NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1179, 14 July 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

The Christchurch organ of the Ministry has adopted a very amusing and, in its way, almost ingenious, method of telling its readers that the stinging resolution of censure upon the Government carried at Mr.. Massey's meeting here last week docs not amount to much. It pretends, to begin with, that the local Press Association agency's feat of suppression and distortion in reporting Mn. Massey's speech, and in particular, its suppression of the resolution was due to its anxiety to counterbalance the Duncdin agency's omission to send out the resolution carried at Sir James Caruoll's meeting last week. We wonder if our contemporary's readers arc really such stupid people as this would imply. As a matter of fact the Press Association agency in Dublin sent out within 21 hours, the resolution carried at Sir James Cahholl's meeting. Nobody had missed it. It was the stereotyped thing: "That this meeting of Dunediri citizens thank Sir James Carroll and the Hon. A. T. Ngata for their able and interesting addresses on the Native land question and other political subjects, and also desires to express its confidence in the Ministry of which they arc members." The Christchurch paper concludes its article by saying, that "the account has been squared," implying that to represent as a mere "vote of thanks" a strong declaration of the necessity for destroying the Government is not a more serious-affair than the delaying for one day of the dispatch of the stereotyped Duncdin resolution, that everybody took for granted anyway. Our contemporary's queer behaviour is of good augury: it means that our "Liberal" friends arc greatly troubled by the revelation of Wellington opinion. It' is rather a pity, however, from the point of view of sincere journalism, that the Christchurch paper should be willing, upon reflection, to palliate a very serious misrepresentation of fact by the Press Association. We wish that the desperation of our "Liberal" friends could be mado equally clear in some other way. We could almost wish, for the sake of journalism, that they were in better case politically.

The extraordinary regulations framed by the Government as the first step of its campaign against the city s lights and property in respect of the trams have an aspect that will appeal very directly to the public. Not only are they "subversive of municipal independence, and rich in. their promise of further strength to the Government's powers of patronage and waste; they are also a direct menace to the pockets of the citizens. The City Council has obtained a report upon the regulations from the Electrical Engineer. Mn. Stl-akt lliciunpsoN, and in this it is clearly shown that to run tlie tramways in the manner required by the Government will only be possible at a huge extra cost to the city. It will be seen that Mn. Richardson estimates the increased expenditure at over £50,000 in the aggregate—an increase against which there can be no set-off in increased revenue. This will mean a huge deficit in the tramways account which can be met in only one way, namely, by greatly increased fares. According to the engineer, fares will have to be raised by 50 per cent all round: That is the point that citizens have to remember. Under the proposed new regulations the first thing that would happen would be the withdrawal of the existing concessions and the charging of lid. for the- present penny rides. As a matter of fact what would happen is this: Instead of riding twelve times for eightccnpence where he formerly rode twelve times for a shilling, the average passenger will keep his limit of expenditure at the shilling and ride only eight times. So far as the city is concerned, therefore, the revenue would not be much increased by this drastic increase of fares, so that there would still be a heavy loss, which the community would have to bear one way or another. So the result would be that the public would not only be deprived of a portion of the benefits of the system, without gaining anything in return, but would' have to support a heavy loss on the system. If the regulations are withdrawn or modified in surrender to the popular indignation, there is every prospect that they will be reintroduced after the election if the present Government is lucky enough t) get back to power with a workable margin of strength.

We trust that those gentlemen who were recently in conference discussing, amongst other things, the ravages of consumption, have noted for inquiry the cable message in yesterday's papers concerning the anal report of the British Koyal Commission on tuberculosis. It .is a really remarkable report, to judge from tho cabled summary, its essence oi'ing its emphasis of the bovine origin of much of the disease and Us emphasis, therefore, of the importance of an immediate reconsideration of our methods of dealing with tho scourge, in an article on February 10, 1909, we sketched the position that at that time had been reached in the study of the disease. Professor Koch was at that :late maintaining strongly, against_ the interim reports of the Commission (set up ten years ago), that bovine tuberculosis was practically nothing to worry about, and that the only main source of infection was tho sputum of consumptive patients. Opinion against him, however, was growing steadily, and there was developing a readiness to believe that tho theory of infection through cough-spray or sputum might turn out to ba completely wrong. What we then emphasised was the fact that "if Professor Koch were wrong in his estimate of the relative importance of the human and bovine sources of infection a portion of the large sums of money spent on sanatoria would be far better spent in stopping the attack on the bovine side." The final report of the Coinmission would appear to be strongly against Piiofessok Koch's theory. What, is the practical question, then, to be considered here? Obviously. the question whether, with a given" sum of money to spend, it is not a mistake to spend.it on sanatoria and action generally according to the

Koch theory instead of on the purification of milk and moat supplies. At present Now Zealand is very largely spending money in the dark, with a strong presumption in favour uf the view that it is not to tlie best advantage.