NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 1, 26 September 1921, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

Air. Downlo Stowart’s Motor Vehicles Bill provides ths basis for m up-to-date control of motor traffic that is sadly lacking under ths present obsolete law. Haphazard registration and numbering will come to an end, and drivers who are convicted of oft’onces—other than a first or second ofl’enoa consisting solely of exceeding a spaed limit —may, if the Court thinks fit, have thoir licenses to drive suspended and be disqualified from obtaining a new license for such time as tho Judge or Magistrate, thinks proper. This is in line with tho British legislation, and is a needed check on reckless driving. A defect of the measure, particularly in view of the present need for economy, is that apparently it will create special staffs of officers throughout tho Dominion for its administration. We fail to seo why the wlwlo of the administration cannot be carried out by the local bodies. The principal revenue will bo from the annual car licenses, and is to go direct to the Consolidated Fund, but it should be more economical to allow local bodies a small percentage for collection than to create new officers and open new offices in each province. Amendment is needed also to section 34, clause 4, so /as to earmark the license revenue fof roads purposes—a somewhat, serious omission as tho clausa stands. The amount of the license fees will .naturally bo a matter of controversy. Private motor-cars of all sizes will pay JES a year, and motor-cycles, with or without side-cars, £l. Until tho tyre itiity under the revised tariff is known motorists will not bo able to assess their total burdens, but tho jump from AT to a universal £5 fee is too sweeping. British manufacturers are working persistently on' a light, runabout with four, wheels which shall bo as cheap fo run as a motor-cycle and side-ear. This fourth wheel will cost enterprising motor-cyclists -C4 a year in taxation, as much for a. 3J cwt. cy4le-cnr as for the Heaviest CD Tiorse-power, ton and a half, seven-seater. A graduation of some kind is desirable unless tho license fee is reduced to a nominal amount and tho tyre tax relied on for the main revenue.

The agenda paper for tho Washington Conference is brief, briefer even than tho story of the creation in the Book of Genesis. It is really the agenda paper for tho creation of a new world, and tile questioiiTs how far it will bo possible lo reach any agreement that is worth while under the six headings set out. The most impracticable of the bunch is the proposed rule for the limitation of now agencies of warfare. The man who invented bows and arrows was no doubt regarded as an outrageous monster of inhumanity by the people who did not. possess them, and so it will bo until the end of "the piece. Warfare is a sorry business, and all nations should beware of entry into it, but when it comes to a case of killing the other man or being killpd by him, tho chances of a strict observance of hampering rules are small. The objective of each fiido is to kill as many as possible of the other side and 'frighten as many more as it cart, and if Tt can discover some death-dealing agency that bears about tho same relation to firearms Jhat firearms do to bows and arrows it is difficult to see how it could be deterred from using it if the alternative wns its own annihilation, fi he project "foF limiting land onnamente is scarcely’ more practicable. Far tho larg. ost land *.rmy in iho world to-day is maintained by France, and the United States has intimated in the plainest way that it will not do a hand’s turn to relievo France from the dangers that threaten her in Europe. Tho size of Britain's army depends on what happens in India, Egypt, and other places, and is scarcely likely to be decisively regulated by the views of Washington. And so with the other nations. On the naval side the chances are distinctly brighter, unless tjio various parties feel that having made the great concession of agreeing to sit at the conference table they can scarcely £> expected to concede anything more.

A second woman member has bean elected to the House, of Commons, and, strangely enough, as successor to her husband, as in tho case of Lady Astor. Lady Astor stood for the Plymouth seat vacated by her husband when he succeeded to the; family peerage. Mrs. Wintringham contested the Louth seat following tho vacancy created by Mr. 'Wintringham’s sudden death. It was probably tho largo sympathy vote which carried the day, and woman has still to win her footing in tho British Legislature without adventitious aids. Britain, the United States, and Germany have now their women legislators. Lady Astor in the House of Commons is sprightly and witty, a forceful supporter of such measures as tho Plumage Bill, to protect the bird life of <ho world against massacre for feminine vanity, and tlie Performing Animals Bill, io abolish a barbarous survival from the Roman amphitheatre. Miss Alice Robertson, of Oklahoma, in the United States' Congress, is of ■ more solemn' cast of mind than Lady Astor. Tlie Reichstag has its intransigent Communist Indies, its Klara Zetkins and Berta Brauntals, who, ' when told that it is unparliamentary to call people scoundrels, in plain round terms, reply: "Very well, I withdraw —but they are scouniTrels all the same.”

Mountainous Albania, on the Adriatic, between Greece and Serbia, or Jugoslavia, as it is now known, is once more the scene of international complications. The Albanians aro probably the most warlike and lawless race in Europe, and though in the old days they were nominally under Turkish rille, the Albanian highlands were a hornet’s Host for the Turk or anybody else who stirred them up. At present the Ambassador's Council, a somewhat shadowy offshoot' of the. Supremo Council, is considering tho delimitation of the frontiers of Albania. A few»daye ago the Albanians were reported to liava begun the delimitation themselves by serving notice on Serbia to quit. The Serbs covet the northern half of their territory and ths Greeks the southern. ‘As tho custom cf the Albanians in general is to hit si rangers on the head, their friends abroad are not numerous. It has been suggested by some writers that the policy of the Supremo Council will bo to offer Southern Albania ns a consolation prize to tho Greeks to get them Out of Asia Minor. Serbia has occupied the northeast jxirt of the country for toms time

past, and is stated to have burned numbers of villages and put ta flight semo 40,000 refugees. On tho other hand, it has boon stated that tho only time the inhabitants of Southern Albania ever enjoyed anything approaching complete feeci rity was during the Greek /occupation from 1915 to 1917. Parcelling out such territories on ’ democratic prinolples is a difficult task when tho inhabitants have no conception of wliat democratic principles are, and less desire to apply them, except to their own advantage.