TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8222, 28 August 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Speaking with reference to the proposed preferential treaty with South Africa, Mr Deakin, Prime Minister, says that his information | did not support the statement of Mr Valder, the commercial representfi.- \ tive for New South Wales in South Africa that Australia could have preferential treatment with South Africa for the asking. All that had been done up to the present was that the various South Afriaan Governments that were favourable to the convention had decided upon a certain scheme of defined preference to be granted provided that they were satisfied with the equivalent offered. The particulars of the defined preference were not available, and until they were lie could not take any aution. The Federal Minister for Customs, says the Syduuy Mail, has followed up his increase of spirit duties by Baking Parliament to agree to increased taxea agricultural machinery and implements, ranging from I%A to 20acd25 per cent. The duties are reoommended by a section of the Tariff Commission, to use its own words, "for purely preservative and defensive and not for developmental purposes." Of course jthis is protection naked and undisguised. The agricultural implement industry in Victoria, we are candidly assured, is not in a languishing conditiop. It is also reoumccended by the protec tionist members of the Tariff Commission that unless a majority of ( manufaoturets pay their workmen a fair rate of wages, the Executive may suspend tb* duties. This goes to show what the increased taxation really means. An attempted naval descent in force upon Australia, writes the New Zealand Herald, might be defeated in the China Seas or off the Cape, while if powerful Imperial squadrons could not frustrate such an enemy no local Australian navy could hop» to do so. This is sound common sense, and justifies, in our opinion, the contention that the "first line of defence" should be an imperial one. What is true of Australia, in this respect, is equally true of New Zealand. If four "first line of defence" is ever broken dnwu, and this can hardly be regiirr!9d as an absolute impossibility, however confident we may be in the iiopyrial Navy, we must necessarily take care of ourselves but the Imperial Navy affords our coasts and lour trade so much greater seourity than can be obtained by any other means within our reach that it is altogether desirable for us to assist in strengthening it by e7ery moans iu our power. For any colony to fritter away its naval expenditure iu the attempt to maintain a petty navy of its own is folly, particularly since it has been made possible for our colonials to ba trained in specially manned and officered suipa of the Imperial Navy. Buglishmen'fl' oo nre watching this struggle, says the Westminster Guzetce in an artiole on the Russian situation, need to bear in mind that in older countries it has taken centuries to solve the problem which Russia has had to deal with in a few weeks. Angryj impatience with an autocracy thus called upon to reverse fthe traditions of centuries is therefore out of place. Nor in the present welter of politics can we fix the responsibility as we should do iu any normal (society. The Daily News has published a letter from its special correspondent at Bielostok, in which the following passage oo curs:—"The Government at St. Petersburg' had no hand in the matter either. This is the view of the member of the Duma who came from St. Petersburg to investigate the affair. One ot tbem, M. Jacobsen, told me so this* morning. The Russian Government is bad and in-

effective, bat it is not diabolical' and if the Ministers are feeble, they are not fools. They are perfectly well aware tbat murder and pillage in the country will prevent their reoeiving money from abroad." The correspondent adds tbat the Government cannot be absolved from all blame on account of its lenient treatment of officials responsible for previous massacres. Jblut when the members of the Duma auquit the Central Government it is surely obvious that no outside Power can condemn tbat Government.