CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 300, 12 May 1913, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

INCREASING PRODUCTION. The Prime Minister, speaking at Ohakune, said he would not be satisfied till New Zealand's exports reach a value of £30,000,000 per annum. To this end he promises to see that native land is brought into cultivation, that Crown lands in the North Island are speedily surveyed and opened for settlement, and that roading is carried on extensively, He might have gone further and undertaken to concentrate Government expenditure on works that will increase production. The more he follows this principle the sooner he will arrive at the day of the thirty millions in exports. Every pound spent in opening Crown and native lands for profitable settlement brings the thirty millions nearer realisation; every pound spent on the Otira tunnel while fertile districts remain out of reach of markets reduces the Government's ability to open such districts by road and rail and so postpones the announcement that we have reached the thirty million mark. There is no great difficulty about the thirty millions, nor is Mr. Massey's satisfaction at its attainment to be long deferred. To reach thirty millions we have to add about 30 per cent, to last year's exports at last year's prices. If we concentrate our energies in opening the most promising of our idle lands and bringing them within reach of markets we are not looking far ahead when we fix our ambitions on a total of £30,000,000 in exports.—Auckland Herald. TOO MANY ELECTIONS. The system of holding nearly half-a-dozen elections on one day and the procedure governing the compilation of returns under the Local Elections and Polls Act seem to have caused very general dissatisfaction throughout the Dominion. The Chief Returning Officer for, Wellington, Mr. James Allen, in an interview, described the system of holding all the elections on one day as "absolutely rotten," and "bad for everybody." As a returning officer, anxious to see the voting expedited, he was not pleased with a wise Wellington elector who took a chair behind the screen to sit on, so that he might be able to study each of the ballot papers carefully, at his leisure. The Dominion sensibly suggests that, in order to simplify the proceedings at future elections, the issues should be divided into alternate years. "With the exception of the Mayor election, the other contests are biennial, and there is no good reason why the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board election and the weekly half-holiday poll should not be held in conjunction with the Mayor election ono year, while the City Council and Harbor Board elections could be held at the same time as the Mayoral election of the sue-., ceeding year. Some arrangement of this kind would certainly be an improvement on the present state of things." , THE GRIP OF MARGARINE. Mr. J. M. Muir, of the firm of Messrs Joseph Nathan and Co., who has just returned to Wellington from a 14-months' tour abroad, commenting on the somewhat disappointing prices which have been offering for New Zealand dairy produce on the London market this season, says that, as far as butter was concerned, the cause might be ascribed to the increased spending power of the people. In Mr. Muir's opinion New Zealand dairy farmers are hardly likely to see butter as high again in London as it was the year before last, the day of fancy prices, in his opinion, being over. However, prices would always be good, as New Zealand butter on quality would be able to hold its own. It was wonderful the grip the margarine trade had secured in the Old Country, especially in London. For cooking purposes, it was a really fine article. The people who were pushing the trade were full of enterprise and had the capital to enable them to boom their product, the result being that the consumption of margarine was going ahead by leaps and bounds. "I do not think for a moment," said Mr. Muir, "that it will ever materially injure the New Zealand butter trirtle, as the Dominion should always be bale to hold her own, provided the quality is maintained, but it will prevent any possibility of fancy prices being obtained again." SAMOA. According to Mr. P. Schuster, a branch manager of the Deufcsehes Handels and Plantagen Gesellschaft, the biggest German planting and commercial enterprise in the Pacific, who arrived in Sydney last week from Samoa on bis way to New Britain, the prospects of the rubber, copra and cocoa industries in Samoa were good, despite the fact that the rhinoceros beetle was doing some harm to the cocoanuts and some of the cocoa trees were affected with a canker. There was an expert at work trying to combat the beetle pest by means of a parasite, and magpies had been imported from Australia, but neither method of destruction had been attended with much success so far. Some people took a very pessimistic view of the depredations of the beetle, believing that it would ultimately wipe out all the eocoanut plantations on Upolu. He did not share that opinion. If the planters kept on experimenting they would in time be sure to find some means of keeping the post in check. Another batch of Chinese coolies were on their way to Samoa. They made good plantation laborers, but were not obtainable now at so low a wage as formerly. The wages paid to them ran up to £5 per month and their keep, the average being about £3 per month. SOLVING THE PROBLEM. Fifty families in the State of Jersey have banded together to combat the high cost of living by co-operative housekeeping. They have subscribed enough money to obtain a central kitchen with modern equipment, to employ a corps of skilled chefs, and to deliver the cooked food in motor cars fitted with heating , apparatus. There is a department of , house-cleaning, ten maids going from house to house daily, and a laundry is being planned. The expense is to be divided on a pro rata basis, and the estimates made anticipate a saving to the fifty families of £ISOO a year, besides the advantage of wholesale buying. The total cost of rent, domestic workers, fittings and motor cars is set down at £3200, while fifty workers for fifty separate families would cost about £4700 a year. The committee does not state whether any family has been selected for : the honor of first call from the daily din- ' ner waggon. '■■.,-.,.•■. v.;:.\

NEW PLYMOUTH HARBOR BOARD.

Comments the/Hawera Star:—"There has been some little friction between the press of New Plymouth and tbe Harbor Board on the subject of the rote of progress with the New Plymouth harbor works. It would seem that the people in New Plymouth entertain the feeling that progress has been slow, and the press expressed tliia view. Members of the Board, instead of taking the reasonable view that at least it was a matter of public interest, and that a civil explanation might fairly be given, chose to be resentful and offensive to the Xew Plymouth press, which throughout all trials and dilliculties has been most loyal and helpful. That, of course, is a matter of temperament and taste, and does not affect the merits of the matter. The fact is that the Board promised too muchit promised to do something in two and a half years which necessarily would take a great deal longer to accomplish. . . . Well, that time is now past, and if people are asking questions they are entitled to a courteous answer. The explanation given at the meeting seems quite a reasonable explanation. The Board has met with unexpected difficulties, and in the light of experience has modified its method of procedure. No one need have any doubt that the Board is doing its best."