CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 241, 20 March 1915, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

CURBING THE PRESS. Mail it not been for publicity given to the canteen scandals fl'hich \yev<. exposed when Hie first batch of our Forces started for Home, our vo:mg men won!J have suffered a grievous wrong, mid there is surely strong j:r.t'iication for the people of New Zealand being Made acquainted with the lact that the little extras they supplied for their boys 111 fOpt were sold in t!ie canteens in place of being diitribuiul amongst tlie troops It is. imperatively necessary that the .Press should be afforded every opportunity of exposing wrongs, otner. wise there may be a repetition of the g:raft and other scandals which the 'South African campaign revealed or of troubles which are the subject ot enquiry at the present moment in Australia. Things are coining to a pretty pass in New Zealand when the Press ; s held up to the censure of the Military Censor in Wellington and tareatene'd with pains and penalties for cxaosin" wrongs that need righting. It is quite one thing to prevent the publication of news concerning the movements of troops, which knowledge migat be of assistance to the enemy, but it is carrying tilings to an absurdity for the one "clothed in a little brief authority" to dictate to the newspapers of the Dominion what tliey shall publish coneermn* other matters that the people cf New Zealand are entitled to know. If this Military Dictatorship i s allowed to go in the Press will soon be no better off in New Zealand than in Germany.— Wanganui Herald.

PITT AND SECRECY. The London Times of January lath quotes William Pitt's statement on the impossibility of inducing a people to make adequate efforts to resist a daru ger of the natuie and extent of which they are studiously kept in ignorance. After referring to what it regards as the unnecessary secrecy that has been observed during the present campaign, the London Times concludes:—"To play with the necessary nerve and coolness for such stakes we must have a full sense of the magnitude of our dangers a Sitting preparation for encountering them with success, and absolute candour on the part of our Ministers towards Parliament and the people. It is only on these terms that we can meet our dangers in the temper of mind which produces confidence, promotes constancy, and ultimately enchains victory to our side. If we have no Pitt oil the British Government benches, let us, in Heaven's name, have Pitt's spirit in our councils."

■PAPER SALES OF LAND. If the Valuation Department had been less ready to endorse the paper-sales of properties, which, again and again, take place at higher values without a single penny changing hands, the feverish spirit of speculation, which now permeates ttye community almost from the North Cape to the Bluff, would be conspicuous by its absence. We are well within the mark in saying that threefourths, probably four-fifths, of the sales that take place (and oven a greater percentage) are made largely upon a paper basis, very little money changing hands over the transactions, because the purchasers buy in on mortgage, and the vendors are content to let them do so. The. mortgage returns prove that this is the case up to the hilt. As a matter of fact, the mortgages remaining on <»he register at March 31, 1914, represented f 1<)fi,442,297, or twelve millions more than the whole of the "unimproved values" in 1903, and sixty-four millions more than the amount of the mortgages on the register on March 31, 1903.—Manawatu Standard.