NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1511, 6 August 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

Last night five Ministers of thi Crown delivered excellent specchei in the presence of a huge and en thusiastic audience in the Towi Hall. How long is it since evei one Cabinet Minister ventured t< deliver a political address in Wei lington ? ; Times; b'r.have .obviouslj changed very completely. Welling ton is a city of practical people, anc more inclined to go to the troubli of turning out to political demon strations when it is fighting to wii than when it has won; but the lie form Ministry well deserved the com pliment of the large attendance a the meeting' last night. Althougl the Prime Minister and his col leagues did not like to anticipah the details of the Financial State ment, which is,to be delivered thi evening, their speeches were full o the matter for which the public ha for years been longing, and were o an unusually high quality. It wouli have been strange if life and buoy ancy and vigour had been_lackin| in them, for the great political fac is that the victory of Mr. Masse: and his friends is the victory of ai honest and patriotic idea—the ide; o£ genuine reform. The enemies o reform have so completely abandonei the hope of continuing their resist ance that it is superfluous to sa; that the gospel of freedom and pre gress preached last night will ligh up the whole country. We are prom isecl a Budget so democratic, and s sound and progressive, that they wil be merely factious who persist ii Opposition. The people in Opposi tion have on their own account prom isecl that the reverse will be the ease To-night the point will be settled and we have confidence that Mr Massey and his colleagues : are s well aware of their dependence o: the patriotic keenness of the Refori voters that the people who have bee crying "Tory! Torj;!" will look es tremcly foolish. This city is perhap sharper in its political beliefs tlia the rest_ of the country, but the en thusiastic demonstration of las night is. we are sure, the measure o the nation's relief at the ending o the long night of Spoils politics. One-of our cable messages' to-da quotes a notable saying by Cardina Bourne at the Catholic Congress a Norwich. The Catholic Church, sai the Cardinal Archbishop, "neve hesitated to encourage trado uriior but no labour! struggle colli abolish the Ten Commandments. Th men had to recognise the employers rights. .These had been opposed, bu they did not thereby cease to exist. 1 Cardinal Bourne dealt very abl with these points at Stoke'-on-Tren on June 10 last, and we are sure i will be useful to quote some of hi arguments. "The Church o.f God, he said, "is able, is willing,' and d( sires to give help to- our country i these matters [industrial crises], an she is able to do so because her teacl ing is based on the recognition o (he supernatural." She took as basis the fact that everyone has hi rights, aud the fact that men are b nature unequal, being equal onl from the spiritual standpoint "Health, talent, opportunity, sui roundings, energy, indolence, are a various qualifications or disqualifies tions that are most unequally share throughout the human race, and anj thing like absolute industrial equa! ity is impossible iis long as tli human race exists." He was sensibl of the difficulties and sorrows of tli situation, but he placed no relianr on legislation._ Nothing could her the ills of society "savp the tulle; recognition of the .rights of eac human personality." He had neve hesitated tp encourage Catholics t join trade unions, but he wai'ne Catholic workers not to follow trad union leaders blindly and withou reflection. Upon the point of en ployers' rights tin; Cardinal Arcl bishop said: I would like to |x>int out certain gennn principles. I'irsl: of all, the Cathol: C'lmtcli recognises to the full Die right < private ownership.- Any teaching tilt culls in question I ho. riurht of private owi er-hip i» contrary to the teaching of tli Uitliolio Uiurdi. 'Clio Church rocopiiis' ih<) right of tlic State to umtrol ..naval

ownership, restrict it for the public good uikl -o on, but us God allows private on cr.-iiip, the Church lm< always upheld n phiiii emphatic terms the right oi a mini to the property which belongs to him. This, of course, is nil very heterodox in the eyes of the labour agitator and the soft-headed (luiiriiiairct who re gavel as parasites all non-manual workers save themselves. The Catholic Church has many times in it; long history soon arise, only to fall ignominiously, the doctrines attackec by Caudixai, Boimixf.. But such it the persistence of folly that our Socialistic Radicals will only the more loudly deny the validity of the laws that centuries of experience have shown to lie absolute. Mr. G. W. Husseu; has so rarelj placed us under the obligation oi being able to agree with him that we are very glad to approve the stanc ho took in the House last Friday or the question of civil servants' rightsThere was a good deal of factious point-seeking in his speech, but he was perfectly right in his genera] opposition to the idea, advocated bj such widely differing members as Messrs. Buick, Wilson, Veitch, Lee, Isitt, and Wilfokd, that civi servants should ' be granted—some members said, "should have restore: to them"—full civil rights. We no jioi know what the Government's mine is upon-the subject, which is, as the list of members we have quoted indi cates very plainly, a non-party sub jeet, but we shall certainly not witness without protest any infractior of the fundamentally sound prin eiple that part of the price of tin special privilege of membership o: the Civil Service is the abandonmen of certain civil rights. Under tin Seddon and Ward Administration! it was one of the scandals that civi servants were actively political ant partisan, generally as persons, bu sometimes actually in their offices They have settled this question ii France and in England; there it i now generally considered that th servant of the State is well-treatei in being allowed to vote at Parlifi mentary elections. To allow civi servants to engage in politics, eithe local or general, will be to demorajis the service, sinec it will lead to th expectation and thence to the f;. that a civil servant will pay for, o be paid for, his political, activities Even the setting-up of a Civil Ser vice Board would not alter this fact or make less dangerous the encour agement of civil servants to becom small local politicians. AH the at tual experience of New Zealand ha merely borne out the contention which can be derived from first prin ciples, that the special position am the special privileges of the civi servant require that he shall kec] out of politics altogether or else ge out of the service.