PRESS COMMENTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 May 1927, Page 1

PRESS COMMENTS.

Some of the organs of North Island opinion arc very hostile to the wheat industry because it is not a North Island industry. If wheat were grown largely in. the Wellington province the very paper we have ((noted would advocate protection for the wheat-grower as strongly as it lias always advocated protection for those industries which do flourish on its side of Cook Strait. The northern enemies of the wheatgrower are, in fact, flagrantly unfair and inconsistent. They are also, of course, very short-sighted. The temptation must he great, we admit, to tell the “consumer” on l.amhloii Quay that wheat duties and flour duties make bread dear and that the consumer is entitle to cheap bread. And apparently common sense does not stand by to hold out the counterbalancing temptation to tell the consumer that if the wheat-growing and milling industries are killed the price of bread will never he appreciably lower than it is now, and will he constantly liable to become really dear.— Christchurch "Press.”

The latest figure for the Singapore Base, exclusive of the floating dock being built for it, is £7,750,000. Toward this cost the Straits Settlement has contributed the land for the site, Hong-kong £250,001), and the Malay States £2,000,000. Whether Australia, deeply committed over her own naval unit, will feel disposed to make any snbtantinl contrißution, is not yet known. These are the parts of the Empire most interested geogrnhpically in Singapore. A’et naval contribution should not go on a regional plan. The Navy is the Empire’s, it is for the defence of the Empire, and should he maintained for the Empire. Help towards making the Singapore Base will be welcomed-, it is valuable not only in itself, but as an acknowledgment of New Zealand’s plain duty in naval defence. —“The New Zealand Herald.”

A fortunate combination of factors is now enabling Great Britain to look towards the restoration of her position as the international monetary centre. Among them are the gradual increase in the world’s production of gold and the settlement of the French war debt; but the most important is the rehabilitation of her industrial atfairs through the composing of her labour troubles, which have not only interfered seriously with her export trade, but have also been the cause of a great loss of gold to the country. The reduction of the hank rate reflects the present operation and the promise of these factors, and betokens a great economic revival all round, including New Zealand.—“ Marlborough Express.”

It is almost certain that there will have to he a washing-up of the dairy control business in Parliament, and possibly at the next elections, and it is to be hoped that it will he Thorough. Nevertheless, the dairying industry is far too valuable to be tioated merely as a shuttlecock in party politics!" After the buffeting it has received it will need careful nurturing front a Parliament which unwisely exposed it to rough treatment, and the motive of the making of political capital might well be left out of restorative measures.—Dunedin “Star.” The folly of the past has been much-over-priced land, that provided no reasonable prospects of success. Where the returns of our primary products show an increase, the result evidently has not been gained so much bv increased acreage as by the application of scientific principles, hard work, and capable management. It is an economic loss to the Dominion when land

settlement not only shows no advance, but even alarming signs of retrogression. Some solution of the difficulty is possible, and we cannot subscribe to the pessimistic idea that things must be much worse before they can lie better; that it would be better to face wholesale abandonment of holdings, and begin afresh on a new basis. That is a policy of despair wholly foreign to the eharactei of New Zealanders. “Lyttelton Times.”