NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1465, 13 June 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

Whatever may happen during the coming session of Parliament, ,0110 thing is certain: that the four .mii; lion loan will be the topic of 'sonic, very serious debate. Wei hope, and we are inclined to believe, that the loan, which is the last straw of • Wardist finance, will lead to such' a discussion of the gravely dangerous position into which the ■ Minister has guided New Zealand as ' will wake the country right up.. Tho | time for soft phrases and licences is past; Wardism has done ; its best to muddle the country's:finances, and tho sooner the country understands that the better ; everybody. On page 697 of thcSFrav:' j Book for 1911 is given a list- of - the loans falling due. The amoiints- : 36r'r ; the current year and the three;'fpl-'^-.; lowing years' are .given as follows•: ■ 1912-13 4,913;20i -. 1913-14 777i700: 'i 1914-15 4,913,305'.' 1915-16 4,270,202:- . ;

The new loan, raised on .bonds redepmablc in .1914, lifts to over £t;--777,700 the 1914 figure showriY'abo£&; That is to say, during the next vfoitr; years the country will have to renew (for it cannot redeem) £10,327,097. of past borrowings, in addition'to raising whatever new loans may,be-.ne-cessary. Could there be ;;'mac!deiv:j finance than this? Or a more recklessly unpatriotic unconcern for the ; country's interests? The London, market, as the facts concerning the' four million loan make clear, is he- ' ginning to bleed us—almostjH- fond; i might say, to blackmail us. .! -What, ' I would it do in the future if.Wardist : methods were to continue 1 .A south'-" ■ ern journal points out thafc.it.a ]sri-' ■ tish Chancellor of the Exchequer attempted to emulate the ex^Piuine- : : Minister, who is supremely , resppn-. sible, he would create a *" panic. A panic is not wari:tedi"here; : ; : ! v but the' business communif^ ; :ih'Q.ulcV ponder upon what is threatened by ■; the wild finance'of the past few . years. The friends of reform --in , Parliament must apply them.selvesrin. ij the coming session to the ..work' of U showing the country once for all the national danger of Wardist finance. '

One of the pleasant thiriMVii)'*tfig' British press in the the Titanic disaster was the'eHdejico; that there still exists in England, iii these panicky, emotional*', dayn, 'a solid core of sagacity and;<,scif-:aoii-. trol. Every reflective man -has observed the extraordinary 'growth, ot sentimentalisra and emotionalism., in the past decade: every striking'event sets a thousand speculatiye'ipensr:g<iTl ing as if a reached in the history of- the. '• race,every calamity (we are afraidVilii's. is too constant a topic of ours) 1 provokes the "ready writers'-' into shrieks of alarm and schemes for. "stopping these things." ' The U'es'.mi/ister Gazette published.-.a,leading article in rebuke of those pnople yvlio were clamorously "complaining- that science and skill have not ;as;;}.th'ey. : l thought, made an end of the. risks of the sea, and speaking as. if a voyage on a modern liner w'e?& vv ;fjfc!!iii henceforth a risk which would fill them with alarm_ and anxiety about themselves or their frieud^.-an : di:.re&r: tions. ■ The next time it "had to Ik; undertaken. . . . This mood of panic," the Gazette proceeded, "about an inevitable human, risk is as unworthy of a strong-mindeciipqb'i.' pie as the demands for guarantees of absolute safety is impossible, to fulfil. . . . Enormous progress has been made in the last geherStibn iri securing safety at sea, and a wise, man will think no more of. the ri.sk of a sea voyage than of. the. daily possibilities of accident .whith-iatfefid ■ his life on shore." The : liaiurdaij Itcvicw preached the same sermon more sharply: How many things which; we- daily would bo impossible to us -.if v.:6 sat dbwii in cold blood and weighed, it? chances.' The Atlantic has its (lauger.s,', bu't'so' tco has Piccadilly Circus, and eating toiSoc, and smoking cigarettes, :and. 1 ' ! goih'g .bo I church. A slate might wiiiio Ilia ivcr- 1 shipper even on the threshold of BS.-l Clifford's sanctuary. "Well, fluill wn.. ia-; sist next on being mad* f-ecuro as it j people against falling tiles..? :■ This is only "ifr |- has cotr.c to this, that sanity and;' common-sense are alinost pearls of price, things to rejoice over. Hysteria and impatience, 4t is ' good to think, have still a stronc opposition, to encouuter in modern A cable message of- last week, j which wc noticed at the., time, gave us a line or two of the Sydney Tdct/raiik's derision of .11 it. Andrew Eisimn's hope that "vouug men living in the most democratic country , in the world [New Zealand] woulii embrace to the full tlw opportunity to lead and guide pttiilir. rhouglit, in ; Australia in the direction of freednm and justice and peaeo. amorig: ineii 'i and nations." _ The cle, though brief, is 'quite unusuivlly' : good, and merits a second , notice. 1 Mr. Fisher's "absurd'''' statement,-' : | the Sydney paper observed, v, ; ns "like , the nonsense that has been talked i about Snt Josbpii Ward beiiig v.-ill- '} ing", provided lie. is approj-riuSoiy '■ pressed, to come into A'ijst'riili';i:ii pol.i-.. ' ties." The Telniirdjiii. /doiis not object to the freedom of. Uie member for ! Awarua to do, or try so do, whatever i he may choose, but ii. does very p,i'o- > porly object to the "fatuous' 1 ;d;m i that he can he a reseii'qr of Austra-: j li.t, and it. points its' a-giinient wiib j an analogy: "If Mr:, \V'. .51. j (for instance) was visiting f.liem [tlie- , Kow Zealand ueouj'tfl a Buqsieauon •

thai he should bo invited to 'come out' find save the country would naturally excite local derision.'" The general purpose of tha Tclefira-ph's very sqri.si'Me article is to insist that .(Win I .}' country iintst save its own political soul. _ Perhaps its convictions on the point were s.i.rd.ngth.Ci.ied by its knowledge that tho member for Awarua made a dreadful moss of things here, but its contention is sound.. Every cQ.'nntry injisfc find in its own citizens its savi.diu'.s or its. destroyers. The day .has not conic, and wni 1.: .-men arc inen i:t never will conic, whe.u national leadership c.iu bo a profession and when a country can,,, as it word, advertise for foreign applications f'o.'i' vacant politiwl posts.