NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 44, 16 November 1920, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

Those who seek to make political capital by decrying their country do not always realise the damaging and erroneous improssions their words may create among people abroad ignorant of conditions. A "Wellington resident has handed us some correspondence which illustrates how easily such misconceptions may arise. In this case there was no distorted and partisan version of things to mislead, but merely a too bald and unqualified statement of facts. A small party of Englishmen living in Liverpool and with a capital totalling about .£50,000 between the lot of them, decided to settle in New Zealand.' Romp with a view to going into business here and others to live in retirement and start their sons In the Dominion. Apparently they had got as far ap taking out passports and arranging for passages, when a bombshell fell among them and led them to believe that New Zealand was a good place to stay away from. The outcome was tho abandonment, of tho whole project. The cau'se'of their consternation was- a newspapor statement that the Now Zealand income tax had been fixed at 7s. 6d. in the pound, and that a compulsory loan was being floated at 5J per cent. "We should only bo jumping out of the frying-pan into tho fire to make a change," wrote one of these alarmed Englishmen. "Wo shall never,* he added, "be in the plight that New Zealanders are in at present." The real fact, of course, is thjt our income his i? well belo.w the British rate, and we only arrive at 7s.' Gd. in the pound on incomes of ,£6-100 a year and over. The compulsory loan clause similarly loses most of its terrors in tho light of fuller information. This . illustration of how easily fa's? impressions can arise is an example of the lasting danger it is possible to do one's country by sending abroad gloomy and exaggerated reports of present post-war inconveniences, ' from which in reality we a're suffering in slighter degree than almost any other part of the world.

t # * * The concern in the tea trade at the prospective abolition -of the Vint;? on British tea is not without foundation. A world shortage of tea was almost universally anticipated some time back, and New Zealand importers bought heavily to secure themselves, and many are said to have placed orders for more than they required with the hope of at least receiving something approaching their nor 7 mal quantities. In the end the shortage appears not to have been acute, tho extra large orders placed abroad wcro executed, and great stocks of tea are said to have accumulated in the Dominion, much of which were perforco purchased at higher rates than those now ruling. The situation facing tho tea trado is therefore one to cause disquietude to the importers, who have to look forward to the disposal of excessive stocks on a falling market. On top of this comes the clause in tho Appropriation Bill permitting the Government to declare British tea duty free ami tcv reduce the duty on foreign tea from 3d. to tie 2d. a pound now paid on British. If this is given effect the benefit to tho public will not be marked, considerable revenue will bo lost by the State, and the difficulties in which disturbed world conditions have already placed importers of an essential commodity will be materially added to. In their purchases the tea importers secured the public of New Zealand against a possiblo shortage, and it is a question whether it will not be imposing an unnecessaryhardship on legitimate business for the Government to increase tho loss they must face on their stocks by now letting in more tea duty free.

The abandonment of the hunger-strike bv "the Irish prisoners at. Cork is the completest justification for the stand Aiken by the British Government. It is unfortunate that it should have. been necessary for three of their number to persist to the end before they or theii fellows could be convinced that tuiftir threat of suicide would not open the prison doors. Mies Sylvia Pankliuvst summed up the position in a Jiutahcll-when she wrote- to Lenin that hunger-striking was now useless, ni vilie Government were letting tho prisoners die instead of releasing them. If the Government, had taken' a firm stand in the pre-war days when the Pankhurst disciples were hun-ger-striking some crazy suffragette might have died, but that would have been the end of this business of trading on tho soft-ficartedness of the British public. A ptaud had to be taken some lime or other, or tho law be made a by-word. The three hunger-strikers who died had amplo warning that hunger-striking was to be no longer a magic key to gaol doors, and that persistence meant simply suicide. • Their unfortunate and regrettable deaths seem at last to havo demonstrated to their countrymen that refus. ing food in prison offers no moro efficacious aid to Ireland uhan is afforded by self-destruction by hanging, drowning, or any other means. Chagrin at the failure of the ruse is natural, but it cannot obscure the essential facts. » » * * Even Arctic exploration is not immune from industrial unrest. All but three members of I he crow of tfic Maud, in which Captain Amundsen has been drifting in tho Arctic Ocean since the summer of 1319, have struck, demanding ,8300 a month. Captain Amundsen in his numerous expeditions must have spent the greater part of his life in fro&on polar seas. We have never read any account! of tho exact financial basis of these undertakings. The objects of those who proceed on them can. hardly i be materialistic, and wo do not recollect over having heard of any previous disputation among their members m terms of pounds, shillings, and. pence, hours, and overtime. If one immures, oneself in the Arc Sic by the year as a financial proposition—with an evon chance of permanent refrigeration—thero may be jus- ' tinoation in demanding X3OO a month for

service before the mast, especially in view of tho increased cost of living, which Captain Amundsen mid iiis two j companions must, have foiuid painfully in evidence when doing their shopping at Koine in Julv last. -Mr. Rhodes Disher i and his pilgrims are en route to Uio 1 Pacific in search of a taxless, care-freo ! islo in the tropics, but even in the virgin ico of nn uncharted polar sea one cannot, it seems. g(!t away from strikes. Man : is born to trouble. ( It is now established beyond all doubt , that disaster has overtaken General Wrangcl's army in the Crimea, and not the army only, but tens of thousands of helpless civilians who were sheltering in its rear. At its face 'value the report that the Bolshevists have captured IM,OOO prisoners implies that a very largo part of Wrangcl's army is in their hands. The remnant, with Wrangel at its head, is stated lu be making a Giiyremo sacrifice for the sake of the refugees in Sebuslopol, but since transport (to Constantinople) is available for only -about a quarter of these unfortunates, even this sacrifice will avail them little. The majority arc menaced with a repetition in modern times of the horrors of a Tartar invasion. Tlio rapid development of the disaster, and the number of prisoners credited to the Reds, suggest that General Wrangcl's forces, like those of his predecessors, must have become a prey to disaffection mid demoralisation. Observers on the spot' have agreed in describing him as a gifted organiser and leader who achieved wonderful results in face of extraordinary difficulties and contrived, while conducting a military campaign, fo iay what seemed to bo promising "oumklions for political reconstruction. The catastrophe in which ho 16 now involved creates new problems for ,tho Allied nations and evidently does not brighten the outlook for the enslaved millions in Russia. •