NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 280, 22 August 1931, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

Underlying the questions raised by Thursday’s deputation to the Prime Minister on the subject of the inability, of local bodies to collect rates from land mortgaged to the Crown is a principle of justice. According to a ruling of the Court of Appeal the Crown as mortgagee is not liable for such rates, and in this respect is in a privileged position as compared with the private mortgagee. The Crown formerly accepted the liability for rates on land held. on its mortgages, and should do so still. What the privilege of non-liability since decided by the Court means to the local bodies may be easily imagined from the figures quoted by the Waitomo County clerk, who said that while they already had judgment for rates totalling £BOOO, they could be sure of enforcing judgment for only £6OO. Th|s injustice should be rectified. If the Crown were held liable it would hove to enforce payment, or stand the loss, as the private mortgagee does now.

Along with the problem of finding work for large numbers of unemployed men and women, this country has also to solve one of equal difficulty now due for serious attention, namely, unemployed boys and girls. The question has been discussed by the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Association, and by it referred to the Employers’ Federation. One speaker at the Manufacturers’ Conference on Thursday pointed out that practically no boys were absorbed by industry last year. The resolution passed referred to the restrictions and anomalies which interfered with the employment of apprentices, and called for a review of the Apprenticeship Act. Here is another instance of the influence upon employment of the restrictions placed upon industry through the Arbitration Court in more prosperous times, when employers accepted too readily conditions which they now find are clogging their efforts to make any headway. An open market for labour of all kinds would have a marked effect upon the unemployment figures, and the country may yet be forced to face that question. ♦ * * *

Everyone is inclined to think his own problems the most difficult or his own successes the most creditable. It is the same with generations of men and it is natural that it should be so because present and personal pain or joy , must always be felt more vividly than pains or joys that can only be seen in the misty mirrors of history. Yet history is a useful corrective of either despair or triumph; it restores perspective and teaches, in Charles Kingsley's words, that “the thing that is, is the thing that shall be, and there is no new thing under the sun.” We have been reminded of that by Mr. J. McAnulty; 'Speaking at a meeting of dairy producers in the Wairarapa, he remarked that in every crisis in the past two hundred years there have been prophets of doom. He might have added that these periodic Jeremiahs selected much the same Aunt Sallys to pelt, such as the “money power,” the distributive system, the mechanism of currency and credit, and so on. However, Mr. McAnulty’s real point was that humanity has survived these recurrent crises and gone on to greater achievements in knowledge and material welfare and, no doubt, will do so again. That does not mean that we shall succeed to better times without effort or planning. Mr. McAnulty declares “we shall pull through” but it will necessarily be a long quU. a strom jouU and. above aIL a anil all taoethtt