THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1907. MIGHT CONQUERS RIGHT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8864, 26 October 1907, Page 4

T HE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1907. MIGHT CONQUERS RIGHT.

While the National Endowment Bill is in Committee i*: is certain to have a rough time of it at the hands of the Opposition and ths Country Party, and, perhaps, a few who belong to neither of these political sections. The late Minister of Lands, the Hon. T. Y. Duncan, has predicted that the Premier will "meet his Waterloo" over the Bill; but that is improbable. The second reading was carried bya majority of about t"'o to one, and while many of the Government supporters will he found criticising the clauses in detail in Committee, these same members will coolly follow the lead of Ministers into the division lobbies. The dread of a dissolution weighs heavily upon 'them, and conscience is not likely to make cowards of them where their seats may be in jeopardy. When Mistress Anne Page, in the play of the "Merry Wives of Windsor," exclaimed—

"O, what a world of vile illfavour'cl deeds Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year,"

she used, respecting her money-hunt-ing lovers, words of scorn, which apply with aggravated force to a percentage of New Zealand politicians today. The Endowment Bill will doubtless be carried, as the other land measures have been carried, largely because of the .£,'200 a year, and 9,000,000 acres of land will be cut off from profitable settlement for all time. For what? To produce an estimated .£49,000 a year in rentals to meet the £900,000 a year required for education and old age pensions! No more monstrous proposition was ever submitted to a colonial Parliament. But it vvill be carried. The result of Hie battle of right against might which wil? be waged on the floor of the House is a foregone conclusion. We yet to obtain a Parliament honeat .enough to translate right into