NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1578, 23 October 1912, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY.

One of the Southern newspapers doubts our seriousness when we suggest that it would bo an excellent thing for tho country if the work on the Midland Hallway line were held over for some time to come. In Canterbury, wc can well understand, it is not easy to find people who in considering the line can put out of their minds the fact that Canterbury, and in a lesser degree, Westland, have not been the poorer for the expenditure there of the huge sums which come largely from the pockets of those who need railways and roads far more urgently than those two well-furnished provinces. The Southern Journal says that "there are obvious reasons why it would be sheer folly to let the present railheads remain unconnected a month'longer than is necessary." One is financial, and one strategic, and amazing "reasons" they arc. First: \ "A very large sum of money has been sunk in sections of the line that cannot become revenue-producing until the tunnel has been pierced, and this expenditure represents a heavy annual loss in interest."

And it adds that even if the lino did not pay its way the loss when trains are running cannot possibly be so large as it is while tho final half-million or so remains unspent. Surely our contemporary seems to have .'forgotten that the interest bill will keep on, and will be bigger than it is now. That it will cost more to run any sor.t of service than that service will bring in is indisputable. So that to complete tho work right off will merely be to complete a splendid machine for losing far more than ever. Why should £500,000 more or so be spent in order that the burden on the country every year will be increased! How, whon tho Hurunui-Bluff section, running through rich, long-settled, fully cultivated plains loses £100,000 a year can a long and very expensive trans-island line running over barren mountains ever pay for more than tho axlc-grcosc 1 The best argument apparently that can be brought forward for tho line is that Loud Kitchener values it: "As long as tho West Coast is practically isolated by land the most important coalfield in New Zealand will be open to attack." But if this is the onlv argument, its acceptance would logically require that tho Defence Department should boar the losses on tho lino. But our Southern friends, we fancy, will rather .shrink from facing that point.

In his opening address to the Trade Union Congress last month, the president, Mil. Will Thoiine, M.P., made very free use of the current catchcries of the Labour agitator. He went, indeed, to the Syndicalist dictionary for much of his language; and denounced the yccononiic enslavement" of tho toilers, and the iniquities of the "governing class." This kind of talk is greedily listened to by lining simpleminded dcodlc, for Qucstion-beKKinjt

phrases are always effective with those who do not trouble to think much about what they are told. The London Times took the trouble to expose in a few succinct sentences the simple absurdity of Mr. Thorne's language. It said:

He used such phrases as the "economic enslavement" of the working-class ami tho "governing classes." They are mere phrases corresponding with no reality. The "governing classes" are those which have the most votes, ami they are the wage-earning classes. Tho speaker himself is u legislator, as are many of his hoard's, and a member of the sumo class is a Cabinet Minister and head of one. of tho grent Department); of Stale. 1: there are not more of that class engaged in governing it is simply because their own fellows have not sufficient confidence in them.

There is truth and wisdom in this. How many of our little group of Labour members were elected because they were simply Labour members i The reform voters elected three of them, as everyone admits; the fourth was elected nobody knows exactly how or why. At least two of.-.them are not likely to be reelected. The point, however, is that the governing class must be the class with most votes. The Westminster Gazette made some attempt to deny that in fact the working classes are the governing classes, although it - admitted that theoretically the Times was right. The fact is, of course, that the workers are not all selfseekers, unable to see an inch beyond their noses, and blind to everything but the things their self-seeking "leaders" tell them to care about. There are workingmen who will follow the agitators blindly, but there are far more workingmen who keep their minds and souls free, and vote as they think. More workers voted last December for the Reform party than for the old Spoils party, and many times moro voted for the present Government than for the Labour party. What Mr. Will Thorne meant was that nobody who docs not vote for the official agitator is a "worker." Like Humpty-JJumpty the words ho uses mean anything he chooses they shall mean. i

One still has to go away from home to hear news about home. A remarkable and amusing illustration of this enduring truth is furnished by a panegyric of Mr. G. Forbes, member for Hurunui, in the Christchurch organ of the Oppositionists. Those of us who have to give special attention to the proceedings in Parliament know Mr. Forbes only as a party whip, who is rather a dull speaker. It is very interesting to learn, therefore, that he has "gone on the sound principle of letting his roots strike before suffering his branches to sprout." Perhaps it was this that spurred him'on to his offensive and absurd references to Mr. Hine last night. On reflection, indeod, we fancy that his small per-formance-last night was due to his mental intoxication when he read in the panegyric under notice that "members are opening eyes and ears at the effective work he is doing as a debater." Mr. Massey will certainly open his eyes, and wonder if "visions is about" when he hears from the same authority that ."the highest compliment" paid to Mr. Forbes "is the keenness with which the Government watch him and the pains the Prime Minister takes to discredit and repel his assertions." No doubt Mr. Forbes has now- and then swum into Mr. Massey's ken; but it be ( disheartening to ,Mr. Mass'e'y' i '(ii 'he ''believes' the report) to find that when he thought he was dealing with' politics he was really keeping an eye on Mr. Forbes. "'Lorbes,', said one of the old stagers the other day, 'is making more rapid progress than any man in the House.' " Quite, one can sec, in the vein of Sairey Gamp recalling "Mrs. Harris," And though the words we thus by implication, use of "the old stager" "lambs could not forgive, nor worms forget," there is this compensation for Mr. Forres's friends: that wo have helped him to be known, anyway by this small advertisement of him. One point must be noted : "his opinion," his eulogist says, "carries weight with his party." This may really be true, for all anyono knows; and if it is true, Mr. Forbes should bo appointed leader of the Opposition. This would be in keeping with the fitness of things, and would really give Mr. Massey some reason for keeping him in mind. •