NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 179, 27 April 1931, Page 8

NOTES OF THE DAY

Some time- ago it’ was stated that the amount received for the quarter’s instalment of the unemployment levy due on March 1, but not subject to penalty until April 1, was substantially below expectations. It was thought then that considerable leeway would have been made up during the month of grace. Has this been the case? The Government should now be in a position to state, approximately the extent to which those liable for payment of the levy have defaulted • and what action- it proposes, to take to recover amounts due. Penalties, of course, are provided by Statute, but the law has' to be set in motion by the Administration. If it allows thousands to default on this occasion, what remedy will it have if thousands more ignore the obligation to pay next June?

From the attitude and temper of the deputation which interviewed the Minister of Labour after, the disorderly fracas which occurred at the gates of Parliament on Thursday it seems clear that there is in this community an irreconcilable element which is organised to make trouble. One of the speakers declared that the scene at the gates was only a forerunner to more of the same kind, while another predicted an outbreak of burglaries and general turbulence throughout the country. The public is not in a mood to put up with this kind of nonsense, and will expect the Government to deal very firmly with such threats to law and order. It has been stated that the disturbance at the gates was originally created by Communist agitators. If that is the case then steps ought to be taken to curtail very drastically their capacity for making further mischief. The object of these individuals is not to do something for the unemployed, but merely to use them as tools in a deliberate campaign of disaffection which is part of a world-wide conspiracy of sedition and revolution organised from Moscow.

There are encouraging indications in the progress of the municipal elections campaign of an awakened interest on the part of the public in the administration of the affairs of the city. The various candidates are being closely questioned regarding their attitude on matters of economy and their opinions on certain projected undertakings which have been the subject of considerable criticism. Tramway access to the eastern and western suburbs is one. . In this particular connection Mr. T. C. A. Hislop informed a questioner at his Northland meeting on Thursday that part of the money which the council had in prospect for the expenditure required on the western access route consisted of a sum of £16,000, profits earned by the city electricity department. To this the questioner replied that while he was in favour of the western access proposal he was opposed to taking profits from one department and applying them to another. Most people will agree with the proposition that each municipal department should stand ,on its own feet, and that the profits earned should be returned to the public in the shape of cheaper service.

. It has been demonstrated on more than one occasion that members of the Labour Party in their anxiety to criticise the Government are apt to overlook their responsibility to the country. The latest example of this inability to consider questions of national moment in a national spirit was provided by Mr. E. J. Howard, Labour member for Christchurch South,, during Thursday’s discussion in the House on the Government’s economy measures. Referring to the proposal to transfer the anticipated profits of the Post Office Savings Bank to the Consolidated Fund, Mr. Howard said that this was equivalent to a raid on the funds of the Post Office, and that the Government could not meet a run of £4,000,000 on the Savings Bank. As Mr. Downie Stewart pointed out, Mr. Howard ought to have measured the effect of such a remark before he uttered it. He may not have intended to convey this, but the actual effect of what he said was to associate the present position of the New South Wales Savings Bank with a similar possibility in this country. It is fortunate that such remarks coming from Labour members are taken by intelligent people for what they are worth, otherwise needless alarm and uneasiness might result