PRESS COMMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 25 August 1926, Page 3

PRESS COMMENT

Books that are indecent, without other merits to commend them, may be as reasonably prohibited as moving pictures that are bold to suffer from the same fault. The decision that this or that book is inflammatory should not be made in any panic spirit. Such books arc less dangerous now than they may well have been in the first days following the war. “After the great eruption, the lava is cooling.” But the moderation of the existing censorship is most strongly suggested, when we find that no mem hers of the House, except Labour members, and no parkin the country, oxeeot one party, urge any objections to it.— “Evening Star,” Dunedin.

The present situation in New Zealand in regard to the wheat gamble is not an argument against Protection; hut it is a damning argument against the unscrupulous use of it by a Government bent on helping the classes at the expenses of the masses. In short in* are seeing not the vices of Protection, I,ut the vices of a Government that is ready to pervert a system that is capable of doing such good to the whole common weijl. to the purposes of piling up unearned, and undeserved profits for its favourites. The public pay for these profits and the vices of Protection, thus created become apparent to everybody. “Southland Daily News.”

The day of honest reckoning, when the Railway Department, the country, and (he districts affected shall he called unon ito look facts squarely in the face, to ask whether any given branch has ever paid, is ever likely to pay. or promises any developmental value at all, is being postponed just as surely as when the accounts were presented less clearly. The country is to know where the money goes, but it is to go just the same, with no greater promise of eventual relief. That is the effect of the subsidy policy, and no defence of it can alter the .facts.—“ New Zealand Herald.”