NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 609, 11 September 1909, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

■ >'i»—— : ' ONE of the mo.st entertaining structive; things imaginable has been the steady retreat of tho Government ,in<3 its newspaper : supporters from their old violent: .defence of the railways administ,ration. For some time they havo liad nothing to say where onco i they overflowed - with' buoyant assertions. , ,They VWW IK>V TOTnxAxiMy \ott. to ficm, i liowovwi and just aow tioy arc rojoidug

Dvor a discovery th/ifc somebody appears to havo said he has made. This is nothing less than the gratifying fact that the long-distance trains in this country.' are really wonderfully punctual. The Govjrnment organ in Auckland has considjred the matter 60 important as rant, editorial treatment; "It may surprise many of our readers who havo been : so often assured by Opposition newspapers that our railways are hopelessly and irredeemably bad," it says, "to learn that in many ways they compare very favourably with those of the _ United States."- The chief of these points of superiority, as we havo said, is punctuality: "In New Zealand it may not be generally known that the average amount of time lost by our. long-distanoc trains on schedule terminus time throughout the year is only lA minutes." Our contemporary concludes with the ''hope that l politicians in search of a plausible pretext for maligning the Government will pay a little attention to these interesting facts before denouncing our railways so vehemently in future." We may'be very obstinate, but it _ somehow' seems • to us that the punctuality of the express trains does not disprove the raly cnargo that' we Jiave ever made against the railways administration, namely, that.it means a dead loss of some-hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. At the same time one cannot but admire the pluck of our delightfully irrelevant contemporary. The time may yet come when Sin Joseph Ward will defend the rise in taxation with the crushing argument that the clock oh the Government Buildings only loses 1$ minutes a year.' . ' Mr.Meldrum, one of the candidates in the Liberal, interest,. met at Eastown, near Wanganui, the most critical audience which.has yet assembled to hear, (iim. There are at that end of the constituency several hundred residents, including employees at the railway workshops, affected by • the election. According to report, the Government hipve numerous supporters thereabouts, ■ ■ but Mn. Hackly should' also score heavily in that locality now that Mr. Hutchison has retired \ from the contest, as those who are alive to the necessity for governmental reform also run into considerable numbers. As usual, Mr. Meldruji recounted the various Acts which had been introduced by the present Administration, but quite omitted to explain ' how much had been dono by members of the Opposition by their' criticism—constructive as well as destructive—to ihiprove the., measures as they were passing through the legislative machine. : In order to judge a Government one had, he said,';to examine/its past just as one, would do in the case of a person, and if the past had been a good one it could be taken for granted that the future would 'riot differ, in that respect. On this basis we should really, like Mn.. Meldrum to tell us what the Ward . Government has done of a beneficial nature,-and as a.setoff to "its maladministrative ;' misdeeds. Then, again,." Mr. Meldruji 'detailed, a lot of; figures' from \thc. Year Book and the .Hon. Dr. Findi-ay's .latest'circular to show the increase fcha.t .has taken place in recent years in national and private, wealth, etc. Although he did not'say sp, it is fair i to infer that he intended to try and convoy.the erroneous impression that credit in this regard, is due to. tho Liberal: party. Mb. Meldkum■ also touched upon the intentions : of the present for . the. futuro, but he did hot give tho'authority, ho, had for," his, assertions. Toy many, ■ therefore,' his statements that tho Government did ,not , intend .'to', increase taxation and, that it was really going to expedite, the 'settlement of the country must necessarily, in fact 1 of the..attitude of,' Ministers, carry, no weight. When quc?tit)d t timo'i{i¥rivcd; it.soOn became evident that there were a number 'present, who-' wero entirely opposed to tho present Administration./ It was .also' appafcnt' : from many 'of -•-'the' questions'that the audience - was'. also thoroughly .representative", of,tho numer-; ous. class who have formerly supported tho party .in poper but .have: now become disgusted at its' methods of i administration. The address .-occupied only hours, while question-time took up over three-quarters of an hour, and might have • lasted' for a considorabhr period longer had it not been for the, intervention of the chairman' and a reiiindor by. "onfc of, the. faithful" of. the time {.at,which the . last car- went. ; It seems, possible , that;- the . Government ■; may .once again havo "backed tho wrong -. horse;" and that Mr. SflixHi. who is popularly supposed to be regarded with less-favour, by Ministers, may..s6eure„ second place 'to Mr. Hoc&ly. .' ' • Many of our re.aders will doubtless re-, call their surpriio : at the/ curiously scrappy report of the Empire, Club's banquet on July 27 last that.wa:s cabled by the, Press Association,- and the-., very, lengthy report- of Sir JosErit. Ward's speech thereat which"';was sent by some unknown, person to the Secretary of the Cabinet and distributed to the press. Somfl comment was occasioned at the time, and wo took occasion to remonstrate,, against the .sending, presumably at the public expense, of a long and barren .speech, even though, that, speech might be delivered by, the Prime Minister of the Dominion. English files to hand; : confirm our opinion. ; Our London contemporaries formed a similar.estimate' to our. own of the speech. , Wc find that in the London Times 61 July 28 General Smuts is given .the .'lion's share of the two-column report of tho banquet, printed by the great London daily. His> speech was certainly deserving', of the space allotted to it. By the other British papers which we havo read the banquet . was treated as an event of-some importance, although it was not given a prominent place, amongst thi news. "OOu r -readers will no doubt be interested to know how the British press estimated the speech which was apparently deemed by Sir. Joseph to be worth cabling in full to the Secretary of the Cabinet. _ In. the Timet his'speech was given .24 lines in a 500line report. The Standard, whose report of the banquet ran to two-thirds of a column, found itself able to afford eleven lines to Sir Joseph/ " The Manchester Guardian gave him eighteen lines out:of three-quarters of a column. The Daily Mail was unable to, find matter in. his speech for more than exactly two lines. The Daily News, although its report was three-quarters of . a column in length, does hot appear to havo been awaife that' Sir Joseph 'was even present. It can hardly be said that we wero shockcd or surprised when we had completed our search. The practice of: self-advcrtise-ment which began with Mr. Seddon and has developed into'the cabling, cither at the expense of'.Ministers or the country, of long reports: of Ministerial utterances, and even rccords of their banqueting and recoptions, must' ere this bo fairly widely known amongst the public. Whether or not the public appreciate it wo cannot pretend to say. It may perhaps' serve to keep alivo that sense of humour in which our ovoning contemporary discovers constant diversion.-

The , persistence, of the residents of Oriental Bay in their endeavour to preserve to the public the strip of sea-front, at the Bay, which has been a popular, juvenile resort for so many years past, is'really very commendable. As a rule, public agitations on such questions have an unfortunate habit of exhausting themselves in a violent outburst. .Probably the reason for the tenacity 1 of purpose shown by tho gentlemen referred to is in a measure; due to the general support tiioy \iavo TBtoWei'iTDtn cihzom m* aft porU ol the city, and also to tho fact

ihat they have a definite and very stronj idea of what they want. In another par jf this issue we publish a plan showing the ideal aimed at by these enthusiasts md also an account of the history of thi movement for tho improvement _ in tin sca-frontago at the spot in question. Wi would commend both to the attention o. Dur readers. The. issues involved conceri tho wholo city, and the points made bj those, who are advocating the scheme out lined in our illustration cannot bi lightly brushed asido. There ,is an aspect of the Rangitikc election con test which may have an im portant bearing on the final result of tht polling. We have already pointed out that there are three Government candi dates in the struggle—Messrs. Meldrum, Smith, and, Hornblow—and each _ o) these gentlemen appears to have receiv.ec some sort of intimation'from the Acting Prime Ministor that he is acceptable t< the Government should he be successful At one stago there appeared to be some anxiety on the _part. of Ministers to ensure that Mn. Smith- should run in the Government colours.; and it seemed, likelj that he would be tho first string on. the Ministerial side. But for some reason Mr. Smith docs not seem iiow to be ''the elect" of Ministers. - In a quiet way it. is being spread around that Mr. Meldrum's chances are better than those oi the other Government candidates, and it seems probable that the chief efforts, qi the party ' will bo concentrated on pushing nis interests. Messrs. Smith ■ and Horsblow, who are conducting vigorous campaigns, must. inevitably suffer 'if these tactics , are pursued, but to what extent it' is difficult to; estimate.- Should cither of those gantlomen, however, coll anythiug lifc<s the number of votes polled by Mr. Meldruh,. and a second ballot be necessary between' Mr. Hookly and Mr. Meldrum, the Government may'find.itself awkwardly situated. It is quite possible that tho friends of the Government candidate next: in . order to Mr. 1 1 Meldrum may feel "that .their-man has' not been fairly treated and, abstain from voting at' the' second - ballot or, vote: for Mr. Hockiav It seems practically certain that Mr; Hocki.x will be clectcd, but over-confidencc has lost . many an election, and the friends of Reform should make certain that, every, possible vote is

polled. • v