CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 217, 13 March 1914, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

DR. TRUBY KING. "New Zealand," said Earl Grey to > Christchurch Press representative, ; "through Dr. Truby King, is giving an example to the whole of the world of 1 how to save infantile life." There is no taint of over-praise in these judgments (comments the Dunedin Star). The man and his work speak for thein--1 selves Let every Dunedin citizen repeat, until he knows them by heart, , these words: "The infantile mortality rate for Dunedin iB the lowest in the world," and he will not only have fixed in his mind the most outstanding fact of the Bocial life of his own city, but he will have summed up in a few words the most impressive feature of Dr. King's life-work. The men and women of Dunodin do well to honor such a man and to welcome his return. There ar& few men to whom greater gifts have been given to fit him for the work to which he is devoted. Where so many able men fail in all walks of life is that they lack imagination. They make excellent statesmen and preachers and professors, but they have not the one thing needful. Theirs is not that imaginative faculty which glorifies and illuminates the faith they hold, and that enables its possessor to convince his hearers and to inspire them witli something at least of tlie faith that is his. Dr. Truby King, in his finest moments, can make luminous the seemingly dullest of subjects, and hold to their seats the most unlikely of audiences. Perhaps the highest compliment ever paid him was that of a reporter, who closed his note-book and, with folded arms, sat and listened for an hour to that splendid torrent of rhetoric that Dr. King rarely fails to command. Enriched 'by travel and association with men eminent in many walks of life, brimful of the newest anil latest and best in his own particular line of study, Dr. Truby King is i greater asset to the community than ever. THE POTHER ABOUT POLICIES. The community is getting better educated politically, and it is beginning to realise that there is precious little ill all this pother about policies. Anyone with an ingenious mind can easily devise all manner of attractive schemes for benefiting tho people at their own expense and for correcting their morals in State-managed institutions, but it is fifty times more important that the country should be run by honest and capable administrators. When the Liberal Party's ranks commence to overflow with this typo of politician, the novelty of the circumstance will strike the electors with such force that they will in all probability send the Liberals back to power for another twenty years. In the meantime it is better for the Dominion that they should be occupied as they are at present.—Christchurch Sun. MAORI LIFE. A lamentable aspect of Maori life in New Zealand at the present time is the lust for amusement and tho encouragement given to indolence (says the Wairarapa Age). A few years ago the natives of the Wairarapa cropped their lands and grew sufficient quantities of potatoes, maize, melons and pumpkins to maintain them during the greater portion of the year. To-day these natives, or a large portion of them, are ! content to ride about in motor cars, atjtend picture shows and race meetings, and squander the remnant of their estate in riotous living. They have no ambition, no desire to cultivate their land, no thought for the future of theli race. Under such conditions, it «asy to prophesy what the futurS will be. In a very few years the native population will become a charge upon the '

State. It is the duty of tho Covurnment, while it offers every facility for tho profitable occupation of native lands, to see that the natives are not permitted to fritter away their estate, and that they recognise heir responsibilities as citizens of the Dominion.