The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, February 18, 1915. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1362, 18 February 1915, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, February 18, 1915. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A oukstion as to whether the Government contemplates an increase of taxation on account of the Dominion’s war expenditure was put to the Prime Minister by an Auckland Herald representative recently. “ Increased revenue will undoubtedly be necessary,” said Mr Massey. “It is quite impossible yet to say what the war will cost New Zealand, but we must have sufficient revenue to pay the interest and to provide sinking funds for the war loans. We do not want to take more revenue from the public than is absolutely necessary ior the carrying on of the business ot the country and doing our duty to the Empire. Every increase ot taxation means lessening the spending power of the people and interfering with what may be called the wages fund, and I need hardly say that we do not want to interfere with either one or the other any more than we can possibly help. The revenue has kept up wonderfully well so far and the indications go to show that there is a probability of it remaining good right through the present year.” In reply to a further question as to the form the increased taxation may be expected to lake, Mr Massey said he could give no information on that point at present. ‘‘l can only say,” he said ” that when the lime comes we shall ask the people to contribute in proportion to their ability to pay.” Mr Massey added ; ‘‘New Zealand has felt the pinch of the war probably less than any other country in His Majesty’s Dominions, and there is no occasion for any anxiety. The prices of our staple products are so good that I believe the present prosperity will be continued right through. There is a feeling of confidence all over the Dominion. Kmployment is plentiful just at present, and the Government will endeavour to keep the public works going so as to provide employment for those who otherwise may be unemployed. The public works are now being kept fully up to the usual staudard.”

In the moment the need is for men, but for the future the need is for babies. And here the Germans beat us —as they beat the French and the Belgians and as they are beaten by the Russians and the Serbs, writes “Tohunga” in the Auckland Herald. Every year these rocking cradles of Germany give nearly 900,000 little ones, over 400,000 boys, to the future of the Fatherland. Every year our hating enemies add to their strength by almost a New Zealand tull of lads and lasses. Every five years these swarming Germans could people another Australia ; every 10 years another Canada; every century another United States. Here we have the real source ot German greatness, of that permanent and indestructible German greatness which cannot be affected by the heathenism of her current philosophy or by the vagaries of her bombastic Kaiser. From this same creative power of humanity we also must draw our strength and our endurance unless we are to perish everlastingly whatever may be the issue of this stupendous war. A hundred years ago France had double the population of the United Kingdom ; to-day the home-stay-ing British exceed the French by five millions, not to mention the fifteen million British overseas. A hundred years ago the population of France exceeded the population of the countries we now call Germany ; to-day there are twentyfive million mote Germans than French, or twenty million more if we exclude conquered provinces. For Germany’s strength is not in her vicioasuess, or in her uuscrupulousness, or in her tyrannies ; these are weaknesses which are bringing her low and making her despised throughout the

world. The strength of Germany is not in her Kaiserism and in her militarism, which only make her bandit and pirate. The strength of Germany, which rightly used would make her a power lor good, but wrongly would make her the power for evil that she is to-day, rests on the fact that her people are industrious, and that in her homes her people increase and multiply. It is the German baby which has made her potential, just as it is the Prussian creed and the German acceptance of that creed which makes brutal what might be noble and great.

“Tohunga” goes on to refer to the fact that the baby is the elementary need ol a nation and that the baby-loving peoples endure from century to century and from age to age. In London and New York, Paris and other civilised cities, women who scorned babies petted poodles, or, like Egyptians, worshipped cats. In the newest lands, as the oldest, the social organisation became designed to suit the man who ‘‘could not afford” to marry: as the birth-rate fell the marriageage rose and the celibate talked with the married as an equal or something more. We talk, like the Athenians, of many things, of our virtues and the other fellow’s vices, of our rights and the other fellow’s wrongs, of what may be and what may not be and of the heroisms of the battlefield and of the duties of those who let others defend them. Yet surely the great heroism is simply to do that duty which faces us in life, whatever it may be ; and a man’s first duty is to make a Home and a woman’s first duty is to be Wife and Mother. If war can teach us by fear of disaster and by our need for men that only by its homes is a nation truly great and only in its children is it really rich, then will our loss be turned into gain and from the very grave we shall win a lasting victory. Let our womenfolk remember first things first, money-bag superiority is pure snobbishness. The real gentlewoman does not place social conventionalities above godly motherhood. Members of our burlesque artistocracy should give the nation more babies and less of the emptyheaded scandal-mongering social functions. f '