TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8295, 26 November 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

After the end of n (,'rent flnr, tbe nation which has proved viotorious is always in a difficult po3ition as regards ila . defeated rival. Two courses hvo always possible—conciliation of repression; wad this is the choice that lay before England after the Boers had, submitted to her will. ' The history of our Empire is a fairly oousifteut; record of British generosity toward beaten foes, and in this flnsa England has not belied her reputation.' The Boers hare been treated with unprecedented kindness and liberality. They were featured to their lauds, something like £10,000,000 sterling was spent hi repatriating them and restocking their farms, and their leaders wore invited to take an nntivo share in the administration of the country. But the hit torn oss rhafc was at onco the cause and the result of the war could hardly be expected to die out in a day; and when Generals Botha, Smuts ami Delaroy re fmed the seats offered them on tua Legislative Council, their decision, however mistaken was due to the natural conviction that the time bad not yet come for a reconciliation between the two races. But, within tbe Inst two years events have moved rapidly in South Afrioa, and to-day wo find Botha, the erstwhile "irreconcilable," urging Boer and Briton to "join hands over the gravos of the brave men who fell in tbe war," and work togetber'in future for the good of their common oountry.

A vast amount of printed matter of various kinds for the information of iutendiug settlers and actual resi-

deuts, is now issued aunually by the Government of this colony, bat for the most part it represents wasted energy and wasted mouey. Sonao of the so-called historical treatries and psendo - soieatiflo handbooks are worse than useless, says the C'bristcburoh Press, ' beta* compiled by persons of no special knowledge ,no literary skjill, and excessively slipshod even in the use of soisaors and paste. These are absolutely misleading and reflect discredit on the Government under whose imprimatur they appear. There are other publications which give information which, is sound enough, and useful enough, so far as it goes, bat it is badly arranged, and suffers from the want ol a com petent editor. This applies very largely to the Agricultural Report i and other pupera issued by the Ag- j rioultiiral Department. It is satisfactory to know that the Govern- , raont have recognised tho faut, and it is to be hoped that the steps recently taken to appoint a journalist as editor of the department's publications will rt'sul 1 ; in their being issued in a more convenient and attractive shape in future.

The Representation Commission has reoognised the growing strength of the North Island, as it was required to do by the law which proportions Parliamentary representation to the population as shown by the pieoeding census, says the Auckland Herald. The North Island gains three seats, which will give it 41 members after the next general elections, while the South Island will fall back to 35 iuerqbers. That this is intensely satisfactory to the Northern provoines goes without saying—not beoause we have any ill-feeling towards our Southern fellow-colonists, but beoause <t justifies our faith in the long-neglected and much-abused North. We are reminded that Sir Edward Stafford, himself a Soath Islander, many years ago made an eloquent and statesmanlike plea for this part of tbe colony. Those were the days when Canterbury and Otago were tho dominant partners in our federation cf proriooes and|nhen tbe North was still struggling under the difficulties of Nativa Warn and bad communication. Southern members oomplained in the Bouse of Representatives of the Norfcb Island being an incubus upon the progress of the colony, owiug to the heavy coat of these native wars and to tne relatively small revenue it yielded as compared with the ceacef ul and populous South. Sir Edward Stafford told themjthat he was acquainted with both islands and that the time would come when it was the North which ? s would accuse the Soath of being the incubus; be cause in the North tbe greatest population and tho greatest prosperity were likely to be. How sectional and shortsighted our Southern politicians are is to be seen in tbe remarkable compuiison made by Mr MoNah as to tho attitude of the North and South towards land endowments. He said that in the Far South they favoured such endowments and had many of them, while in tho North "it was different."