TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8229, 5 September 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Important proposals are made in the Lands Adminisuation Bill, wbion has been introduced and read a first time in the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales. Instead of leaving tfce Lands Departmert under political control, the Governor is to appoint three commissioners, holding offioe for seven years. The chief commissioner is to receive £1,500 and the other two £I,OOO yearly. They are to have exclusive authority to administer the Crown Lands Acts (other than the Western Land Act), except with respect to matters of policy. They are to have sole control of the department, and the officers and employees of the department. In relation to matters of policy, they will be required to make a recommendation in writing to the Minister, and on the receipt of hie decision thereon are to| carry the game into effect. Prom, time to time the commissioners will report to the Minister on the lands available for settlement, the demand for laud, reforms necessary io land administration, and other matters.

In clubs in England the best service is obtained where tipping is forhiddeu. In poorly conducted clubs tipping is allowed, but in the best conducted ones a member found guilty of tipping a servant would be liable to expulsion. The majority of clubs iu America are luxuries. Wines, food and tobacco cost as muoh in tbem as in fashionable restaurants, In these clubs, whioh have little reason for existence, tipping is permissible. Bat in England the club is not a luxury, but an economy. The English found the club, and an Englishman is a clubman because he can get at his club a good dinner, a good bottle of wine and a good cigar at less than half the cost he would pay at the Carlton or the Trooadero. In no English club is tipping ever countenanced. Men have been expelled from English clubs for habitual tipping. In many American clubs it has been found that a no-tipping rule, on the whole, bette%d the service.

Tho tobncco monopoly maintained by the Italian Goverunmnt bas proved very proflfcablo. The total revenue fop the fiscal rear 1904-05 amounted to £9,000,000, while the total expenses were only £1,900,000, and tho value of the stock employed £117,000, leaving a net profit in the operation of the monopoly of nearly £7,000,000, which was an increase of £500,000 over that of the preceding year. Thus tho net profit represents 77.08 per ceuc. of the total proceeds, a considerable increase iu the inoome and a proportionate deorease in the expenses. There were sold in Italy for domestic consumption during the year 981,0221b of manufactured tobacco, and 147,4861b were exported in pxoess of the exportations of last year. Although the annual amount of tobacco consumed by each individual baa increased by 11 grams, it is still much lower tnan during 188687, the year after the changu of tariff rates. During that year the average consumption of tobacco was 558 grams a head.

One passage in President Koosevelt's Independence Daygaddress haa been exciting much comment in tbe American newspapers because it indicates bow far be will continue bis radical policy iu dealing with corporations and "great wealth." Tbe passage reads —"This year in Congress our chief task has been to carry the Government forward along the course which i think it must follow consistently for a number of years to oome—that is, in hhe direction of seeking on behalf of the people as a whole, through the National Government, whioh represents the people as a whole, to exercise a measure of supervision, control, and restraint over the individuals, and especially over the corporations, uf great wealth, in so far as the business use of tbat wealth brings it within the reach of the Federal Government." Attention is particularly directed to tbe

words "great wealth." Some of the jndecendent newspapers declare tbat|the polioy outlined is aa radical as Mr Bryan ever set forth in the palmießt day* of bis extreme radicalism. They tbink that the passage foreshadows an attempt to persuade Congress at the next session to pass a Bill embodying his ideas about the issue of Federal licenses to corporations whose products enter into inter-State commerce. One of the independent papers is inclined to believe that the President's words mean that he will even try to obcain some legislation for the limitation of individual fortunes. It is, therefore, expected that Mr Roosevelt's message to Congress next December will be "a document of high interest, to be awaited with impatience not unmixed with apprehension" As Mr Roosevelt's term will not expire for more than two years he will have plenty of time to press his policy, probably to the of his desires. That he will encounter great oppusition in Congress, if he attempts to obtain legislation in the way of limiting fortunes by restrictions upon bequest and inheritance is, of course, certain.