King Country Chronicle Saturday, Dec. 17, 1910. TOPICS OF THE DAY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 321, 17 December 1910, Page 4

King Country Chronicle Saturday, Dec. 17, 1910. TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The letters we published in our last issue served a useful purpose, if they only drew attention once more to the value of trees for shade, for beauty and for health-giving purposes. The Borough Council will shortly have handed over to it the half-chain of land, forming a portion of Rora street, which the Railway Department has at present within its fence line. This extra piece of land might, without interfering in any way with facilities for traffic, be planted with suitable trees, and laid out in grass. In years yet to come future generations would rise up to ble<s the city fathers (as we may then expect them to be) who first thought of the notion of introducing such a pleasant green stretch into the heart of the town. As one of our correspondents remarks, trees are being planted, in increasing numbers, by progressive municipalities. It is a common experience on the Continent of Europe to find tree-planted avenues in almost every centre —commercial or holiday resort. We have a wide expanse of road, and an avenue running out as far as the public school would in times to come be appreciated by a grateful public. j +.+

The new regulations in connection with holiday excursion tickets, which seem to have been ingeniously devised to prevent Te Kuitians benefiting by the reduced rates, have aroused a strong feeling of resentment in our midst. The only trains leaving Te Kuiti for Auckland leave at 2 a.m., 6.30 a.m., and 10.50 a.m. If a business man or a shop assistant is engaged until late on the Saturday afternoon preceding Christmas, then the only opportunity the unfortunate traveller is to be given, is to travel on Christmas Day itself, or on Boxing Day, if he does not relish the prospect of spending the whole of Christmas Day in the compartment of a railway train. Had the department granted the carriage on the goods trains which every resident in the King Country is ever urging should be regularly attached, it might have been possible to tolerate the restrictions for the shorter journey to Waikalo. But when a passenger may join the night express at Taumariinui at the reduced fares, and yet one from Te Kuiti, 126 miles from Auckland, is forbidden to do so, it points to some short-sighted plan of operations somewhere. It should still not bo too late to have the restrictions rescinded.

If Mr J. S. Palmer's theory is correct:, the legislature in its haste to get last session's Licensing Bill on the Statute Book, has opened the door to an evil which may have far-reach-ing consequences in the long run. Mr Palmer thinks the Act may bo interpreted as authorising the police to | invade a private dwelling house, if i they have reason to suspect that the j householder has—what?- given his I guest a glas-i of beer! If that reasoning holds water—we had nearly written beer—then the sooner the objectionable clause is swept into the limbo of gone but not forgotten ill deeds, the better for the community as a whole. It is a proud boast in another little island we know that an Englishman's house is his castle. Which means that without the King's writ, it cannot be invaded by any man alive, police or otherwise. We can scarcely believe that any guardian of law ami order would be guilty of such n violation of every sense of privacy and decency, but should such an un-called-for interference with the liberty of the subject ever happen, we maybe sure the day of reckoning will not be long in following. It is said that if you give some people rope enough they will hang themselves. Perhaps, in a fit of madness, our legislators have provided a licensing rope of such objectionable length as to be capable of being adapted to the summary purposes referred to in the old proverb: