GENERAL NEWS.

Matamata Record, Volume II, Issue 111, 19 December 1918, Page 2

GENERAL NEWS.

The smallness of the Public Works vote for railway construction has called down criticism upon the Department which is justly deserved. The great natural wealth of the country has been barely touched and the need for further development is very pressing. Yast tracts wait to pour wealth into the country’s pockets and can only do so per medium of roads and rails. With these facts in mind the vote is extremely parsimonious and shows that the habit of adopting a shortsighted policy is becoming chronic among the powers that be. The absence of modern machinery for construction work, the pitiable clinging to the antiquated wheelbarrow and shovel, and the meagre dole combine to perpetuate a “go slow ” system of railway building. It is said that only 3 miles of the Kaihu Valley section have been completed during the last 17 years. This brings to mind the story told of a Bay of Plenty farmer who when asked by an American visitor when he expected to see the East Coast Main Trunk line reach Opotiki replied —“Not during the term of my lease.” “ What’s your lease ? ” asked the the visitor. “Only 99 years” replied the farmer.

The action of the Government in taking steps to keep Meat Trusts out of the country is very commendable and will have a great deal of support. Trusts are not to be trusted. The plausible tales and the paying of high prices with which they commence operations are the invitations to come into their parlour, and many are caught thereby. The Trusts known as the Big Five aim at monopolising the whole of the necessaries of life, so that with a strangle hold on to the vitals they may utter the robber slogan —your money or your life. It is not right that any should have to depend for sustenance upon the crumbs which are allowed to fall from the tables of these rich robber chiefs. Directors of Trusts are as great a menace as the Kaiser and should be similarly dealt with. How to keep them out of this country is admittedly a difficult problem but the fact remains that if we trust the Trusts the Trusts will truss us.

The decision to appoint a Royal Commission to enquire into the causes and effects of the influenza epidemic is one of doubtful merit. A commission is usually too slow and by the time the report in which its answers are embodied is tabled the original queries have lost much of their significance. Then again, there is no guarantee that any recommendations which may be made will be carried into effect. Too often a Royal Commission report ends with being tabled and then coffined in a pigeon hole. But the enquiry will do good if it fixes the resonsibility for much that has taken place. The public need to b 8 assured concerning many things pertaining to health maintenance. It does not appear to be certain whether the health of the community is a matter for the Health Department, or the local authority, or both. Who is to be the responsible guardian must be definitely fixed, for public health is too precious a / thing to be bandied about in a careless and haphazard fashion. The facts revealed in the Commissioner’s report concerning the treatment of prisoners at the Wanganui Detention Barracks show lamentable laxity on the part of the Defence Department. No attempt seems to have been made to see how the man in charge used his power or how he dealt with recalcitrants. Defaulters must, of course, be punished but the punishment should not be such as to shock our sense of the fitness of things. So far as is known, the Department still retains in its service the man who used his power so atrociously. This seems too much like giving official sanction to conduct which cannot do less than sully the King’s uniform. Sir James Allen ought to know that even civilians are very jealous for the honour of the army and resent the presence of a barbarian.