties have been engaged in their Parliamentary duties. Under such conditions members arc liable lo grow restive, and Parliament may close its doors earlier than is at present anticipated. * * * *

Those optimistic people who have been looking forward to better times for the taxpayer following on tho close of the war will have to resign themselves to' another year at least of the existing liiprTi scale of land and income taxes. There is to be no change either in the incidence or the rate of taxation this year, which under the circumstances, was only to be. expected. It is obvious that the volume of revenue rcouired from direct taxation is not likely to be materially lessened in the future, and such relief as may be expected will come mainly from changes in the incidence of taxation and the development of production on as wide a seal" as possible. In the short time at its disposal since i':, resumed control of the country's' affairs, the Present Government could not. without serious risk of embarrassing 'the finances of the Dominion, attempt _any considerable changes in the incidence of taxation such, as would be Tcnuircd tn meet the needs of the situation; It is a safer and a sounder policy _ to go on as we have been going until there i* full opportunity after the elections for whatever' Government may be then in office to go thorouo-hb' ! into the matter'. The one thing that 6as clearly -'nd'eated by yesterday's discussion in the House of Representatives is that there is practically unanimity as to th» for a complete revision of our fiscal system.

» , # * * The -suggestion that Maori soldiers of tho Pioneer ilattalfon should be employed on railway construction work duacrves better consideration than it seems to have received as yet from the Public Works Department. Mn. Ng.wa, who mooted the idea, told the House of Representatives on Tuesday that the scheme had broken down because the Department did not realise the importance of allowing the men to work under their own officers. Apparently there was some difference of opinion also on the subject of pay. These difficulties, however, ought not to be insuperable. ' Mn. Ngata claims for the Maoris that they learned in France to work well and rapidly, and that undoubtedly they would be able to hasten railway construction on the cast coast. Considering how hard put to it the Dominion is to find labour to carry out national development works that would yield a nighty profitable return, these claims certainly outrht to he put to a practical test. The best method would be to let eontracts to the Maoris,- leaving them al 1 possible latitude in the matter of working organisation so longas necessary conditions of, inspection and general supervision were secured. If the efficiency of the ex-Pion-eers is not over-rated such contracts might easily be profitable both _ to them and to the Dominion. Taking •what measures are possible to enlist* the services of the Mapri Pioneers, the. Government oueht at the sani" time to give full heed to the still more important oucstion of u'ilisinn in the interests of national development the valuable exivrionre irained by other members of the Expeditionary Force in such matters as the consH-uction of communications over difficult country. In par-

ticular every effort should bo made to obtain the services of officers and men wi.o served in the Engineers and the Tunnelling Corps.

The endorsement by the Farmers Union of. the scheme drawn up by (he Returned Soldiers' Association fo: settling undeveloped lands ought to be accepted by the government as an additional reason for energetically forwarding that enterprise. The Lenefits offering under this form of settlement are admittedly great; the only question open is in regard to the scale on which it is capable of being developed. The Minister of Lands should supply some information on this'point as soon as possible. He has given some general assurances that the improvement and occupation of undeveloped lands wilt take henceforth an important place in the soldier settlement, scheme, and.if the prospects are as good as he suggests it ought to be possible at once to set aside suitable blocks and make a start, in cooperation with the. Returned Soldiers' Association, on the necessary organisation.. In referring to the. subject recently the Minister said that the settlement of undeveloped lands had of necessity been deferred until fit men, anxious to take up farming, returned from the front. For months past, however, the ranks of intending soldier-settlers have included hundreds of able-bodied men many of whom would be likely _ to welcome the opportunity of carving out their own holdings and assisting to construct the necessary com-, munications. The general secretary of the Returned Soldiers' Association told the Farmers' Union Conference yesterday that he knew personally of men' who had travelled the Dominion from end to end for six months and had been unable to secure any land, and that other returned soldiers who would have made excellent settlers had gone to. either • Canada or Australia. It would thus.appear that while the Government is halting in its plans for the settlement of undeveloped lands men of precisely the type needed to deal with such areafe are going land-hungry, and in some cases are even being lost to the Dominion.