NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1271, 28 October 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

To get a really detached view of politics one cannot do much better than go to the magazines issued by the University College students in the four cities. Mr. Laurensok, M.P., of course, regards University teaching and University f.'fairs as "contemptible trivialities," but wo are not all up to Mr. Laurenson's levels and so are not above noticing what our University students say. In the current number of the Canterbury College Review there is a specially bright and clear-eyed article on Socialism, from which we can extract two or three sentences to the profit of our readers. The writer contrasts the thirteenth century Socialists with their modern brethren who "buy a red neckcloth for a shilling, get some phrases of Mr. Blatchford's by heart, and set out to regenerate humanity by making themselves a nuisance. The contrast is not to the advantage of the twentieth century "Comrade," but in essence the Socialist is the same in all centuries, and in nothing so much the same as in the fact that he really represents nobody but himself, nothing but his own bothersomoncss. "The sense of injustice vanishes with those that give it voice." The evanishment in the old days was secured by decapitation. To-day it evanishes by the granting of Government billets: "It is just like the common instances of the hotelkccpcr who, after making a fortune by selling beer, retires, immediately sees his former business in its true light,- and turns ardent Prohibitionist." There is a member of the present Parliament who often says of another member, "I am like a man _ who really has hated liquor from bis cradle up, but I cannot endure , whoso hatred of liquor is ,!..„ t, U,„ f„„f H,-t 1., -A L.l«

his life and fortune in painting his nose rod." The writer in the lieview has two sharp observations Unit can stand by themselves without the aid of commentary: "Our Socialists will not light: if wc are attacked, we shall have to protect their valuable persons; but just now we must try to protect them from a more dangerous enemy than a foreign foe, to wit, themselves. . . . They might become a very serviceable, tool in the hands of a clever politician; but would a man who would work with such tools bo likely to put them to a good user'

Mr. Flf.tchei!, the Government candidate for tho Central seat, has replied to the challenge of Mr. W. T. Young, the Labour candidate. The reply is that ho (Mil. Fletcher) was misreporlcd by our evening contemporary, when it made him say that he had been asked to stand as .1 Labour candidate. What he had said was that he believed he would have been acceptable to the Labour party if he had signed their platform. Quite so. But why did Mr. Fletcher make this statement? Obviously his only purpose was to detach Labour support from the official Labour candidate. And he considered apparently that because he believed the Labour party would have supported his candidature if he had signed their platform he was justified _ in damaging the cause of the official Labour candidate by conveying the impression that the Labour party regarded him as a candidate worthy of their support. No doubt Mr. Fletcher regards this as fair tactics in a political contest. Perhaps it is. These matters arc largely questions of personal opinion, but the Government candidate strikes us as having been a little indiscreet in attempting to score off his Labour opponent in this _ way. Mit. Fletcher is the nominee of a Government that has tricked and fooled Labour again and again, and yet to assist his candidature he seeks to induce Labour to desert its recognised candidate and support him—and incidentally the Ward Government. Possibly Me. Fletcher is beginning to realist! that his close association with the W r ARD party is not going to help him very much. Tho public of Wellington—and none better than the Labour party—know the Ward Administration for what it really is, and they know that the only means of bringing to an end the evils of the Continuous Ministry is to cast their votes against Government nominees at the ballots. Mr. Fletcher is an estimable citizen, no doubt, but politically he must bo judged by the company he keeps,

a We in this country are so accus- :. tomod to hearing New Zealand cited :1 by Home Rulers as a precedent for i Irish self-government that we cant not but find it a little novel to hear s our case cited by the other side. Deale ing on September 13 la-st with the - first stirrings of the Homo Itule en- ; gagement, the Morning Post noted - that the Nationalists were •asking - England only to give Ireland what r was given to South Africa. The prc- - cedent, the Morning I'ost points out, i is'specious. To begin with there is - some difference between the breadth i of the Irish Channel and the thous- ; ands of leagues of ocean that divide : the Motherland from any one of her 1 self-governing Dominions. The di- ■ viding waves are only just like the ' waves of Cook Strait. The argument ! proceeds, that in Australia, in • Africa, and in Canada the movement was really away from Home Rule, , the independent colonies coalescing in : each case. And so in New Zealand. ■ Tho I'ost is pretty well informed ; here, but not perfectly informed. It , says: But tho most instructive case in point l is that of Now Zealand. In tho begini ning of that now united colony, there wore many settlements, Wellington, Auckland, Nelson, Dunedin, Christchurch, all widely separated and without intercommunication, and all with their Provincial Councils. They wero strong in their Homo Kule animosities and sentiments. Thus Dunedin was Scottish Presbyterian, and refused to havo any dealings with Christchurch, which was Church of England. Auckland, at one time tho official capital, hated Wellington, founded by Gibbon Wakefield and th© Now Zealand Company. Yet with railways and steamship lines and tho influx of a population henton practical affairs, these primitive boundaries wero judged too narrow. They we.ro swept away, and now North Islajid and South Island are happily united, and hardly tho memory of tho old provincial divisi«u remains. This is, of course, an over-statement. The Government does much to force the _ North Island to remember, against its will, the geographical question. Auckland, too, is hardly the happy bride of Wellington yet; although there is good promise in its feeling concerning a certain political candidate about whom Wellington feels the same. However, it is mainly tho fault of the Administration that New Zealand unity is not real. That will soon be remedied.