TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8233, 10 September 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

The immigration question is likely to receive tbe attention of the House at an early date. Mr Arnold, M.fl.R., has drawn the attention of the Government to statements which are being published throughout the oolony, purporting to have been made by some of the' men| reoently brought from England, to the effect that it 'was represented to them at Temple Chambers, London, * that there was plenty of work in New Zealand for navvies at 8s 6d per day; that they were required to sign an agreement to stay in the colony for a period of three years, or as a penalty for non-compliance undergo three years' imprisonment; and that the Government paid the sum of £lO for the passage of every adult and £5 for eaoh ohild. lie has given nptioe to ask whether) theae statements are correct or not, and also under what terms navvies were persuaded to come out to New Zealand.

In a long memorandum to the Prime Minister the Postmaster General has set out tbe arguments in favour of the establishment of penny postage, says a Sydney paper. He points out the anomaly of persisting in tbe 2d rate in the other States while Victoria enjoys the penny rate, and of oorapelling the residents of South Australia to pay 2d for their town letters, while in the other States onlyj Id is charged on similar letters. Xt is estimated by his officers that the loss, if penny postage were limited to the Oommonwelth, would be £265,000 per annum; if extended to the Empire, and other parts of the world it would be £300,000. In view of the experience gained elsewhere, he thinks that an increase of 40 per cent. in. the first year might be expected, which would reduce the loss to £159,000 if limited to the Commonwealth, and £IBO,OOO if extended throughout the Empire, and to other pafrtß of the world. The Postmaster - General further states that last year, for the first time the Postal Department showed a surplus, taking into acoount the expenditure on new works. '

Mr Rider Haggard, writing to tbe London Times, on the reoent "land-erabbing" by the unemployed, says that with their avowed ofcjaot -to grow iood apon soil at present producing nothing it is difficult not to sympathise. "At Philadelphia, in the United States," he goes on to say, "exists a Vaoanfc Lots Association,: which obtains from owners of building laud lyiug uncultivated in tbe neighbourhood of the city permission to put it to its natural use until it is otherwise required. This land, under oertain regulations, is handed over to tbe very poor, who grow vegetables upon it with results to their health, happiness, and pockets, that are very remarkable, as I can testify from personal knowledgd and inspection. Oould not the American example be followed in this country? There is a good deal vf. land in the immediate neighbourhood of our great oities towards whioh tbe builder advances but slowly, suoh land often lying for years vaoant and an nyesore. If through tbe kind offices of an association suoh tracts, large or small, oould be hired (or, in some instanoes, borrowed for nothing) and given over to poor persona who genuinely desire to cultivate them, no harm would be done to the property, while a certain number of the unemployed, without infringing the law of the land, might find thereon summer work and food or its value."

We are glad to iee, says the Lytteltoo Times, that the members of the Farmers' Union are beginning to realise the difficulty of Bome of the political problems which they were ready to dismiss so airily a few years ago. At the foundation of the Union they *mphatieaily declared for what one of their number styled the three Ps., freebold, freedom of contract and free trade, and for quite a lone time they seemed to think these prinoipleß unassailable. But now they have abandoned their faith in freedom of ooutraot, by stipulating that it shall apply only to their own pursuits, and in freetrade, by calling out against the proposal to remove the duty from flour. At the annual conference in Wellington one of the delegates wished to affirm "that no individual should in any way be prevented from disposing of bis labour on whatever terms he may consider of most advantage," but some of his colleagues had been reading and observing and had disoorered that the protection of labour was yielding very real advantages to the community. They could not bring themselves to believe that what was good for the bootmaker and the carpenter would be also good for the ploughman, and the harvester, but they agreed to aoaept the principle of protection exoepfc in its application to agrioultural|and pastoral pursuits. The same way with free trade. A delegate who had previously made himself rather conspicuous by his denunciation of any interference with the divine laws of supply and demand loudly asserted that the removal of the duty from flour would "seriously interfere with the profitable oooupation of large areas of tne most valuable land in New Zealand," and got a motion to tha effect carried by the Conference. We do not suppose for a moment that the revised attitude of the Union has been dictated by merely selfish motives. It is the result, no doubt, of wider observation and more mature consideration.