CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 262, 3 April 1914, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

THE ENGLISH CRISIS. Most decidedly the Liberals cannot be expected ..to give up the. principle of self-government for Ireland, nor in any way to subordinate the authority of the Crown ami the law to the politics of army officers or the necessities of the Tory party. It is rather on the other side that we must look for less unreasonableness. Let us remember that there are many eminent statesmen among the Conservatives—and that tho deluge towards which their party is drifting, the conllict which the irreconcilabies among the Unionists are courting and promoting, is the very negation of statesmanship. For the present, however, the central and reassuring fact is that Mr. Asquitli is not only to lead the democratic forces in the great constitutional light and to continue to'be the King's chief adviser, but that he is also, in the face of a threatened serious rebellion, to personally control the Ministry of War. Neither the Liberal party nor the nation could wish an abler man at the helm—Wellington Times.

A SHAM FIGHT. It has often been remarked that if the business of the world were carried on in the same unscrupulous, hap-ha/.-ard and chaotic manner as the business of Parliamentary Government, communities, would be landed in chaos and bankruptcy in very short order. If we were to believe one-half the stories that politicians tell of one another on the forum, in the newspapers, and at secret conclaves behind the scenes, faith in human probity would be for ever shattered. But the game of politics fosters no such delusion. It is, as everybody knows, a sham light and not a real battle. The scoundrel parliamentarian of to-day is the aureolcd and deeply lamented patriot of to-morrow. How magnificent the achievements of a statesman long dead! So, -when we become embittered in the strife and desirous of slittiii" the wizand of some poor deluded frail, incompetent politician who has not the felicity to see with our eyes and think with our inspired intellects, let us take counsel and remember how our estimate may be refuted by the wisdom of posterity when our enemy is long' since dead! —Christchurch News.

THE DKUG HABIT. "God only knows what the extent of the drug habit is in the I'nitcd Stales to-day," said the Rev. Dr. Hughes, speaking at the. annual meeting of the New Zealand Anti-Opium Association in Wellington. ''The clergy do not know, and politicians do not know. It is only those who work in the great underworld of New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and other big cities who know much about it. 1 have been drugged myself—they drug food, such as broad and fish, and (lowers and soft drinks are drugged, and drugging' was a. big factor in the white slave traffic. Many will ask: What has it got to do with usV lint if England was Jiccoming alarmed at the increase in the drug habit, may we not he! afraid of it coming to New Zealand! 1 Was there not a need to sound a note of warning? T would offer the. suggestion that if the opium traffic was aholished in China that we should turn our attention to the abolition of the traffic in other countries, and launch out p. greater organisation to be called the Anti-Drug Association of New Zealand. It was going to be a great field for the mure! reformer in New Zealand."