CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 34, 30 June 1914, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

OUR DUTY IN THE PACIFIC. It may be suggested that as the Anglo-Japanese agreement was concluded to save Britain from an increased burden of armaments, it will continue to be necessary. That, fortunately, is not so. The dominions would be outrageous indeed if they asked the Mother Country to renounce Japanese aid in the Pacific without suggesting an alternative. That i'lternative they must ha prepared to provide. They have already commenced to make compensating provision. Since the Anglo-Japanese agreement was first made New Zealand has presented the Admiralty with a dreadnought, and has increased her sub sidy; Australia has founded a "local navy;" and both countries have formed citizen armies. New Zealandl is also considering the diversion of her naval expenditure to a form which will help the common purpose of the Dominions to provide an effective Imperial force in the Pacific. The friendships which Eritain has formed with France and Russia have eased the position in the Mediterranean and in India, and the policy of the Dominions is now steadily shaping itself to make Britain so strong in the Pacific that in 1921 there will be no need to renew the alliance with Japan. The dominions are assuming the responsibilities of nationhood, and will spare no effort to make a self-re-liant British policy once more possible in the Pacific. If the forces ranged against the Empire should then be dangerously strong, an alliance between Britain and the United States, akin in race, methods and ideals, and exposed in the Pacific to the same dangers, must then become a question of practical politics.—Auckland Herald.

MATTERING TO NEW PLYMOUTH. Says the Lyttelton Times:—"The progressive band of Christchurch citizens now engaged in the good work of running an Expansion League need not be above taking a lesson from the patriotic efforts made by much smaller but more energetic communities. Taranaki furnishes an excellent case in point. A few years ago, when the completion of the Wellington-Auckland Main Trunk railway left New Plymouth in a kind of backwater no longer on the principal route of traffic north and south, some of the residents of that town met and devised means for keeping themselves before the world's eye. Some Jeremiahs prophesied the decline of New Plymouth into a sleepy little coast village, since its glory as' a passenger port had departed. But the New Plymouth Expansion League laughed at these doleful folk. It ?et to work to boom the town and the Taranaki Provincial district, and it succeeded admirably. It issued illustrated booklets and leaflets descriptive of town and country, the scenery and agricultural and pastoral industries; it made the most of its beautiful peak and its forest and rivers, and it advertised its cows and its farms and oil-wells for all they were worth, and peAaps a little more. New Plymouth and Stratford and Hawcra business people enclosed the expansion booklets with their letters abroad, and let no opportunity slip of letting the world know what a garden of Eden and El Dorado combined lay in the province of the spear-headed mountain. The results have convinced the New Plymouth people that advertising pays, and that everyone in the community benefits more or less by a liberal policy of publicity."

MR LLOYD GEORGE'S BUDGET. The Budget recently submitted in the House, of Commons by Mr Lloyd George provoked a great deal of discussion which, generally speaking, followed party lines. The Liberal view was summarised by the Star, which called it a "Broad Back Budget." Mr Lloyd George has to raise SIO I /™ millions. He does not do so by taxing ttie poor, but by taxing the rich. He puts the burden on the broad back. He gets £8,800,000 by adding 5M> millions to the income tax, 2% millions to the super-tax, and £BOO,OOO to death duties. By taking a million from the sinking fund the Chancellor balances the total expenditure of 210% millions. The increase in the income tax does not hit the poor man, and the richer he is, the harder it hits him. Thus an income of £.100,000 a year will under the new taxation pay a yearly income of £18,039." "Are you the father of a family, and is your income less than £SOO a year? If so, there is good news for you," said the Daily Mirror. "Is your income £3OOO a year! If so, you will probably be .slightly perturbed, for vour income tax will cost you more."