NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1149, 23 September 1913, Page 2

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

We are in receipt of a copy of The Clarion, the English socialistic journal conducted by Mr Robert Blatcbford, which contains a letter from a socialist in Johannesburg who signs himself “A Humble Compositor,” The letter is headed, ‘‘The Slaughter on the Rand—an eye] witness’s account,” and is descriptive of the recent miners strike and the firing on the crowd by the military near the Rand Club. The writer says : “On the crowd becoming very thick the Imperial troops fired on the crowd a volley of blanks, as we thought, to clear the streets, when to the horror of all they opened fire with ball cartridge, and murdered and wounded some 16 men and women and children ; people stood and looked at each other rooted to the ground, and before we could get over it another volley was fired into our midst, and down went ten more, a woman with a little girl on either side of her was shot through the body. Words, sir, fail to describe this scene* of murder, in hours 50 persons were shot down and taken to the hospital I saw a mother and little boy in the crowd, and in the panic the mother got on one side of the road and the boy on the other, and his cries were heard above the shrieks and groans of the wounded ; at last she rushed across to the child, aud when she got to him she was shot through the leg. Good God ! do they call that British ? You will not hear these things from your reports, perhaps, but I saw them and am willing to swear to it.” This account may be true —and we have no reason to doubt it—and fills us with horror as we read the ghastly details. But there is another side to the picture. The people were warned against unlawful assemblies when feeling was running so high. What actuated mothers with children and others in taking such grave risks and flouting such warnings ? Law and order had to be maintained otherwise with the crowd out of baud and running riot the loss of life and property would have been a thousand times worse than what actually happened. While one’s sympathy may be with the miners in the recent strike, law and order had to be maintained against anarchy.

Tin? Government has receiver! a report on the working ol the proportional representation system in Tasmania prepared by New Zealand’s chief electoral officer (Mr Mansfield), who saw _ two counts. He refers to the bewildering complexity of the counting method, and states that few people, even those c6ncerned in politics, fully understand it. He quotes the Tasmanian Premier (the Hon. Mr Solomon), who believes that single member constituencies, with a preferential vote, will be found to give greater satisfaction in New Zealand than the proportional system. Theoretically the latter system is perfect but only on paper. Mr Mansfield found the general objections not

so much of a fundamental nature, but applying more to the complexity of the count.

Much interest was awakened in Berlin by the presidential address to the Congress of German Anthropologists, delivered by Professor von Luschan, of the Berlin Ethnographical Institute. The president warned his countrymen that it they continued to practise the ‘.‘two children system” in their family life they would infallibly bring about the suicide of the nation. In Berlin the birth rate, he said, had already descended to the Paris level, and offences connected with the system were declared to be as frequent in Germany as in France. It was significant also, he said, that public opinion changed in regard to the criminality of these offences. Professor Luschan pointed out that the real reason why France had been obliged to adopt the three years’ military service system was the prevalence of the “two children system,” Should the German nation continue to practise this suicide, a three years service measure was certain to be introduced in the country. By that time France might be obliged to introduce a system of four years’ military service. The matter was so exceedingly serious that no steps that might be adopted to head away the nation from danger before it should be regarded as too drastic.