The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1930. AN UNFORTUNATE COINCIDENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 62, 14 March 1930, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1930. AN UNFORTUNATE COINCIDENCE.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that we can do.

One must feel sorry for the South Island Progress League. On the very day that it urged the Government to expedite the completion of the South Island Main Trunk railway the Union Company announced that tenders were to be called for a new and larger steamer for .the Wellington-Lyttelion ferry. The company's announcement would be interesting at any time. The ferry service is something of which New Zealanders are justifiably proud; experienced travellers have said that, taking everything into consideration—speed, size of vessels, comfort and fares—it is the best in the world. It is a sign of national progress that to the two fine ships which maintain the ferry service it is necessary to add a third. The decision, however, has a special interest, in that it implies that the directors of the Union Company are convinced that the Wellington-Lyttelton ferry service will not meet with serious competition.

The Union Company is a business concern, and its directors -would not- dream of building: a ship like this, which can be profitably used for only the one kind of trade, if they were not satisfied of the permanency of the traffic on this route. The directors are convinced cither that the connection between Christchurch and Picton will never' be completed, or that if the railway is built sea transport will compete with it successfully. Those who clamour for completion must meet this development. Will the route that involves a longer railway and a shorter sea journey attract a sufficient amount of traffic in the face of the Union Company's competition? Doubtless the Union Company knows that according to the report of Messrs. Fay and Casey, two departmental officers, the time taken to travel by the Pieton route would actually be longer than that now taken by sea. The Union Company's decision is simply another plain warning of the folly of proceeding with this railway construction Avithout making the fullest investigation of the enterprise in all its aspects. Any responsible body of men to whom the Question was submitted would be impressed by the confidence of the Union Company in the future of sea transport, and would seek to know on what this was based. The Government surely will be impressed by what the Union Company is doing, especially as this forward move comes at a time when the returns on existing railways aro particularly depressing.

WORKERS' COMPENSATION. The announcement by the Minister of Labour that a Committee is to be set up immediately to consider alterations in the Workers' Compensation Act is belated but welcome. Mr. Veitch's action is in accordance with a promise made in the House early in October, but the question is much older. For some time the Labour Party, and especially Mr. Howard, of Christchureh, have been calling for amendments, and the Minister recognises that improvements are due. Last session Mr. Howard pointed out that two years previously an officer of the State Accident Department had been sent abroad to investigate the working of similar legislation, but his report had not been published. The truth is that New Zealand, which under the Liberal regime led the world in social legislation, fell behind under Reform.

OUR AMERICAN DEBTORS. If Lord Redesdale's speech in the House of Lords has been correctly reported, he made a serious blunder in referring to America's repudiated debts as connected with or arising out of the Civil War. The money borrowed by Alabama and her seven Southern neighbours who are the principal defaulters was raised solely for the purposes of economic development. Most of the loans were raised long before the Civil War, and the loans had no political or national significance whatever. The association of these debts "with the Civil War is simply an ingenious fiction deliberately circulated by the Hearst "yellow" Press to discredit Britain.

These debts, including interest, now amount collectively to about £80,000,000. The individual States have refused to recognise them, the Federal Government has declined to bring pressure on the States, and eight of them have actually repudiated their debts by direct legislation. The British Council of Foreign Bondholders has observed that this case, in which "the obligations to pay money for industrial purposes has been deliberately repudiated, and recognition, of the debt forbidden by law," is unique in modern history. As to the moral aspects of the question, the better class of Americans feel keenly the disgrace inflicted on their country by this calculated dishonesty. Two years ago a leading New York journal reminded its readers that "the honour of the nation as a whole is involved when debts to foreigners are repudiated by any portion of it." Perhaps the clearest statement of the position ever put before the Americans was made by the great Daniel Webster when, in 1839, appealing to the British banking house of Baring to assist in raising a loan for Mississippi, he declared that any failure on the part of any State to fulfil such obligations as the loan entailed would be "an open violation of public faith, to bo followed by the penalty of dishonour and disgrace." Daniel Webster opined that a penalty of this nature would be "such as no State of the American Union would be likely to incur." But this was written nearly a hundred years ago, and apparently Webster had formed a slightly exaggerated estimate of the punctilious sense of moral responsibility which in his opinion would always actuate his countrymen in their financial dealings.