NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1111, 26 April 1911, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY.

The Timaru, Herald of Monday reports Mr. Buddo's latest feat of unconscious humour. The Washdyke Lagoon, a popular shooting resort, was recently found to nave been declared a sanctuary several years ago—by whom or for what reason nobody seems to know. The other day the South Canterbury Ac'climatisation Society asked for the. removal of the restrictions, which everybody seems to agree are unnecessary. Mr. Buddo, however, declined to accede to this request, and if h<; had been content to say "No" and nothing more, we should not have noticed the incident. But he would not have been the amusing Mr. Buddo we know. And since he cannot help being himself, he stupefied the whole Timaru district, and set the South Canterbury public roaring with laughter, by advising that sportsmen should stand on the boundaries of the sanctuary and banp away. "This," he said, "would give the birds a chance and would probably not lessen the bags." "In other words," as the Herald puts it, "sportsmen would shoot just as many birds,- and the birds would be preserved! Ingenious Mr. Buddo !" Our contemporary says it has "nevo;seen a better illustration of the policy of 'Facing-Both-Ways'—or of its foolishness." Nor has anybody else. We hope Mr. Bcddo will continue to brighten the dull season.

Early last month the London Times published the particulars of the Naval Estimates before they were made , known, not only ■to the rest of the press, but to the House of Commons. Some days later the Morning Post complained that the authorities of the National Gallerj' —a public body supported out of public funds—were supplying exclusive information to the Times. The Post was supported in its protest by the Daily News on March 13, which said that it was as intolerable as it was inexcusable that preference should be given by a public Department to any newspaper. After reciting some of the facts, the News proceeded:

It is impossible, but that leakage of this sort should' be due to a breach of faith and a dereliction of duty on the part of public servants. We need not point out how very unfair any preference or discrimination among newspapers must be. What is more important is that it must corrupt the public service as well as restrict the-sources of information open to the public. The premature revealing of information is in itself a corrupt act, and when it. is fystomatised, and fystematised for the benefit of a particular organ, we have something like a conspiracy to sap the honour and the credit and the integrity of public servants. The thing must, in the interests of tho nation,-be stopped.

The Ncks's complaint is against the Departmental officials. We wonder what it would say if, not the officials, but the British Government itself, the Ministry, had systcmatiscd, for the benefit of small and obscure journals supporting it, the boycotting in the matter of State advertisements of a far more widely circulated and important newspaper whose offence was its insistence upon the liberty to criticise the Ministry'/ That is bow our Government is still acting towards The Dominion.

While ,Mr. Buddo is providing amusement for the public in the South Island his senior colleagues, the Acting-Prime Minister and the Minister for Finance in the North, arc strangely silent. It is time that Me. Millar told us something about the financial results of the year's operations. We know that the revenue returns for the year have created another "record," and had the head of the Government been here we have no doubt that ere this there would have been a loud blaring of trumpets and banging of the big drum to celebrate this annual event. It is possible, of course, that Me. Millar has had his instructions on the subject. Before he left New Zealand Sir. Joseph Waed knew that things were shaping for, an exceptionally large increase of revenue, and it may have suited his plans that the announcement of the fact should not reach London untillie himself had arrived there to receive the congratulations of the financial world, and possibly seize the occasion to hold forth on the flourishing condition of the Dominion. Sie Joseph Wakd, we are told to-day, has now reached his destination, so perhaps Me. Millae will let the country know ho\y much the increased taxation collected really amounts to. So far as the Acting-Prime Minister is concerned we would direct his attention to certain correspondence relating to Cook Islands affairs appearing in another column: Possibly Ms. Carroll considers the complaints embodied in the letters referred to are of minor importance in comparison with the happenings at the Native functions-at which he has been so conspicuous a figure! of late. Most people who have followed the published record of his perambulations through the country, however, will probably recognise that the leisure which the Native Minister

has always seized }n order to participate in these Native gatherings and to gratify his fondness for sport cannot be spared to the Acting-Prime Minister when it means the neglect of the country's business. We should bo very sorry to interfere with Mr. Carroll's recreations, but while he is acting as the head of the Government, and with two of his colleagues absent from the country, he must make up his mind to sacrifice something. Pediaps ho will signalise a new era of industry and courtesy by answering at once the already thrce-weeks-old urgent letter written to him by the member for Wellington South.