NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 32, 1 November 1930, Page 10

NOTES OF THE DAY

Out of the conflicting reports from Australia it is difficult to gather how the political situation is shaping. This uncertainty is injurious for, as the chairman of the Melbourne Stock Exchange remarks, indecision and instability are one of the gieatest checks on trade and industry. Everyone is waiting to see how the cat jumps at Canberra, to say nothing of Mr. Lang in Sydney, and this condition of suspended animation damages business. Meanwhile there is some glimmer of hope that the Labour caucus realises in a dim way the straits the Commonwealth is passing through. It has decided to reduce Ministers and members’ salaries, a decision that it has previously avoided. On the other hand, to escape the odium of reducing public service salaries, it proposes placing a special tax on the higher classes. Plainly such half-hearted measures, adopted but not enacted when one-third of the financial year has gone, are inadequate and Mr. Theodore’s forecast' of a heavy deficit seems, at the present stage, likely to be fulfilled. ♦ * ♦ *

There is a good laugh in the report from Wanganui that two corner-stones are to adorn the boys’ hostel of, the technical college, one well and truly laid by Mr. Coates as Prime Minister two years ago and the other about to be well and truly laid by Mr. Atmore, the present Minister of Education. The first stone, although it was a perfectly good stone, is apparently to be deemed to be “mislaid.” Public toadyism could go no further and it will be surprising if even, Mr. Atmore will -lend himself as the lay figure in such a ridiculous farce. It is true that he has found £32,000 for the building whereas Mr. Coates voted only £lB,OOO and the invitation is probably a fitting obeisance by the college board to the man who has provided the extra thousands, albeit they come out of public moneys. Still it is a mark of these times, and of all ages in fact, to play the sycophant to him who hath and forget the benefactor of two years ago. If Mr. Atmore can stomach this doubtful honour which, after all, is rendered not to him but to the Consolidated Fund, then no one is likely to worry very much. After all the price of a second corner-stone is a mere trifle to pay for so splendid a jest.

“Merely words” was the description applied by Mr. Forbes to the British Prime Minister’s statement in the House of Commons that there were other ways apart from tariffs of stimulating Empire trade. What, then, would be the impression conveyed to the keen minds comprising the economic groups of the House of Lords and House of Commons when Mr. Forbes addressed them in this strain? “Regarding Empire trade the Dominions had in no wise come to Britain to seek a bargain to have the privileges and preferences given by one side weighed in the balance against a quid pro quo, but only to seek mutual arrangements voluntarily, freely and spontaneously made for the advantage of the whole' family.” It may be that the report does not do justice to Mr. Forbes’s meaning although every Parliamentarian will smile at the mark of verity contained in that opening word, “regarding,” a verbal tag much used and abused by Mr. Forbes. But if the report omits nothing material, then there is nothing material in it, and no meaning. It is “merely words.”

What may seem a curious saying in these ease-loving days is the remark made by Professor Einstein at a luncheon in his honour in London. “I advise my fellow Jews,” he said, “not to bemoan the hardness of fate but to remember that we would not have survived as a community through the centuries if we had had a bed of roses.” Almost can be heard that favourite text of the Puritan and the ascetic, “Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth.” But the present generation does not seem to be one “to scorn delights and live laborious days,” to welcome the chill wind of adversity that stiffens the fibre while it subdues the flesh. We want everything done for us, “a bed of roses” made afresh each morning, and should there be a few petals not to our liking, then will we run to a grandmotherly government to smooth our couch and even provide the soothing-syrup. Perhaps it is not as bad as that but sometimes it Ute U„