NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 162, 5 April 1921, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

Before his departure for London Mr. Storey defied the executive, of the Australian Labour Parly. He is the Labour Premier of New South. Wales, and the executive regards itself as his master. It ordered him to make certain appointments to the Legislative Council, and it commanded him to call Parliament together. The Australian Labour Party docs not urge, request, or recommend it Labour Government to do things, be it noted. Last week it .wished to do honour to the ’memory of a deceased politician, and ".instructed” the State Government to name a clock tower after him. A new executive has been chosen at the annual conference of the party. The Storey supporters, headed by Mr. Catts, put up a strong fight against the dictatorship, but they have been beaten, and the would-be dictators remain in control of the Labour machine with power to excommunicate Labour politicians who displease them. Parliament in the eyes of those who control Labour in New South Wales is merely a place where thejr decrees are registered and given effect. The people of the State, on whom they would impose their will cannot call them to account. Even the present annual conference of the party is closed to the Press. Mr. Storey considers himself responsible to the people of the State, and that it is for him and his Ministry to say how and when the Labour policy shall be carried out. The conference seeks to make him a mere rubber stamp, Mr. Storey seems to be a man of character, and it remains to be seen whether he will submit.

The state of war’ between the gnited States and Germany will have lasted four years to-morrow. Although President Harding has not announced how he proposes to end the present anomalons state ,of affairs, he has laid down two points in place of the fourteen his predecessor inflicted on the Peace Conference. Germany has been nursing some hope of creating discord and divergence between the United States and the Allies. This will not be encouraged by the President’s blunt announcement that America holds Germany responsible for the war and its cost.

However much they may rave against the butter producers of Taranaki and elsewhere at their city gatherings, our Labour-Socialist friends talk soft and low or say nothing at all on the subject in their country electioneering. It is not likely, however, that the farmers of the Palea electorate are so short in the memory as to have forgotten the attacks made on them in recent times by members of the party whose candidate they are now asked to support. The real struggle in the contest lies between Mr. Dixon, who supports the Government, and Mri Morrison, who opposes it, Mr. Morrison supports the Liberal Party, and the Liberal Party is now little more than a name. As a farming district the Patea electorate is particularly concerned at the present time to have behind it a party that is capable of watching over its interests at what all must regard as a critical time. Mr. Dixon is a supporter of the party in a position to do this, and this fact, apart from his own personal claims to consideration, will no doubt weigh heavily with electors on polling day.

Although the Indian census was only taken on March 18, the result is now available, less than three weeks after the collection of tlm figures. In 1911 there were in British India and the Feudatory States 315,(XX),(MM) people, whereas to-day there are 319,(Kiff,0(X). How the prodigious task of arriving at the gross total within eighteen days has been accomplished is not explained. When tho Indian census is taken it is nearly a fifth of the human race that is counted. There is no complete data as to the total number of people in tho world, but the latest estimates give the figure as 1,739,476,255,

which yields e, density of 33.27 human beings to each .-'ouaro mile of the earths surface. These figures, though apparently so precise, are only an approximation. In Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, China, and the Indo-Chinese peninsula, and nine-tenths of Africa no proper census is taken, and estimates more or less accurate have to be relied upon. The figures mean that for every person in New Zealand there are 1760 elsewhere, and that, whereas including the North and South, Polar regions there is an average density of 33.27 persons to the square mile, there are only 10.64 people i° the square mile in New Zealand. This suggests that this country is still some distance off being overcrowded, and also that there must be a great many people who would sooner be in New Zealand than where they are if they had the chance.