CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 285, 29 May 1912, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD. The fact that it is exactly fifty years ago since Edward Gibbon Wakefield died in Wellington is recalled by the New Zealand Herald. The paper remarks: As yet no public monument or memorial has 1 been raised to the man who rendered such conspicuous service to the cause of colonisation, and who is rightly regarded as the real founder of the colony of New Zealand. Happily this reproach will shortly be removed. It is, indeed, remarkable that so great a man should have found such small honor in a State which owes its very being to him. His name is seldom heard, his labors forHe rests in a grave which only the curious know or care to visit. Wakefield, a compound of paradoxes, has achieved the great paradox of life; a success so complete and so lasting that the world forgets he ever fought. It is, however, time our national conscience pricked us. No lapse of years can bar the debt we owe to Wakefield, and common gratitude should urge us to make some public acknowledgment of it which will keep fresh his memory among us, and prompt, perhaps, later generations to read the story of a life devoted to the advancement of the public good, for while Wakefield has a just claim to fame throughout all the oversea dominions, he has a special and peculiar title to public recognition in New Zealand.

CITY TIRED OF SOCIALISM. After two years of Socialist government the city of Milwaukee (says the New York correspondent of the Daily Mail) has returned to the capitalistic fold. The vote in favor of the overthrow of Mr. Seidel, the Socialist mayor, and the Socialist municipal council was overwhelming. Altogether 73,000 citizens—l4,ooo more than two year 3 ago—went to the polls, and elected Dr. Gerhard Bading, an independent candidate, mayor l>y a majority of 12,972. The final stages of the campaign witnessed an outbreak of frenzied patriotism among the non-So-cialist voters, who everwhere waved the Stars and 'Stripes, declaring the result to he the victory of the national flag over the red flag. The Socialists intensified the opposition .to their regime by ostentatiously leaving a public meeting at which the Stars and Stripes were unfurled, and by proclaiming through the party organ that 'Tatriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." Milwaukee is a city of 375,000 inhabitants, in Wisconsin. In April, 1910, it elected Emil Seidel, one of the foremost of American Socialists, as its mayor. He announced that he Would apply Marx's doctrines, prophesied a lavish scheme of public works, and prophesied that unemployment would vanish from the city. To provide funds for these public works the rates were increased by £90,000 in 1910 and by £IB,OOO in 'l9ll. At the same time expenditure on public services which employed comparatively little labor was cut down, and workers in those services were required to work for longer hours. As the result of this experiment, in 1911 20,000 men were reported out of work by the trade unions. The Associted Charities' Society declared that there was greater suffering among the poor than in former years. The high rates led to an exodus of working men from the city to live in towns where there was less Socialism and more employment. A further increase in the rates was threatened this year. Both political parties in the city, however, combined in February last in a campaign to drive out the Socialists.