NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 196, 14 May 1920, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

Mr. G. J. Anderson, tho new Minister of Internal Affairs, enters the Cabinet after.twelve years in Parliament as a private member and a life-long experience in public affairs generally. His promotion is well-earned. He is a man of progressive ideas and should make a sound and careful administrator. The appointment is welcome also as giving additional representation to the South Island in the Ministry. We hold no brief for a purely geographical distribution of portfolios, but other things, being equal it is well that Ministers should be chosen so that the views and interests of all parts of the Dominion are voiced in Cabinet, with no undue predominance of any one province. The portfolio of Defence still remains to be allotted, and when this has been done Ministers should bo able to get down to work in • a more settled way than has beon possible pending the completion-of the changes made necessary by the break-up of the National Ministry and the result of the general elections. * * «• * The war is over, but our obligations under it are by no means done with. One of these obligations is to give a preference of employment to the returned soldier, and there is, some reason to believe that this does not receive the consideration it deserves either by the Government Departments, by public bodies, by employers, or by the trades unions. Men who were absent from New Zealand on active service necessarily lost ground in their own callings. This is specially so with those who volunteered early in the war and remained with the force until the closing stages. In many cases—if not in most—the earlier a man responded to the call the heavier have been his sacrifices. He returns after four and a half years and picks up his work where he left it. His fellowworkers of 1914 who stayed at home he finds too often several grades ahead of him, while he has to take up his pre-war position, with little prospect of making good his leeway. There are, we are glad to say, many good exceptions, but this mean evasion of the obligation to the returned men is far too common. The efforts of the .Returned Soldiers' Association to secure j.iistico for soldiers in this respect deserve the support of all right-thinking citizens. * * * * -The appeal for additional funds which the Y.M.O.A. is beginning today is one that is worthy of public support. _ In the space of ten days the association aims at raising a sum. of £15,000 for the extension of its' work in the city. The ■ greater part of this sum is to go in the purchase of the "Donbank" property on The Terrace, which it is proposed to convert into a hostel for the accommodation of about ' one hundred young men' and lads with small incomes. In its present building in Willis Street the Y.M.O.A. has accommodation for fifty boarders, but,this is quite inadequate to meet tho demand. The new premises have been selected as beingspecially convenient for students attending evening classes at Victoria College and the Technical College. To provide accommodation at a low rate it has been decided to acquire the freehold of the property, and it is desired to open it unencumbered by debt. The appeal will afford the public an opportu-, nity of showing their sympathy in a practical manner with the useful work of the Y.M.C.A. » » » • It is sad to learn that President Wilson was displeased with the way the British Navy kept the eeas during the war. Of the 'many strange disclosures in the American naval inquiry none is more piquant than this. The President, it now : appears, was prepared not only to , lay down the terms, of peace in advance, but'was also busy trying to teach the British 'Admiralty its business. We are told that he was : "unable to understand why the British experts wore unwilling to al- ' low the American Naval Department to tell them how things ought to bo done." The President's idea, , one gathers, was on the entry of America into tho war the British Fleet should become a sort of tail ' and appanago to tho American ' Navy to be dutifully wagged in accordance with any original line of j thought on naval strategy developed in the mind of the cx-school- < master seated in the Presidential armchair in Washington. Admiral Sims, the United States naval re- : presentative'' in Britain, can have j had no bed of-.roses in his en- , deavours to evolve something in the ( nature of helpful co-operation be- <

tween the two navies while at the saniej time pacifying i the amateur strategists of Washington. That he did so stands much to his credit.

* * * * The railway returns for the financial year which closed on March 31 show an appreciable decline in the percentage of net return on capital invested as compared with 1918-19. The figure for last -year" works out at 4.55 per cent, as compared with 4.65 per cent, in the preceding year and 4.C0 per cent, in 1917 : 18. This, in view of the difficulties experienced through the coal shortage last year, must be regarded as very satisfactory. The total working results compare as follow with those of the previous year: —

1918-19. 1919-20. Revenue .£4,988,632 ' .£5,752,487 Expenditure... .£3,308,575 £4,105,067 Net revenue... .£1,680,057 .£1,617,420 Percentage of

net revenue t to capital ... 4.G5 4.55 As in previous years, the North Island lines showed a much higher earning power than those of the South Island. In this island 1269 miles of railway earned a gross revenue of £3,366,330, while in the South Island 1727 miles earned £2,386,157. With about 70 per cent, of the length of the South Island lines, the North Island railways earned nearly half as much again. All possible support is thus given to the claim that the North Island is entitled to special consideration where the vigorous prosecution of railway construction is concerned In view of the wages and other demands' by which it is now confronted, and the heavy arrears to be overtaken in maintenance, it is evident that the Department is. under the necessity of speedily incrcasine its prefont revenue if it is_ to continue to find interest on its working capital.