The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, September 2, 1911. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1038, 2 September 1911, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, September 2, 1911. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Sir John Findlay, AttorneyGeneral, is not, as our readers are no doubt aware, a representative of the people in Parliament. He was appointed to the legislative Council, and from there was elevated to the position of a Cabinet Minister. His mental attainments and administrative abilities lit him for the position he occupies, but he has been stung by his political opponents with the tact that he hasn’t won the people's confidence. In a speech recently he said he obtained the position he now held because he was chosen for it on account of such merits as he had, and he had not solicited it. He had been told that he had not the confidence ot the people of this country. He did not wish to remain in public life an hour longer than the people wished him to be there. He would offer himself as a candidate at the general election, and after that he would either take his seat beside his leader in the House ot Representatives, or he would retire into private life, and resume the practice of his profession. We hope Sir John may find a constituency which will appreciate his merit, in order that the Dominion may retain the services of so eminent a statesman, for he soars head and shoulders above the rank and file of the people’s representatives in Parliament. Great interest will be centred upon Sir John’s fight to gain the confidence of the people, because a political Ishmael and prolessional brother, Mr F. G. Jellicoe, has announced his intention of opposing Sir John Findlay tor whatever seat he elects to contest. Mr Jellicoe is apparently anxious to put Sir John’s “ political pot ” on, but vindictiveness will defeat his object. Anyhow, some constituency is in for a lively time.

Mr Rider Haggard, the wellknown novelist, is a great believer in peasant proprietorship, and is liveliest in preaching its advantages to British agriculturalists. In “ Rural Denmark and its Lessons,” he says:—“Let us suppose that a few generations agoj a new Danish invasion of England had taken place, and that the East Anglian and some adjoining counties had been repopulated, or were dominated, by Danes, as happened in the days of King Canute. In that event what would he the agricultural condition of those counties at the present time ? By the working of the Danish laws of inheritance, and of the general customs and instincts of that people, the large estates would be broken up into much smaller holdings. All the fen and other suitable lauds would be divided among a multitude of little freeholders, or perhaps of State tenants holding perpetual lease. In every country town would be seen the tall chimneys of the butter, sugar-beet and bacon factories; and in every city great co-operative milk-distributing companies would be established. Dotted about the countryside would appear more, many more, farmsteads than are to be found to-day, each of them the residence of a small landholder. In every one of these houses and in a great number of the small-holders’ cottages the telephone would be installed. Also every village of more than a certain size would be lit by electric light, as in Denmark no small boon in the long winter season. The great cottage-question, too, now so insoluble, would have been met by the erection with the aid of co-operative building societies, of a sufficient number of wholesome and suitable dwellings, most of which would be owned by their occupiers. The railways would belong to the Government, and carry passengers and goods at about one-half of the present rates. The general prevalence of cooperation would have brought into existence great numbers of local societies, large and small, thus favouring intercourse and mutual trust between man and man. Corn-growing would still be practised to a considerable extent, especially upon the heavy lands to which it is natuially adapted ; but the number of cows and horned stock, and also of pigs, that were kept would be visited fortnightly, not by a Government inspector, but by a skilled person, probably a woman highly trained in the State colleges, who would test its milk, prescribe the exact proportions of the food it would receive, and if it were sick, how it would be treated. Moreover, there would be hospitals to which ailing beasts could be sent for a small fee. In the towns not far from the factories would stand the high schools, to which young men and women would flock to complete the education that they had begun in the State elementary and secondary schools.”