Rangitikei Advocate. SATURDAY, AUGUST 10. 1907. EDITORIAL NOTES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8891, 10 August 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. SATURDAY, AUGUST 10. 1907. EDITORIAL NOTES

THE manner in which agitators from the cities are endeavouring to exploit the primary producing industries should rouse all residents in the country districts to the necessity of using their political influence to secure the repeal of laws under which such things are possible. If the agitators succeed in making the farmers less apathetic, and coinpolling thorn to act with energy and unitedly in defence of their common interests, then real benefit will follow. It is. obvious that if the demands which are now being made

aro granted by the- Arbitration Court, then the pockets of tbo producers will be plundered, - and tbo value of their holdings will fall. A result of the present agitation should be tho formation of a strong country party whoso members will discountenance tho candidature ot

any person who is in any way connoctod .with city interests. If ro- ■ form is to bo effected tho prot'ea- j sioual politician will have to go. | He is mostly a town product, though j he is not peculiar to tho towns, i The electors also will have to realise , that it does not pay to sell their j political independence for a road or j a bridge, and that hitherto they have been 1 bribed with their own money, which their trustees have ' shamelessly used to further their own political interests. The electors will have to emphatically insist that money voted by Parliament shall he spent without tho necessity of specially appealing to a Minister oxinvoking the aid of a member. They will‘have [to secure their political freedom, and make their Parliament truly representative, not merely a collection of people who only stuay their own interests and vote themselves fat salaries, and stick to office even if they have to sacrifice any shred of principle of which they may bo possessed. Tho fact that tho I farmers have hitherto been apathetic lin regard to politics is the sole reason why evils nave boon brought into existence from which tho producers have suffered for a long time past, and which are now being made to affect them in a more direct form. Years ago in this journal, when commenting on the signs of tho times, wo pointed out that tho ulainate struggle would he country against town, and that struggle i* now very imminent. Tiro fact that it is to take place is entirely the fault of the agitators in tho towns.

IN their annual report tho Inspectors of Wellington Education Board sa y ; _“The fundamental issue is that of truthfulness— easy to speak about, most difficult of all things to practise in some of tho intellectual questions with which tho teacher deals and in the circumstances m which tho teacher lias to work. Aud yet the touchstone of the noblest, aud of all memorable teaching is unflinching veracity. This it is that forms character, because it is tho expression of the sincere character of tho teacher—character as Goethe said forming character.” Commenting on this the Wairarapa Daily Times says:—“The idea of veracious children comes to ns somewhat as a shock. We are hardly accustomed to youngsters of a strictly veracious type, for it is not quite the sort the colony has been wont to breed. ‘Unflinching veracity’ is newtons as an educational axiom, but it is worth all the other school qualifications lumped together; and its injunction sounds as a special and as an original note in the Inspectorial report. Of course, it may bo said that if children arc trained to bo strictlv veracious they cau never succeed in after life as politicians ; but still it is possible to live aud thrive without being a politician, aud the ‘unflinching veracity’ enterprise will pay even with this handicap. Journalism, of course, is open to it.”

IN a series of articles in tho Post a writer, who signs himself “Nemesis,” has been analysing the public accounts, and he has arrived at tho same conclusions as those expressed in this journal diving recent years. Among the conclusions are that a large army of people have simply been living on tho expenditure of Government loans. After referring to the maimer in winch tho Atkinson Government reorganised the finances, and were finally able to announce that the unemployed trouble had ceased, ho mentions the determination of that Ministry that in future tho of roads, public buildings, railway improvements, etc., should bo borne out of revenue instead of from loan money. He then examines the hi rust Budget of Sir Joseph Ward, and gives figures to show that o\ or a million of money last year was

charged to loans which sh.ould have been paid out of revenue. He also fmds that if the alleged “surplus” of £717.825 vras deducted from amount there -was really a deficit of £289,998. This may help to explain why a Treasurer who boasts of a surplus of three-quarters of a. million has to borrow a million to make both cuds meet, and it also shows the rate at which the Dominiouotto is rushing to financial disaster.

IT is all very well for politicians to claim credit for benefiting some of their follows at the public expense, but the majority of the taxpayers are rather interested in the question of how the “humanists’■ have affected their interests. And to the majority the increase in the cost of the old-age pensions scheme is a matter of some importance, particularly when it is remembered that the colony is being plunged further into debt at the rate of over a million a year. Last year old-age pensions cost the people £814,188, the cost per head of population having risen from 4s Id in 1809 to (is 10d for last year. And as only about half the population are breadwinners the cost per head of these is over 13s. It is unquestionable that if the relatives of the nousiouers wore made to perform their natural duty, by enforcing the provisions of the Destitute Persons Act, the cost of maintaining all who really require to be aided by the fotato would not amount to a fifth of the sum. But, of course, the politician who advocated justice in tins connection would lose votes, and practically public money is being squandered to keep politicians in power.