Rangitikei Advocate. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8836, 12 June 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

AMERICA appears to be the land i of sensational trials. No sooner had the Thaw case come to an end than we began to receive reports of another even more sensational trial, in which three officials of the Western Federation of Miners were charged with having been accessories to the dynamiting and murdering of Mr Steuuenberg, ex-Goveruor of Idaho. It was alleged that revenge for former prosecutions jwompted the murder. A man named Orchard turned informer, and stated that he Ixad been promised three thousand dollars for the murder of the Governor, and that he had planned twenty-sis murders for the inner circle of the Western Federation of Miners. In any country under British rule such statements would he received wlth;absoluto incredulity hy the public, hut the methods of the Labour Unions in the United States are such as lead oven impartial persons to believe that Orchard’s evidence may iiavo a foundation on fact. A cablegram yesterday reported that the witness, after two days’ cross-examination, had remained perfectly unshaken, and, indeed, had made further revelations as to crimes proposed by the Federation. The American administration of justice is so faulty that the accused are tried rather by the public tiiau hy the Courts, and feeding runs exceedingly high about tlie case. The leaders of the Labour Unions declare that the accusation is, in the words of a correspondent of the Times, “a put up job, and a low-down murderous attack hy unscrupulous capitalists 'against workers.” The. fact remains that Governor Steuuenberg was murdered by some person hitherto undiscovered hy the police, and that the story of Orchard provides a solution of the problem. If the leaders of the Union have never employed Orchard for nefarious purposes, they should have no difficulty in proving that he is a lying scoundrel, hut hitherto they scorn to have preferred to abuse the capitalists, whom they state have originated the charges. It seems likely that if the officials are condemned by the Court on the charge of instigating murders there will he something like a popular rising, and both judge and jury cannot fail to he intimidated by the known feeling in the country. We shall await with interest the result of the trial, though if we may judge by tha'oxamplo of the Thaw case the verdict may be deferred for months, and even then the jury will probably think it safer to disagree than to bring in an unpopular verdict.

IN order to show the view of the trial taken by the Labour Party, we quote the following from an address by E. Y. Debs, the Socialist candidate for tho Presidency at last election:—“Never before has the whole mass of organised labour in the United States been so spontaneously, so completely, and *so resolutely set in ruction as it has'been by the disclosures made by the Labour press of the iniquitous conspiracy, under the cloak of law, to crush out the spirit of organisation and destroy its usefulness.by fastening the odious crime of assassination upon its official representatives and trusted' leaders. Whatever other differences may divide the organised workers of America, upon this vital point they are all agreed, that the secret arrest and deportation of

Charles Moyer, William Haywood, and George Pottiboue is not only an infamous outrage upon law-abiding American citizens, but that the sole cause for the brutal persecution of those men is their official connection with a Labour Union, whose rigid integrity, steadfast devotion and Unceasing activity to better the moral and material conditions of its members baffled all attempts of the master class to encompass its disruption and destruction.”

A NUMBER of cases of diphtheria have recently been reported in the townships along the Main Trunk Lino, and there can be no doubt that numbers of cases exist which have not come under the notice of medical men. Diphtheria, like plague, is a filth disease, aud should never occur where the sanitary conditions are properly looked after. Unfortunately, these diseases do not always attack the persons responsible for the state of affairs which gives rise to them, and as often ns not the victims suffer for the errors committed by others. Young townships which have grown up rapidly are frequently far more unhealthy places to live in than older towns, where expense has not been spared to provide a good water supply aud drainage system. In the smaller towns houses are erected as cheaply as possible, often on unsuitable sites; there is no water supply, and foul water is tlirown about with little regard for the conditions of health. The townships thus too often become more breeding places for disease, aud, but for the sunlight aud fresh air which nature provides to remedy the evils caused by man, the whole population would be swept away by pestilence. It cannot surprise us that eases of diphtheria break out in the absence of efficient sanitary arrangements, but it does cause considerable surprise that the local bodies in charge of such townships as 'Taihape aud Huuterville should refuse to Avail themselves of the services of the efficient inspector appointed by the Health Department. We know nothing of the gentlemen who at present combine the duties of Town Clerks with numerous other functions, including those which would properly fall to the sanitary inspector, but wo doubt whether they have received any training to qualify them for the performance of such multifarious duties as they are asked to undertake. The .Health Department provides an inspector at a fixed salary, aud'his services are available to local bodies in the district at a small charge—in the case of Taihape wo believe at about £2O and in that of Huuterville at about £7. We think .that those sums should willingly bo paid by the local bodies interested to free them from the anxiety and responsibility of coping with infections diseases and the bad sanitary conditions which almost unavoidably have arisen.