NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1230, 12 September 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

A remarkable sidelight upon the effects of spoon-feeding by the State is reported from Sheffield. Last year, under a system of examination by school medical officers, 3361 children in Sheflield schools , were reported as having defective vision or eyes that needed attention. The parents were communicated with, but in spite of several warnings less than half the children' received any treatment. This wa3 in no way due to the inability of parents to pay for treatment, for over half of those ( who were treated were treated free, and in every case free treatment and free spectacles were available for those who could not pay for them. The Chairman of the School Management Committee of the Sheflield Education Committee (a Radical politician) confcss«d that the real difficulty was that "so large a proportion of the parents were indifferent to the' appeals mado to_ them, and neglected all the facilities offered, even when at no expense to themselves." This is a very striking testimony to the continued truth of that old and well-tested and thoroughly sound doctrine that State spoon-feeding is fatal to individual self-reliance and thus deeply injurious to the national fibre. The cry of tho State Socialist is for more aid and still more aid to the individual, and he is surprised when he finds that his process produces the queer result that individual responsibility rots into an unwillingness even to take the trouble of licking tho spoon. Of course, as one of the Leicester papers observed in commenting on this case, the demagogue may have a momentary reward in getting people to listen to his decrying of the "self-help" which was the substancc of the truo English Liberalism (just as "self-re-liance" was the main article of faith of the present New Zealand Government's forbears), but "even in the twentieth century men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, and amid much which changes in this changeable world one iaw is immutable. That which men sow— whether as individuals or as parties —that shall they also reap." This is only another way of saying what Macaw,ay said long ago in his essay on Soutuey's Colloquies, which we havo so often recommended our politicians to read: "It is not by the intermeddling of the omniscient and omnipotent State, but by the prudence and enercv of the people, tli.it England has hitherto been carried forward in civilisation."

1 The Prime Minister has supplied on his own account what is in its way a more pungent comment upon his lUidget than'has come from anv of his critics. The Statement, which was printed before it was read, has, since it was presented to Parliament, .been revised and correctcd. ' Wc

greatly doubt whether tlio Government has any right to alter tho Statement once it is _ presented to the House, but that is a trille hi these days of slackness in Parliamentary procedure. The alterations do not, it is true, amount to very much: they amount, in.deed, to no more than corrections that reveal the haste with which the Punic Minister flung into a huge and jumbled heap everything that no and his colleagues could think of as likely to stem the tide of discontent with them and their works. One may be pardoned for feeling a little disappointed that, having decided to issue a second edition, tho Government did not seize the opportunity to repair its omission of any reference to its land policy and to the Local Government Bill which has been definitely promised for circulation this session. But there may be a third and a fourth edition, or a whole series of editions. Perhaps it would be too much to expect that we should be given somo idea of what, in plain language, are the concrete principles underlying what is humorously supposed to be the Government's policy.

The recent cable messages respecting Royalist activity against the Republican order—or disorder—in Portugal confirm tho reports of English and American correspondents writing six or seven weeks ago. On July 27 an Oporto correspondent of the Morning l'ost- of Londm announced that troops were guarding the whole frontier, and especially the northern portion. Altogether 50,000 troops were under arms—a very practical denial of the Republican newspapers' repeated declarations that the whole nation is profoundly Republican. Tho Government, in fact, knows that it is of the utmost importance to prevent the entry of even a small Monarchist force, since its presence, would stir up tlic majority of the peasants to abandon _ their present passive acquiescence in the new order of things. The Government, indeed, has but a precarious basis. It' is driven to deny notorious facts. For example, it posts up in many villages notices to this effect: "It is false' that tumults have occurred in any part of tho country. The Government punishes severely all those who by false reports seek to frighten the people." Such is the "Liberalism" of the revolutionaries! — and not so much unlike a "Liberalism" that New Zealand has heard of. Men who hold Monarchist opinions have been transported to the Island of Timor; other men haj-e been imprisoned on tho mere accusation of the malicious or of foolish enthusiasts. Tho treasury is empty, the Government is beset with " demands for money, and each of its new plans entails a large expenditure. Politically, it is bankrupt. Tho Army, moreover, is not quite tho Army that an anxious Government would choose to have. The ardour of the troops for the Republic is a little theatrical: "A soldier .in a train waving the strident red and green Republican from a window, and shouting 'Viva a Ecpublica' w-ithout ceasing, and peasants in the fields raising an answering shout and waving' their hats,* is held to be a demonstration of Republican devotion." The Republic may survive; it- may survive for a good many years. But nobody will be greatly surprised to. sec it swept , away in another revolution, cither very soon, or a few years hence.