NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 166, 9 April 1921, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

The coal crisis in Britain is rapidly coming to a head. In his passage at arms with t'he miners’ leader, Mr. Lloyd George maintains his insistence that the pumps must be manned as a preliminary to negotiation. As he points out, the miners’ leaders have formed a wrong estimate of the character of their countrymen if they think they can be bullied into submission. The threat which the miners make is a terrible one. It is to destroy the coal mines, on which rests the whole industrial life of 'the British Isles. That the nation will permit such destruction is unthinkable. If the miners persist in their determination the Government will be left with no option bull to call for volunteers to man the pumps and employ whatever force may bo necessary to protect them. The miners have made a bad mistake in tactics. If they withdraw from the position they have taken up they will have played their trump card *and lost. If they refuse to withdraw they will array a tremendous body of public opinion against them; they will compel the Government to steps that may involve much bloodshed and loss of life; and in the end, they will be beaten far more badly than if they surrendered at once. Any other outcome is impossible. The miners’ leaders must see this, but. it has to be seen whether they are now able to keep the men in hand.

For a quarter of a century New Zealand bus basked in the sunshine of an almost unbroken prosperity. Now that a turn in the wheel of fortune has come many people are going about with their tails between their legs, so to speak. The Prime Minister told his audience at Hawera on Thursday that all the country needed to see it through was tenacity and courage. People now in the Dominion who have been previously resident, in Australia have been much struck with the faint-hearted consternation with which 100 many people here regard the approach of a dull period. In Australia droughts hit the country periodically and disorganise conditions throughout the territory they affect. It is not a pleasant time for farmers and business people, but it is accepted philosophically. Everybody knows that matters vtill right themselves sooner or later, and in the meantime it is just a case of sticking it. Here we are so spoilt by good fortune that on the approach of a slump we almost think the bottom has fallen out of the earth. It has been said that What Now Zealand has been suffering from roost is not the high cost of living so much as tho cost of high living. If tho country has to go steady for a while and cut out waste and extravagance, we shall all be the better for it in tlhe end. It will stiffen up our moral fibre, and, .if we. arc wise, we shall discover that a surfeit of money is not indispensablo to happiness. * * * « '

Satisfactory progress at the Mangahao hydro-electric works is reported by Mr. Mitchell. The long-expected construction plant is on the ground, and will be in operation in a month, and operations generally seem to be well abreast of the time-table. The arrangements for the accommodation of the men mark a new departure on public works undertakings. Huts with separate cubicles, mess rooms, a post office, a dry canteen, change and drying rooms, and a Y.M.C.A. with moving pictures three nights a week, have not hitherto been features of public works camps. These changes are a fruit of the war. Everybody then wished to (to as much .as was possible for the men on active service, and ways and means were found of providing conveniences undreamt of in previous campaigns. Nor was it wasted money from any point of view’, for' everything that kept up the spirits, contentment, and confidence of the troops, was a factor making for victory. Now we are discovering that what was possible in wartime camps is equally possible and desirable in peace time. Mangahao is only one of a number of big public works undertakings, and possibly it may pay the Public Works Department to devise standardised temporary hutments and general camp outfit for them that can be taken down as one work is finished and re-erected on the site of the next. Whether or' not this i« economical and practicable, we shall have to recognise that the new type of public works settlement has come to stay, and lay our plans accordingly.

A great cFal of balderdash is talked on Imperial matters in Labour circles in this Dominion. First of all a special all'ei'.tion seems to burn in the bosoms of some of our Labour friends for every S.nn Eciu rullian 'who shoots a policemail. Then iv is said that Britain is oppressing the Egyptians and should retire from the country , and leave the=u people to govern themselves. In India, also, we are told that Britain should pull out, and ask Mr. Gandhi to take over the reins. The Empire is not without enemies, as Mr. Massey reminded us at Hiawera, who desire nothing better than its break-up ami collapse. The Labour Party with its shallow claptrap plays directly into the hands of those enemies. Its leaders are full of theories ami ideals. They perceive (hat Britain from time to time makes mistakes, that her rule is not flawless ami perfect'. Seeing Illis, they denounce British rule utterly. Not for one moment do they stop to consider what the alternative is. Whet would happen if Britain withdrew to-morrow from India? Wo know what a welter of war-

ring races the Indian peninsula was before the British came, and would it be a service to democracy, to civilisation, to humanity, to allow it to relapse to that state again? Most New Zealand soldiers who visited Egypt saw enough to form an idea what sort of a sink of iniquity that country would be without British rule. But it is not much use talking with some of our Labour friends. The British Empire is not perfect, therefore, the British Empire must be destroyed:. The child has a boil on the back of his neck; he is no longer whole: let us drown him —it is the same line of argument, but applied in this connection means a visit to a mental hospital.

Since they cover all but 26 days of the financial year which ended on March 31, the figures of railway working which were published yesterday no doubt afford a close indication of the total results for the year. 'The revenue collected during the period to March 5 exceeded by .£334,000 the Finance Minister’s estimate for the whole year, and shows an - increase of <£1,192,666 over the levenue for the corresponding period of 1919-20. Expenditure, on the same basis of comparison, however, increased by L‘1,488,927, with tho result that the balance of net revenue to March 5 this year was less by twenty per cent, than for the corresponding period last year. A remarkable feature of this year’s return is the extent to which the net revenue on the operation of the South Island lines has slumped. The net revenue derived in each island this year and last year is shown in the following table: — . Railways Net Revenue. North Island. South Island, v X L 1919- 996,683 496,962 1920- 930,127 / 267,257 While the reduction in net revenue was less than 7 per cant, in the North Island it was 46 per cent, in the case of the South Island lines. New and striking evidence is thus afforded of the extent to which tho North Island lines are superior in revenue-earning capacity.