THE WORLD'S PRESS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 154, 5 August 1914, Page 6

THE WORLD'S PRESS.

1 VICTORIA'S NEW FACTORY-BILL. The new Factories Bill is a measure J of considerable importance. It makes , the .- Saturday half-holiday uniform * throughout the State; introduces new ' gulations with respect to overtime and the employment of children under six-. . teen years of age, and in its final form 1 will probably settle vexed" questions as 1 to the maintenance or otherwise of the ' Court of Industrial Appeal iind : the ap- • pointinent of separate boards for town ? and country trades. these are all j matters of far-reaching influence, and ' instead of dawdling over them by tim--1 orous, hesitating, and half-hearted pro--1 cedure, Ministers .should strike boldly ; forward.—"Age" (Melbourne.) FEDEEAL IMMIQRATION POLICY. ~ '. A fillip is to be given to' Federal immigration policy, as the Prime- Minister ' explains, by an increase.of the advertis- ! ing vote, and a grant of £150,000 to- ■ ! wards additional assisted* immigration. \ Until recently the two governing \ authorities have been more or less - at , loggerheads oyer, their respective. :fune- [ fcions in regard to this subject. :The [ Commonwealth Parliament can legislate . to control ihmiigfatibii, biit the States ' own the land, an dottier ef ore,-alone can place immigrants. What Mr Cook contemplates is a sort of compromise arr rangement under which ..-the States will be relieved of some oversea duties [ give more attention to tlie lbcar'worlc pertaining to jiiimigraitimi^- 1 " Daily Telegraph." POSSIBILITIES OF DULL NONENTITY. Those whom the King delights,; to honour have become, under Mr As- ■ quith's manipulation of the fountain of honour, increasingly unfamiliar to the ■ public and uninteresting in their dis- . tinetions. But the list issued. to-day exhausts, we think, the possibilities of ' dull nonentity. There are, as the "Express" exclusively predicted on Saturday, no peerages for Radical plutocrats. For this small, and -un-" usual, mercy we have to thank a Ministerial reluctance to face a storm of public indignation.—-"Express." ADVERSITY AND GREATNESS. - Early adversity has been to many a useful school, teaching lessons. that wero scarce to be learned otherwise. Early affluence lias been the undoing of many fine characters and caused the waste of many useful intellects. But that is only .one side." Not only is the right man likely to win through, whether born rich or poor; there are" real advantages in being born well-off and real disadvantages, even to a future leader of men in being born poor. The boy brought up in narrow surroundings and thrown early on his own resources is often deprived of influences and experiences which „ would be invaluable to him, and which he cannot get in later years. —"Australasian." ; . INITIATIVE REFERENDUM. Can the electors now begin to per--ceive why this great reform is denouu-/' eed as an "unclean thing" by the Conservative mind? It is "unclean" cause it will make a community that is now impotent to interfere/with Parliament all-powerful over "Parliament; because it offers to make the Australian people a real self-governing democracy, instead of a sham democracy; and because it will destroy for ever the abuse of minority rule. If the Initiative Referendum is "unclean," there is nothing pure, nothing honest, nothing clean under the sun. If it is dirty, then.the j democratic principle is a loathsome and I hideous mistake. —"Age." | DOCTRINE OF SHODDY FATALISM. j Mr Lloyd George preaches a new and i fantastic doctrine of shoddy fatalism. The explanation" of his folly must lie iu the depression caused by his Budget dilemma. Having attempted a new form of bureaucratic tyranny by taxation, he i finds that he has roused universal hos- | tility and that he has overstepped the j legal mark. He may well be worried and j depressed. But that is .no real excuse for sheer nonsense and vicious irresponsibility. —"Express." PLEA FOR CLOSER SETTLEMENT. The world's market is able to take all the wheat we (N.S.W.) can send it, and remunerative demand would ensure the ultimate increase of supply up to the State's highest capacity. From every point of view, therefore, the community is losing by the reversal of the Liberal Party's closer; settlement policy. And the more immediate sufferers by it are the farmers ami settlers whose sons, when iu want of land on. which to found homes, are unable to get at the locked-up estates which now act as snags in the stream of developmental progress. —"Dai • Telegraph."