NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 228, 21 June 1921, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

Tn view of pic new valuation nf the i city a special interest attaches to Hie estimates about to be presented Io fin l I City Council. These are understood to I amount to between ~C2C0,000 and .£270,000, I a slightly larger figure than last year, | the difference being mainly due to the | inclusion in the city of Miramar and I Karori. Al the same time the valmi- ! lions have been increased from .1'22,000,01)0 to -£29,000,000, or by nearly onethird. This means that if the rales arc : maintained id the present (igiirc nljoul a I third more revenue will come in than . was the case Inst. year. Whether ratepayers are to be called upon to bear ' this or any - additional burden, in con-

sequence of the new valuations, has yet to ho disclosed. The City Council is in need of funds to curry out many more or less urgent works. Ils loan is still far from being fully subscribed, and councillors may feel some temptation to let the present rates stand, and use tjie extra revenue for capital expenditure. If this course is taken it will mean a further burden on AVellingtonians. Rates and taxes are too high as it is, and if the country is to return to normal it will not bo by still further adding to the load. The proper course is to set a good example by cutting the rates down to a level that will cover the estimated expenditure, and to proceed with the programme of capital expenditure works as loan money becomes available.

Are tho people of Russia at last to bo giveu a voice in their own destiny by their Bolshevist masters? A cable message yesterday announced that Lenin had stated that a Constituent Assembly must be conceded, and that it would lie with tho people to return, a Communist majority. It is three years and a half since the Bolshevists seized tho reins and founded their “Republic of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Delegates." In tho Central Executive Committee,, which is the nominal Parliament of Russia, there is as yet not one representative of Russia’s 90,000,000 peasants. Its members consist of from 285 to 290 Communists, and from 10 to 15 Mensheviks. They are elected by tho local Soviets,, and in turn they elect the eighteen People’s Commissars, who, under Lenin, govern tha country. The elections have been carefully stage-managed. Dr. Haden Guest, secretary of the British Labour delegation, has described the steps by which a few thousand Communists have maintained their control over a nation of 125 millions. To begin with, all voting is by show of hands in open meeting, and in the background is the local Extraordinary Commission; with its cells and firing squads. Then in some towns orders were issued that only Communist candidates were to bo allowed to stand for election. 1 a others opposition candidates have been forbidden to hold •meetings, circulate'literature, or put up posters. Elsewhere again whole Soviets have been dissolved or suppressed because they elected Socialists not of the true Bolshevist colour. Under the Constitution of July, 1918, Russia is, of course, "a free Socialist Community of all the labouring classes,” and freedom of conscience, of opinion, of the Press, and of meeting is guaranteed by the Constitution. The respect paid to these "guarantees" illustrates precisely what a Bolshevist pledge is worth, and the only question is whether the proposed Constituent Assembly will Ire a bigger farce than tho present Central Executive Committee.

Britain is having an economy campaign, theva is another on foot in Australia, and New Zealand needs one badly. Sir Francis Bell, in addressing the Public Service Association yesterday, said he thought the public was becoming alarmed at the tremendous increases in the charges of the administration. It is certainly time that the public did become concerned. If there is a demand for economy at present it is. a still, small voice beside the incessant clamour for increased expenditure. ’ This Dominion is a rich and fertile country with great resources, but it has cc-ine to the end of the post-war boom, and boom expenditures will have to go. Four-fifths of the population have got into the habit of regarding the Treasurer’s money chest as a bottomless and inexhaustible source of wealth, and seldom stop to think where the money is coming from. Now, in common with most other countries facing the world slump, they will have to do some thinking—and hard thinking—on the subject. In 1914 we had an expenditure out of the Consolidated Fund of 11 millions. By 1919 we were spending at the rate of 18 millions a year, a jump to 23 millions followed in 1920, and in the financial year ending on March 31 last there was an outlay of no less than 28 millions. This sort of thing very obviously cannot continue in the face of falling markets for the primary products which are the mainstay of the country. Bringing the expenditure down will not be as easy and pleasant as running it up, but the task'has to be faced, and tho sooner and more thoroughly it is face’d the better it will be for the country.

It is a moot question how far Mr. de Valera is entitled to speak for Sinn Fein to-day. Interviewed as its nominal head by an Australian journalist, he has made a statement which abates not one jot or tittle from the claim for an independent Irish Republic. His only concession is to suggest an undertaking of neutrality with a guarantee in return of the inviolability of Ireland by America and the Dominions. This is intended to meet Mr. Lloyd George’s statement that the existence of an independent Ireland is incompatible with the security of Britain and the British Commonwealth. It does nothing to meet the British Premier’s > other point—that an Irish Republic I would mean a most bloody and bitter civil war in Ireland. Ulster would certainly resist incorporation by force — and, declares the British Primo MinisI ter, in this war hundreds of thousands of people, not only from Britain, but from all over the Empire, would hasten to take paiTi It. will be noticed that from one end of the interview to the other Mr. de Valera makes not a single refer- : ence to the very vital question of Ulster. . That omission discounts his whole stateI ment. Britain is not in the least likely to withdraw from Ireland and leave Ul- • tier and the loyalists scattered through I the south to the tender mercies of the | Irish Republican Army.