TOPICS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 126, 24 November 1926, Page 8

TOPICS OF THE DAY

The announcement made by the Minister of Justice regarding the Baume ease yesterday is one on which both the Government and tho country are 'to be heartily congratulated. The Prisons Board has been asked for a report setting out the principles on which it acts in recommending the release of prisoners, and dealing with the facts in this case and two others of the same kind. A decision which will release the Government from a false position and relieve the public mind from doubts, suspicions, and fears which, if not checked, may seriously prejudice the administration is welcome indeed. In accepting without question tho recommendation of the. Prisons Board tho government followed the apparently unvarying practice of the fifteen years that have passed since the Board was established. But the contention that the responsibility belonged to tho Board and not to tho Government was clearly untenable, and it was equally out of the question that tho public anxiety could be relieved or the public curiosity fobbed,off by an appeal to a tribunal which deliberates in secret and keeps the grounds for its decisions secret. The secrecy of the proceedings must in general be maintained, but in: cases which have attained the publicity of those under consideration every reasonable ground for observing the rule has disappeared. Full publicity has been given' to criticisms and suspicions, many of which were palpably absurd, and the rule of secrecy has merely served to enhance the unreasonable element and to make official defence impossible. A complete elucidation both of the facts of these1 cases and of the principles on which they were decided should not merely meet the present difficulty^ but contribute materially to the education of the public and to the restoration of its sorely shaken confi-* denee in a very difficult branch of administration.

Beasons for the establishment of a National Art Gallery and Museum upon a central site were advanced by the Director of the Technical College when referring to the Mount Cook National War Memorial project. He emphasised the educational value of ench an institution, especially in the development of a distinctive national art. The argument is .one which will appeal to all who desire to see art in New Zealand developed upon national lines. Students who now wish to pursue their studies in the advanced work of art are compelled to go abroad to the cities of the Old World where there are great galleries. Some of them do not return, and the help which they could give in the creation of a New Zealand art is lost. There will always be this loss until greater facilities are afforded for study in New Zealand.. The art gallery is an essential part of the student's equipment, and it is little credit to Wellington that hitherto the provision has been so poor.

"My most outstanding impression is tho way in which the remnants of the Liberal Party voted with the Government," said Mr. H. G. B. Mason in a review of last session of Parliament. Mr. Mason expected that tho two wings of the Opposition would have clung together and given mutual support; but he found tho Liberals more in line with the Government than with Labour. This may surprise Mr. Mason, but it will not surprise many of his colleagues in the' Labour Party. They know that tho gap between Liberal and Labour is greater than botweon Reform and Liboral because Labour has insisted upon making it so. Attempts to modify the Socialism of the Labour platform have been rejected by the extremists who rule the councils of tho party. Internationalism and pacifism are pushed into'

the foreground, and nationalism and defenco are out of sight. Liberals who hold the traditions of their old party can never be near in policy to a party which has no proposals for defence and which still holds to the old catchcry of class-consciousness. For the same reason the moderate voters can never give a majority to Labour till that party gives evidence' that it has a better appreciation of the moderate viewpoint.

"The poorer a country is, the greater its need to develop its scientific resources. " This sentence from the report of the Research Sub-committee of the Imperial "Conference contains a spur for the rich as well as encouragement for the poor, since the fates have so ordained things that sooner or later the neglectful rich generally 'come to know poverty. • New countries that have enjoyed the richness of virgin soils, and slothful ease in gathering the fruits thereof, reach a stage at which something has to be rendered back. Greater service has to be given by man if he is to receive the results that were freely given in the virgin period; and if this upward current in production-service coincides with a downward current in prices of produce, then the more need that the human contribution be as efficient as science can make it. The application of science to soil industries is vital to New Zealand, not because she is a poor country but because she haa seen a limit to her uncultivated richness. She is about to profit by ' adversity; her people will find it necessary to do more work and better work, for which purpose they will turn\not to the Alliance of Labour but to scientific research.