CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 29, 24 June 1914, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

NO BENEFIT. It is a common complaint that many of the articles which Mr Seddon and Sir Joseph Ward placed on the free list or admitted under a lower duty have not been correspondingly "reduced in price, and Mr Ell, who was largely instrumental in bringing about the revisions of the Customs Tariff, should follow up his good work by asking for a return showing exactly how the removal and reduction of duties have affected the retailers' charges. Statements made at a meeting of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce give some color to a wide spred suspicion that the consumers are not deriving all the benefit they should from the Government's sacrifice of reTimes.

THE PARTY SYSTEM. The Southland Times says there is a group of members, if not an actual majority, who have been disgusted with the degradation of politics by the party system and who would support any proposal which offered them escape from its toils. The wonder is that so many intelligent men are content year after year not only to consent to a condition of things which is revolting to them, but to lend themselves to the abuses of a system which they know to be inimical to the interests of the country. Tho members in tlie Houbb who are opposed to the party system and who favor the elective executive are numerous enough to turn the balance of votes, and if they would only sink party interests for the time being they could force any Government to make an end of the party system and give the elective executive a trial. Nothing prevents them from taking action, but a deep-rooted distaste for interference with hoary custom. ,

CHINESE IN JAVA. The Asiatic overflow into' the islands of Sumatra and Java was referred to last week by Mr Robert J. Walker, the first member of the British Association to reach Australia. "I was enormously struck," says Mr Walker, "with the preponderance of Chinese and natives in Sumatra and Java. In Batavia and other towns, the wealthiest citizens are apparently the Chinese, who own motor ears and houses, and live quite in the European style." Mr Walker added that when in Java he spolce to one of the Dutch generals of the fact that Holland, which jowned the country, was so small and had a population fit for colonising. How was it? The general replied that tlw good business prospects in Holland prevented any system o; general immigration. The result that Holland's colonising power was certainly not increasing. "There is no doubt," said Mr Walker, "that the Asiatic overflow south is a coming question." 'II Walker visited the tea plantations in Java, where black tabor, toeing so clum the residents can compete with almost any tea-growing country in the world. Their crops, he said, are nearly double per acre those grown in other countries.

SETTING THE WORLD RIGHL The voices .of those who have got schemes for setting the world right, who have devised plans for unlifting mankind and advancing civilisation make a perfect babel in the land. One result is that the faddists and agitators generally neutralise each other's efforts' to accomplish anything. It is better that it should be so. To suggest that public opinion should steel itself to deal more harshly with "reformers" who cause a certain amount of public inconvenience by imposing on the tolerance of the comunity, is asking something that is quite impossible and unreasonable. Strikers, suffragettes, misguided philanthropists, eugenists, free-traders, antivaceinationists, anti-militarists, and persons who want to abolish capital or corporal punishment, may be a nuisance, but it is better to put up with tliem than vindicate the virility of the community by adopting forcible measures /or the.ir suppression. A nuisance is not necessarily a danger to the community, although many people speak and act as if it were.—Christchurch Sun.

■ MARGARINE COMPETITION. A good deal has been said lately concerning the feasibility of using the cocoanut to provide the basis of a vegetable butter, but even if this proves practicable manufacturers will again be faced with the limitation of supply.' The cocoanut is a tropical plant and flourishes only on low-lying ground near the sea. The amount of land so situated with the required climate is ve?y limited in extent, and the area available for cocoanut growing will never be entirely dedicated to that purpose, for there are other crops which can best be grown on the same land. Sugar cane, maize, cotton and coffee are as important as the cocoanut and cannot be dispensed with. The price of copra has risen £lO per ton in the past ten years, and copra is already in such short supply that soap manufacturers are seeking a substitute. The truth is that the manufacture of margarine is an expedient to supplement the supply of butter. The two articles are not really competitive, and if they were, the output of margarine could indefinitely increased. The dairying industry in New Zealand is in no way threatened by the margarine factories of the Northlands if the industry is maintained at the standard which gives butter its reputation for being a finer food. There is more danger from the operations of those who produce inferior butter and thus bring the superior article into disrepute on foreign markets.—Auckland Herald.