TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8318, 22 December 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Iriberals are never tired of professing that they are the true Imperialists, inasmuch as they laid the foundation of the Empire by creating autonomous Colonies, says the Times of India, Bombay. How" have they interpreted that principle in the Transvaal, Natal, and now in Newfoundland? If this be Imperialism, well may one sicken at the word. As an enemy of the Imperial idea, Mr Winston Churchill has little to learn from Mr Keir Hardie.

It is stated by a domestic servant, who arrived by the Corinthic, recently, that if the wages ruling in New Zealand for servants was known in England and Ireland," many more girls would come out to the colony. The Hon. J. McGowan points out that the Government has authorised the High Commissioner to grant assisted passages to domestic servants wishing to dbme out to the colony, at the reduced rate provided under the scheme adopted some time ago, which means that a young woman would have to pay £lO to get to the colony. All information regarding local conditions would be supplied by the High Commissioner. No special instruction has been sent in regard to making it widely known that domestic servants are wanted in the colony.

Speaking in the South the other day, Mr T. Mackenzie, who represents Waikouaiti (one of the constituencies in Otago [wiped out by the new arrangements made by the Representation Commissioners), said: "I am member for the whole of Waikouaiti now, and will so remain until the next election. The future pertains to the > future. I, however, consider the political situation is fast becoming impossible. You have a Parliament that was elected to support a gentleman who is no longer here; and now you have every constituency in New Zealand altered, upset—and some obliterated —so that members are now attached to places, they will not again be associated with, and electors may reasonably claim to have lost interest in their members and to be unrepresented. You also have a measure of importance before the colony for the first time —viz., the Land Bill; so that the only way to relieve the present situation is an election, if the people of the colony are to be properly represented in Parliaments "

The Taranaki Land Board is asking for an explanation from, the Minister of Lands in respect of a statement he is reported to have made at Auckland, inter aila: "The tenants also complained that they were not allowed to transfer their leases without the consent of the Land Boards, who examined intending purchasers and required full information from them regarding their means, etc. He had heard of one case in the Taranaki district in which the Land Board, .after examining an intending purchaser as to the state of his banking account, refused to consent to the transfer, until the seller 'agreed to reduce his price by £IOO. The Bqard did not claim thg.t the price asked for was too much, but it said that, having a, knowledge of the purchaser's financial position, it was of opinion that he could not afford to pay the rent unless the price was reduced. The result was that the seller had to reduce his price' and thus lose £IOO, which the purchaser had been willing to pay. The Paris Figaro calls attention to the number of journalists in the new French Cabinet, and says that from a professional point of view, and apart from politics, it constitutes a triumph for journalism. Out of the twelve Ministers composing the Cabinet here are, no fewer than eight who have written for the press. They are the Prime Minister himself, and then MM. Thomson, Pichon, Viviani, Barthou, Briarid, Caillaux, and Doumergue, without counting two of the Under-Secretaries of State, M. Albert Sarraut and M. Simyan, who may also claim to be journalists. The Figaro adds: "It is not, therefore, true to say that, while the path of journalism leads to everything, it is jpnly on condition of abandoning it. There are people, on the contrary, who remain faithful to it after their future is assured. Besides, it is a well-known fact that the two professions which have always ruled in the Chamber are those of journalism and medicine. These two honourable professions could of themselves almost form a majority."