"THE SPOTLIGHT."

Matamata Record, Volume VI, Issue 474, 24 September 1923, Page 2

"THE SPOTLIGHT."

LABOUR IN EPAULETTES. After an age of silence the N.Z. Labour party, through its mouthpiece, Mr. J. A. Lee, member for Auckland East, has now declared where it stands with regard to defence matters. While condemning the " slope-arms-by-number" system of training youths as likely to make them militaristic, the Labour party is not opposed to defence but is opposed to aggression. ." Labour's idea of defence," said Mr. Lee, " is along the lines suggested by a number of eminent, men who were authorities on the question. Merchantmen could be built for commercial purposes with the peace idea dominant all the time, but they could be strengthened so that they could rapidly be turned to service in the event of a hostile attack. In that connection Labour wished to see money spent in the establishment of a mercantile fleet." This is satisfactory as far as it goes, but one could wish that the party's plank with regard to land defence was of a more substantial nature. In its present state it is one so rotten that the iron heel of the invader might easily go through it. To abolish the territorial system and substitute therefor a small body of " mercenaries " drawing trade union rates of pay is anything but an ideal solution of the defence problem. The Hon. Downie Stewart was possibly right when ho said, in so many word.-., that by setting up such a " standing army " the 1 /-ibour party would also be setting up the Joss which they wished to destroy. If that be so, then give the Jossers their way, or that particular part of it at any rate. But the fact remains that no military machine can be made effective in the time of emergency unless it rests on the concrete foundation of heath, training and discipline; all these and more than these the present territorial system provides. To suggest that such a policy savours of sabre rattling is, to put it mildly, contrary to fact. CLOSE THE GAPS. A couple of very interesting bulletins have just been issued by the Auckland Railways and Development League. The one shows all the railway lines in the Auckland province that have not been connected up, while the other illustrates more specifically the broken East Coast railway from Pokeno to Motu. As a slogan the words " close the gaps" have been chosen, the objects of the league being the assiduous agitation for the linking up of all the broken stretches in the railway system of the Auckland province. "Spot" is reminded of his school days, when it was quite common for one boy to tell another, whom he thought too loquacious, to " close his gap," and in this connection perhaps the slocjan would not. only be appropriate for the Railway League but could be adopted by many other local bodies as well. AN INDUSTRIAL SCANDAL.

From Australian contemporaries iust to hand " Spot" learns that during a recent investigation into the provision of living accommodation at Canberra, the future capital of the Commonwealth, some " astounding discoveries of how the taxpayers are being bled in the interests of public servants " were made by a Joint Pub- , lie Woiks Committee. The published I evidence indicates that in order to get ; the capital transferred to its new ■ home business methods have been flung to the winds and prodigality been pushed to lengths that would land any building society into the Bankruptcy Court within a very short • time. It is not surprising that indig- ' nant critics are pointing out that the insidious and disguised method of subsidising a comparatively well-paid section of workers, enjoying security of tenure ari'd a liberal superannuation scheme (subsidised £ for & by the general taxpayer), affords a shameful contrast with the position of returned soldier victims of Government bungling and contractors' rapacity. Just so ! While the occupant of a war service home is charged the full amount of cost and the Government resists any suggestion that roads, drainage and sewerage should be regarded as. any thing but extras, the public servant, provided with a similar cottage at Canberra, is placed in the fortunate position of a subsi-, dised tenant, It would be difficult to imagine a more outrageous contrast than the treatment of the two classes of supposed beneficiaries of Government housing schemes. If the returned soldier is to be saddled with the full amount of his obligations as a tenant purchaser—and few soldiers want to evade their honourable obligations to a generous public—why cannot the same principle of business justice hi applied to the pampered and privileged public servant? COMING NEARER HOME. That the public servant is well looked after in Australia is further evidenced by the statement that attention was drawn to the fact by the director of the Wellington Technical College at a meeting of the board of governors recently that in Australia the Railway Department had made special arrangements for the daytime education of their apprentices in engineering. No one could reasonably cavil at that. The director is reported as saying, however, that " few evening students could pive more than 10 hours a week to their studies," and further, " while there was no doubt that some boys of strong physique could, from the age of 16 upwards, do a certain amount of evening work without detriment, nevertheless ,it often happened that boys with keen brains and unusual capacity had not the physique which would enable them to undertake night work without undue, strain." Now 10 hours a week means something less than two hours a day—for home study (especially when it is of that limited nature that only 10 hours a week are required for it) need not necessarily ho done at night—and one is given furiously to think that if the director is correct in his contention—and a director of a technical college should in matters of that sort know what he is talking about—then the youths of to-day must have sure become degenerates if " with keen brains " two hours' study per night is beyond " their unusual capacity." " UNUSUAL'S RIGHT." On reading the above, remarks one is inclined to say, " Unusual's right!" "Spot" remembers, in the dark and unenlie-htened ages before the great war of the 'techs, how he and other youths, not endowed perhaps with " the keen brains and unusual capacity " of those of to-day, used to rise while it was yet dark and hasten on foot (no trams being at that hour available) through the slush and snow of a South Island winter to attend a

matriculation class, held at the somewhat ghastly hour of seven in the morning. The engineering, the teaching and the law students attending that class (the first-named startingwork, some of them, as early as 8 a.m.), after a day of more or less strenuous work in the shops, the school or the office, as the case happened to bo, used to think nothing of doing at least four hours a night home study after that. Some of them would even give up their Saturday afternoons and evenings to the pursuit of learning and a few surreptitiously would sacrifice the Sabbath to the Moloch of knowledge. Nor did they deem themselves unfortunate even though the neo-Georgian relaxations of film and jazz were unknown to them. Incidentally, perhaps that is why (hoy did not find anything over 10 hours per week study beyond the i keenness of their brains and their usual capacity. | '*'*?3.«* " ■■'■■'' ' '