NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 104, 27 January 1931, Page 8

NOTES OF THE DAY

Mr. Scullin, the Commonwealth Prime Minister, says that it is impossible to tackle the great problems facing his Government "amid the din of political brawling.” Fair-minded people everywhere will sympathise with this viewpoint and, in fact, in more countries than Australia there is impatience with the hollowness of party strife when nations and peoples are faced with the solid facts of economic adversity. There are too many modern Neros fiddling while Rome burns. The present is a time to eschew faction and cultivate the national point of view.

Note has been macle before of the fact that New Zealand has yet to exploit to the full the market existing for her products in the North of England and in Scotland. New Zealand dairy produce and meat have entrenched themselves firmly in the South of England and particularly so in the territory for which London is the great distributing centre. Equal success has still to be won in the populous industrial districts fed from Liverpool and Manchester, Glasgow, Newcastle and Hull. Inquiries such as that instituted in Yorkshire by a private citizen might be more extensively made by our producers’ boards for the answers cannot fail to be instructive when they are obtained direct from the consumer. If the information were followed up by a vigorous and sustained sales campaign, it is practically certain that valuable results would accrue to New Zealand producers.' —

Expert investigation of the cause of the Meopham air disaster must have been largely guess-work, as none survived, and the machine itself was broken into infinitesimal pieces. Nevertheless it was guess-work of a scientific kind, which evolved a theory which appears to fit all the circumstances. The formulation of the theory, and its adoption as the most plausible, provides a new starting point for the experimenters in practical engineering engaged in the examination of safety problems. Ship-building and motor-car construction have reached their present state of high efficiency and increased margins of safety by the theories evolved from similar mishaps. The risks of fatalities on land and sea .have been greatly reduced. There still remains in aerial navigation the fact that a crash leaves little hope of human survival. Nevertheless the proportion of air fatalities to those on the ground is surprisingly small.

To the making of new taxes there is apparently no end in Australia, the latest proposal in New South Wales being a super-tax of 50 per cent. The report does not say what the tax will be imposed on and certainly the Lang Government must be hard put to it to find any new sources of revenue. The Australian taxpayer has already been bled white and very soon Mr. Lang may be reduced to the Bavin policy of economy on which he poured such scorn at election time. If revenue cannot be obtained then expenditure must be reduced although Mr. Lang and other Australian Labour politicians, true to their spendthrift disposition, have so far ignored this obvious alternative. It is an alternative that in New Zealand also has not had much play so far. It may be hoped that when the Prime Minister settles down to frame his new Budget, he will not follow the Australian model, or his own example of last year, of devising new taxes but strike the balance by reducing on the expenditure side.

For certain of the unemployed to attempt to dictate terms to the Wellington Hospital Board is indicative of an extraordinary state of mind. It is reported that these men have decided “to declare ‘black’ work handed out by the Board below trade union rates of pay.” Apparently these men are under the impression that they have a right to sustenance but actually no such right exists. They are dependent on the goodwill and charitable impulses of the community acting through its representatives on the Board. It is folly to look a gift horse in the mouth especially when,, as in this case, it is adequate to lift the men past the present sticky bit of road. What the Board offers is two meals and a bed daily, worth 21/- a week, and asks that those accepting this measure of relief should give in return 14 hours’ labour. This requirement seems to be made as a proof of good faith because the Board finds it difficult to create employment and probably does not get value for the outlay. If now the Board refuses to admit the men’s right to make demands or dictate terms and decides to stick to its offer, let the men take it or leave it, it will have the support of the ratepayers and all other reasonable men.