NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 104, 27 January 1920, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

Of the seven peers of the realm who have hold the office of Governor of New Zealand not the least popular was Loud Pmjnkkt, news of whose death was received yesterday. The late Loud Plunket may be said to have been associated with _ the overseas Dominions from his birth, for although coming of an old and distinguished Irish family he was bom in Canada. Nor did his interest in New Zealand end with his departure from our shores. On the foundation of the New Zealand War Contingent Association in London in the early days of the war he took an active nart in its organisation, and held the office of president until his resignation in J917. Many New Zealanders on active service abroad encountered him in the War Continpent Offices in Southampton Row, where it was a frequent sight to see him having his afternoon cp of tea in the soldiers' tea-room. By thp denth of Lour. Plukket New Zealand has lost a firm and influential friend in the Old Country.

The new republican-rulers of Germany evidently share the Hohcnzollern dislike of Press criticism. In the cx-K.iiscr's early days the editors of comic journals who found food for anything remotely approaching merriment in (he sayings and doings of the All Highest were promptly locked up for a month or two to reflect on their misdeeds. Hkhk Ebeiit, the new President of (Germany, has been galled at being depicted as a boar by a, Berlin oair toonist, and his colleague the Minister of War is similarly aggrieved at being represented as a monkey. In marked cciitrast to old subserviency of Genuarr Judges to the lioylil will is the rebuke of the. Court to the President, A petty standard, the Judge is said to have declared, must not be set when liberal views should prevail in Germany. This looks like a remarkable liberalising of judicial outlook in Germany. On the other hand it may merely mean that the Republicans have* not yet captured the judiciary.

"Joy kimxG" in other _ people's motor-oars is a pastime in which interest will rapidly evaporate it dealt with everywhere as in Wanganni. The four youths before the Court there arc likely to have had enough for the rest of their lives <of careering about the country in appropriated cars. In consequence of their cscapada they will now have to keep out of licensed premises and abstain from- alcoholic liquor for nine months; to report to the Patca police once every month; and each to hand over £1 a. week of his earnings' for fortyfive weeks to make good the damage done to the car and to compensate the owner. This practice of running off with motors is altogether too common, and it is only by the imposition of. such penalties as those at Wanganui that the featherbrained joy-rider will become a thing of the past. \

New Zeaeaxd has the cheapest sugar in the world—when it c;ui get it. Mi!. Massbv is to bo congratulated on extending the present arrangement as regards price from March until June next. This means a rate of £23 15s. a ton at Auckland, as against the £00 a ton in Sydney which one New Zealand concern is reported to have paid lately for Java sugar. The price is eminently satisfactory, and it only remains to he seen if the sugar is forthcoming. Mr. Massey, wo are glad to note, states that the Colonial Sugar Refining Company has now eighteen months' supplies in sight. The present shortage from which the country is suffering appears to have been due to the action of the waterside workers in Auckland in refusing last September to unload a cargo of 5000 tons of sugar. It is on the waterside that the main clement of uncertainty in the sugar situation lies. At current rates of exchange New Zealand's export of frozen meat in its biggest year is equal to about one-thirty-scventh of that handled last year by the Armour Meat Company of Chicago, as reported this morning. Ten years ago the American Beef Trust had not a single works outside the United States. To-day it is in a fair way to control the meat supplies of the world. New Zealand has made a valiant stand against the inroads of this concern, but apart from losing l.he profits in handling the three or four million hundredweights of frozen meat exported annually from New Zealand—a small consideration to such a corporation—it makes no great difference to the Beef Trust's grip of the world market whether we are inside or out. 16 is extraordinary, however,.that the taxation laws of the United Kingdom should allow this foreign concern, which holds the British public's food supply in the hollow of its hand, wholly to escape the penal double taxation imposed on the British meat companies working in opposition to it in the Dominions and South America. The commercial development of the Empire on a jar-sighted and self-supporting basis is a matter on which the conservative Briton badly needs educating.

The representation of the consumer mi nil bodies charged with the duty of fixing wages and altering the cost of living is a sound request put forward by the Protestant Political Association. The consumer is the man who lias to foot Ihe bill, and it is not unreasonable that in addition to paying the. piper he should be given some small say in calling the tunc. Increases in wages arc usually met by the easy and expeditious method of passing it on to the public. So the. game goes on to the satisfaction of everybody except the public in its capacity of consumer. This state of affairs will continue so long as the consumer is content to remain a doormat on which Capital and Labour wipe their feet.

Most of the recent news'about the progress of negotiations in the American Senate over the Peace Treaty has been unfavourable, but one cf to-day's cablegrams seems to mark a change for the better. Senator Lodge, it states, announces that the "compromise conference'' has readied a virtual agreement on Article 10—the Article in the League of Nations Covenant under which signatories agree to protect other States members of the league against external aggression—and mii this announcement hopeful anticipations of a general compromise are based. As it reads Senator Lodge's statement implies that he and his followers have in some degree modified their demand for the repudiation of responsibility undo 1 Article 10. This is a somewhat sudden but not impossible variation of the recent trend of events. The llepublican Senators have been sparring throughout for political advantage and have been concerned much less flbout the merits of the Peace Treaty than about damaging I President Wilson and _the Demo- | eratic Party. It is quite possible i that they have been conscious. all along of the political clanger of carrying obstructive tactics to their i logical extreme and are now really I inient on compromise.