NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1203, 11 August 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

We do not wonder that there is "amusement in Federal circles'' at Sir Joseph Ward's latest exhibition of "pushfuJncss." It appears that while on board the lluapchn ho was advised by wireless from Cocos Island, evidently through Sir James Carroll, of the rumour regarding the proposed cession of Tahiti to Germany. Here was a splendid chance to rush in ahead of everybody and impress Britain and at the same time terrify Germany ! Should the chance be missed? What an idea! Accordingly Sin Joseph Ward rushed a telegram off to London protesting against the proposed cession. But he wasnot content with merely protesting on behalf of the New Zealand Government. He now regards himself as a sort of overseer for the J'jmpire as a whole. He made his protest, according to the cable message received by the Federal Government, on behalf of "New Zealand and Hie nllirr Government*." We think New Zealand can safely afford to share the amusement of oi!r Australian friends at this ridiculous performance, since Great Britain must by now have learned that New Zealand must not bo juclg-

cd by the behaviour of its delegate to the Imperial Conference. It only remains now for Sin Joseph Ward to explain that he had received private and confidential communications of extreme gravity from Europe. What a lot of things he will learn, and whatsad disappointments will be awaiting him, when he gets back here again!

Every thoughtful person will be very glad that the Legislative Council'rejected the Field Divorce Bill presented to it on Wednesday. This measure proposed to suspend an important provision of the law of divorce in order to relieve what was illegcd to bo an individual case of hardship. We do not know the facts of the case or the merits of the claim of the person who has asked for a special Divorce Act all for himself; wo know no more than that 'certain statements were made on behalf of the claimant. It is hardly necessary to know the facts, however —when the case is one without appalling and unnatural features—in order to be justified in protesting with the utmost vigour against special personal legislation of the kind asked for. The divorce law is already, in our opinion, quite as easy as is good for society; it is, indeed, so easy that it has already generated a, readiness to relax it still further. Several members of the Council, evidently lacking any clear understanding that to pjay with the divorce law is to play with fire, and just as entirely oblivious of the sound maxim that "hard cases make bad law," supported the Bill with their voices as well as with their votes. The Council is to be congratulated upon having, on this occasion at anyratc, vetoed the principle of special personal legislation. And in conclusion we shall permit ourselves to say that it is a very bad sign of the times that so impudent a proposition as this Bill could be seriously submitted to the Legislature, even by the Hon. G. Jones.

It will surprise nobody who isfamiliar with the clumsy methods of Ministerialist journalism that most of the newspapers whose office it is to defend the Government made no attempt to discuss Tuesday's discussion in the House on the Mokau affair. They contented themselves with saying, at less or greater length, that SieJames Camoll's statement "meets very fully all the charges of his political opponents." We heed not show again just now how lamentably the Minister failed even in his attempt to obscure the issue, for although the Government doubtless hopes that it has shelved the question for, the present by committing it to .the care of Mr. Kaihau— whose claims to public confidence' were amply demonstrated last year— and the other eight Ministerialists on the Native Affairs Committee, the question will not' remain shelved. The public is far more likely to fix its attention on the Government's refusal of a special committee that would not bo swamped by Government supporters than on all the talk of the Acting-Prime Minister.

Some interesting light was thrown upon the process of land settlement by the Hon J. Anstey in a speech in the Legislative Council on Tuesday last. Twenty-eight of the pastoral runs in the Mackenzie Country were recently disposed of, fourteen by ballot and fourteen by auction:' In the ballot there were 167 applicants, and Mr. Anstey declares that only 17 were bona-fidc settlers. Of the successful applicants, four were married women and five were single girls. Only one, a man, Mn. An'STEY says, was a bona-fide settler. He declares that in the case of the runs disposed of by auction, "eleven were cases of pure aggregation." One of the successful bidders already held two runs (one in the name of his wife) and his new holding was acquired in the name of his son, a boy at school. For this deplorable state of_ things Mr. An.stey blames the Minister for Lands. But tha real point lies elsewhere. Were the Minister to exercise, 'or strain, his discretionary powers, or invest himself with arbitrary powers, so as to prevent "settlement ,, of this sort, ho would lay himself open to attack by the people he disappointed. It would be unfair, as well as dangerous and unwise, to expect that kind of action from the Minister. But it is not unfair to expect that the Government should by now—after twenty years of oflice—have discovered a solid framework- of principles upon which to erect a land policy that would make these undesirable things impossible. The Government, it must be remembered, has claimed to have made land settlement its speciality; it has moreover had for the perfection of a sound policy a term of unbroken office that no other modern Government has ever enjoyed—a term of office in which almost any other, Govcould achieve perfection in any policy. And yet, owing to its inability to construct, and its unreadiness to bo faithful to, a sound framework of principle, we have at this hour such a state of affairs as that denounced by Me. Anstey.