The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 1913. ON HOLIDAY-MAKING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 15, 18 June 1913, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 1913. ON HOLIDAY-MAKING.

Probably the first holiday the world ever saw was when Adam and Eve held a promiscuous picnic in the Garden of Eden, long before mixed bathing was prohibited or "joy rides" were looked at askance. This was probably the ideal holiday, and a holiday a deux still remains aesthetically the holiday proper. But since the expulsion of our parents from that delightful garden, owing to an undue interest in pomology, the great world has gone •'ringing down the grooves of change" at a bat that would paralyse even a modern motor-car, and our holiday-making has 1 grown proportionately strenuous. Where Adam and Eve used to play with figleaves and the serpent that crawls on the earth, we now play with Dreadnoughts and aeroplanes that fly in the air. The transition, of course, has been gradual, but it was an inevitable form of evolution. Yesterday gave us an illustration of this, fOr New Plymouth—and New Plymouth was the world for the noncewoke up and rioted in the happiness of a great occasion. Where, after Eve's comparative abstemiousness, all the children—lusty, hearty, sturdy youngsters, too—came from, 'passes comprehension. But they were there just the same, clad in their best, even if approximated to a worst, and full of the life and vigor that inevitably endorses the virility of the race. Like Pippa, Browning's little cotton-mill girl, who had one "white holiday" a year, they were prepared and determined to compress every ounce of possible enjoyment into a recollection that would run into pounds during the remaining three hundred and sixty-four days and a-quarter. My day, if I lose but one moment of thee, May shame fall on poverty, sorrow on me—

So she sang as she wandered through the blue Italian vales, in the sunshine of a perfect day, to adventures which must ' be read to bo appreciated. It was a good deal, this spirit with which the children of Taranaki were imbued yesterday. They had come out to enjoy themselves at any cost, and it is doubtful if even rain would have damped their . T ardent spirits, for a more whole-hearted lot of youngsters it would have been imj possible to conceive. They revelled in I everything, from the giant battleship to - 4 the donkeys on the beach, and it is not at all certain that in a match between the two the Dreadnought would not have finished second. It is a healthy holidaying, for every recollection of this S sort helps in character-building. Mankind, of course, is a gregarious animal, and he loves to congregate at the least provocation. This is, naturally, purely a matter of temperament, and it does folks good, whether they are young or old, to rub shoulders with their fellows and learn that the grinding of factory wheels and the monotony of ihe shopcounter are "not all the life God fashions and reveals." Still, there are many who regret that the gentle art of "flopping" is becoming rapidly a lost art. The ' word is not in Webster, but it is sufficiently expressive. To lie. out on the sands in the sunshine with a book, or to nestle in the bush with a pipe, "far from the madding crowd's ignoble strile," constitute for many people a far happier holiday than one spent among jostling crowds in busy thoroughfares. It is the difference between Wordsworth ami Kip- <■ ling, and it is hard to say whether communion with nature or with man is 5 | the better relaxation. Still, that is anj other story, and the good people of Tara- * naki yesterday made no mistake in giving evidence of their present predilection. Everybody was happy and contented, there were no accidents to mar the festivities, and everything went as merry as the proverbial 'marriage bell. The. town is satisfied if the country is satisfied, and Taranaki can only congratu- ' late itself on having drawn a prize in the holiday tour of the Dreadnought. » GOVERNMENT BY COMMISSION. In the last few years more than 200 , towns and cities in the United States have adopted the commission form of Government. The principle of the commission plan is to centre authority and responsibility in what is virtually a board of directors for the city. Now Mr. George H. Hodges, Governor of Kansas, is proposing that the plan which has worked successfully iu cities be adopted by the States. In a message sent to the Kansas Legislature on the eve of its adjournment, the Governor asserts that Government by a two-cham-ber legislature is cumbersome and inefficient. He recommends that it be superseded in Kansas by a State Commission to be made up of eight, or at most of Hi, members, which should act as a board of directors for the State. "In common with a large and growing number of thoughtful people," the Governor says in his message, "1 am persuaded that the instrumentalities for legislation pro- ' vided for in our State constitution have become antiquated and inefficient. Our ] system is fashioned after the English Parliament, with its two houses based upon the distinction between the nobi- ' lity and the common people, each house ' representing the divers interests of these 1 classes. No such reason exists in this State for a dual legislative system, and even in England at'tlie present time the dual system has baen practically abandoned, and the Upper House shorn of its importance; and I believe that we should now concern ourselves in devising * a system for legislating that will give 'J us more efficiency mid quicker response ' to the demands of our economic and so- s cial conditions and to the will of the people." The Governor suggests that ,] the State Commission should be made up * of one or two members from each Con- v gressional district; that the members be J T paid large enough salaries to enable them !i to devote all their time to the work; \ that they meet in frequent session, and that they be elected for terms of four or " six years, subject lo recall. "A legis- is lative assembly such as I have suggest- " ed," he says, "coukl give ample time to ,l the consideration of every measure, not only in relation to its subject matter, but a to the drafting of it in plain, concise and *' easily understandable language. It S(

would be ready at any time to deal with new conditions, and to provide relief in. emergency eases; and, with time to inform itself about conditions and to study the needs of the peoplo and of our State institution there seems to be no question but what it would be vastly more efficient than our present system as well as vastly more economical." The Governor did not ask the Legislature to act on his recommendation, but he urged the members to encourage its discussion with a view to submitting a constitutional amendment on the subject two years hence.