Rangitikei Advocate. MONDAY, MARCH 2, 1908 EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9085, 2 March 1908, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. MONDAY, MARCH 2, 1908 EDITORIAL NOTES.

IN connection with the alleged overwork of Ministers the Press remarks : “The whole trouble would bo avoided if Ministers would be content to direct the affairs of the country and leave the details to their Departmental officers. Instead of adopting this common-seuso course, Ministers seem to enjoy being approached on the meat trival details. Sir Joseph Ward has lately been travelling through the length and breadthj of the Auckland province, listening for hoars on end to deputations, mostly on unimportant details that any subordinate could have fixed up. At Huutly, for instance, Sir Joseph Ward was asked to arrange for a daily deliver} 7 of letters and the erection of two pillar boxes; Morrinsville wanted a telephone exchange, for which twenty-nine subscribers had been obtained, a registrar’s office, a rifle range, and a grant for the now Town'Board; Te Aroha, ‘where deputations on local matters occupied the Premier to a late hour at night’, the claims of the township to have a new post office and a few other 'filings were impressed upon him. Waikato asked, and was promised, telephonic communication with Waihi, and the appointment of a letter carrier had to be discussed, while Waihi’s batch of requests included a grant for the Volunteer Kali, and involved Sir Joseph’s personal inspection of the post office. At Paeroa he gave ear to a petition for a school at Komata North, and a branch telegraph office, and a Karangahake deputation urged the opening of the pest office for an hour each evening. To each deputation the Premier was courteous, aud where possible accommodating; where the matter did not concern any of his departments the petitioners departed convinced that he would do what he could for them. But what a waste of time and energy was represented in the hours he spent dealing with such trivialities. Aud how it is for Ministers to talk of being overworked when they willingly lend themselves to such a system. The reason for their acquiescence is of course obvious. It is all part of a huge system of vote-catching, and its real purpose is not affected by the fact that Ministers pretend that they do it in order to become acquainted with the needs of the country. The needs of the country are many and varied, but they do not demand that the Prime Minister shall nave to decide personally upon the appointment of a letter-carrier or the erection of a pillar box.

ACCORDING to the RegistrarGeneral the average wealth per head of the population of the Dominion in 1906 was £835. This figure is obtained by an ingenious series of calculations as follows . The total amount left hv deceased persons for the last five yeair is calculated, a five year period being taken to exclude the inaccuracy resulting from taking a shorter period which might include the deaths of an abnormal number of wealthy persons, and the amount is divided by the number of adults who died.during this period. This gives the average sum left by each adult during £the period under consideration. An assumption is then made that the persons who died were average samples so far as wealth was concerned and that those who are alive are equally well off. Thus by multiplying the average sum left by each adult who died by the total number of living adults we obtain the aggregate private wealth which on being divided by the estimated population gives the required figure for the average wealth per head. The sum arrived at in this manner has been steadily increasing, having risen "from £219 in 1895 to £385 in 1906. If the figures have any meaning it is that ..if the total wealth of the colony were divided, every man woman and child would receive £335. Considering the comparatively small number of really wealthy presons in the Dominion, the situation appears to be very favorable though we cannot but think that the very high valuations put upon land by Government Valuers do much to swell the total.

WHEN approached for information as to the strike at Blackball Mine the Minister for Labour stated that it was uuadvisabla to say anything

except that the position would re- ] quire careful consideration on the part of Ministers. Why the need for consideration? We have an Arbitration Act by which provision is made for the settlement of disputes and the prevention of strikes, so that Ministers need only sit in their am chairs and let the i’Act take its course. To hear Mr Millar talk one would almost think that he did not feel quite confident about the efficacy of the Act which only the other day he was praising. In England there is some excuse for Mr Lloyd George endeavouring to arrange a settlement in a dispute between railway employees and the companies or between engineers and shipbuilders but in New Zealand our legislation makes it quite unnecessary for such interference to taka place. Ministers are as fussy over the Arbitration Act as a grandmother over her first grandchild, which she is convinced that no can manage like herself.