TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 08, 10 January 1908, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Tramway sehemeg involving such trifles as £80,000 and over are Look Before flying through the Hutt You Leap. Valley. These- are electric times, and the p&oph believe that they must mqvo with them. Last night members of the Hutt and Petono Borough Councils rhet in conference, and discussed proposals for establishing a syetcm of. rapid transit in the district. Mr. Herrman Lewis, a landowner, submitted that he and other holders of property were prepared to guarantee, for a period of ten years, any loss up to £20,000, These gentlemen would, of course, hope to recoup themselves by the enhanced value of their holdings. "They have faith in progress and prosperity/ declared Mr. Lewis, which means that the landowners are conlidont of a nice profit. In Wellington, so far, the trams have bean of more benefit to land syndicates than to tho general public. The dream, of cheap suburban rentals is still remote from realisation. The Mayor of Petone (Mr. M'Ewan) is a strong advocate of clear-cut municipaiisation, but ho wishes to ensure that the holders of lands for sale should pay something for the factor which hoists up the values. Therefore lie proposes a differentiating system of rating, practically an application of the betterment principle, and his line of, argument is very sound. The meeting last night came to a cautious decision ; it resolved to tak& evidence from experts, and re-assemble three weeks hence. In the meantime the people who will be obliged to find themoney for any project should ponder whether the district is able to bear a heavy liability for a tram service, for which the traffic might be much below paying point. Good transit fosters settlement, but the charge must bo weighed ngainst the prospective advantage. There 13 a danger that the people might be hurried into an undertaking before they have fully grasped all the details. New South Wales, and indeed Austral- _ asia, must read with reNewcastle lief that the partial striko at Work, of coal labourers at Newcastle lias ended, and that the Teralba mines are now working again. It is not a good feature of the dispute that the acting-president of the Coalminers* Federation, addressing the strikers, was not Content to appeal merely to the men's sonse of justice. He did not simply point out that, with ths agreement of the men, a Special Court had beea established to deal with this particular dispute among others; and that they were bound hy their agreement. His chisf argument was apparently quite otherwise : it was a statement that the Federation was not in a position to fight. And his statement seems to^ contain what is almost tf note of regreti that the community could not bo menaced. "Were the Federation iv the position of a couple of ,'month.s ago, the 'whole coal trade of Now South Walts might' soon bo dislocated," Does that not suggest that it is tho business of the New South Wales community to maintain a position where its whole coal trade may not be dislocated? Does it not suggest the impolicy of placing the coal supply of tho community at the discretion of men who aro apparently willing to break their' agreement when they can do it safely? In our opinion, the men's word should be as good as the masters' ; and the men would honour and profit themselves by making it as good as the masters' — even if they should suffer temporary lose. Where an industry has to be permanently carried on, the very worst thing that can happen to one of the bargainers is to rest under an imputation ox bad faith, and to earn"the imputation. Keeping pledges pays. There can be no question that the sectarian barriers so rigidly Another guarded nqt more than a Church generation ago are breaking Union. down and crumbling away. "Church union" is in the air — proposals for federation or organic union aro brought forward and seriously discussed j bodies divided by old schisms are reuniting everywhere as the bitterness of the bygone controversies are f<igotten; and altogether there- seems 10 be a better recognition of a common pi.rp >.se and a growing feeling of brotlwrhdod, with a more earnest desire to appio.vmate more closely to the New Testament ideal. Leaders of great religious mo/v ments have long cherished the vision of a united church. "I desire," said John Wesley, "to have a league, offeiibi.'e and defensive, with every soldier of Christ," and only under absolute compulsion was he driven to establish a separate body. Said his contemporary, Swedenborg, who founded no denomination, bijt remained all his life in communion with bis own church, "All religion has relation to life, and the life of religion is to do good." So fa/ as those principles are accotej, divisions must necessarily disappear. Apart from such federations ag the J]i glish Free Church Union, composed of bodies closely allied, but definitely opposed to ojthers, we have seen in Australia a serious attempt to find a basis on wh^eli Episcopal and Presbyterian bodies may unite, and in Wellington, in the matter of the students' hostel, -they have been able to co-oporate in carrying on a valuable institution. With the Now Year, an interesting experiment has been tried in Tiniaru, where the Baptist and Congregational Churches have decided to unite for two years, the Baptist members being distinguished on the roll for statistical purposes. In -proposals for church union, thore has always boon a difficulty in "finding a common basis acceptable to the Baptist body,, henco a special interest will attach to tho experiment, which is to be welcomed as one more step towaids a desirable end. The "New Chums" are fighting it out amongst themselves. New Chums One couches a lance for at New Zealand, and anVariance. other replies with bombs (if abuse for these islands of tho free. Yesterday a philosophic immigrant, calmly reckoned up his bal-ance-sheet, and estimated that the extra sunshine hore, the better social conditions and other things gave a credit in favour of his adopted country. To-day ,a compatriot sets tho hills and tho sea sizzling with the vitriol of his wrath. Somehow it is hard to take tho disgusted ones vory seriously. Whatever their disappointments, may be. it cannot bo denied that there aro countless opportunities in New Zealand 'for anybody

with eyes to see. It is a young country, with money up for the worker. But ho must be a worker, he nmst devote his wits to the pursuit of the shilling and tho sovereign, and not expend them in selecting forcible adjectives and phrases for the bombardment of the North and South Island. Tho writer yesterday hinted that some of Great Britain's failures ventured out here, and expected to find affluence as soon as they stepped ashore. The golden pavements are missing, and the chagrined itch to get on to a soap-box to voice their "wrongs." Some of them seem to prefer tho streetcorner, and a little group of listeners, to the field 1 and the plough. They wail about the absence of work ; the i employers are wailing about the absence oi, workers. "Get busy," is the advice given to the grumblers, for there is business awaiting willing hand? and ready heads. The credulity of the politician is almost as great as the credulity Posterity of the elector. Mr. M'Cal- j via him remurked at Ellerslie Hansard, yesterday that "those who read ilansard mftst be struck by the nice speeches delivered by members of Parliament." He attributed tho niceness to the , reporters who replace "they was" with "they were," and "ain't" with "is not," though ha did not specifically mention these phrases. Politicians, in the dreary watches qf the night, when they are taking turn about afc keeping awake on the Parliamentary loungos, are conEoled by visions of countless thousands pouring over Hansard with sparkling eyes, and ejaculating, "My! But that's clever. Good for you, my man, good for yon," and so on. .ij.r, F. Lawry confessed that once ha üßed the words, "Strikes are tho suicide of labour," and it appeared as ''Strikes have a suicidal flavour," and ho was so tickled with the alteration that he "decided to allow the sentence to pass down to posterity in that form." Poor Mr. La-wry ! Posterity will not know whether he said, "Flavours have a suicidal strike," "Suicides have a strikish flavour," or any other permutation of the words, for posterity will read Hansard less than fhe present generation does, and the present generation <b mostly content to take the volumes as read.v Hansard is like the mace. It is respectable, but it mostly lies on the table untouched. Natural suspicion attaches to ,the stories of "plots" by Duma memThe bers and others of the RusRussian sian peoplo against the lives Navy, of members of the' Royal family, or of highly-placed officials. Such plots not only exist, but aro sometimes successful ; but in many oases they are manufactured by the police to justify measures of op^pression and repression. But there can be no reason to regard the serious plot among the crews of the Black Sea fleet as ( fictitious, nor even to question the details. The fleet is far from being "the first line of defence" of the Russian empire, and its untrustworthiness has 'been shown in many ways. There is good reason to believe that the men are not well treated, and suffer grievances for which they see no hope of redress ; and a state of smothered mutiny seems chronic — m the Black Sea fleet in particular. Togo's victory in the Sea of Japan would have been leGs complete, and would have been' achieved at far greater cost, but for the fact that he had but a halfhearted opposition to contend with. The open revolt of the crew of the Kniaz v Potemkin was but the manifestation of long-smouldering resentment against the officers. Conspirators often havo a dangerous habit of committing ! their 6bcrets to writing; iind, in the present case, apparently, the officers must have been edified to find in what particular category each one had been I placed, and thY nature of tho "punishment" in store for each* An understanding seems to exist between the mutinous crews and tho equally disaffected d^ock labourers, which is ono reason why the fleet has been for tho ! present ordered to sea. Even more j serious is the alleged plot for the de- i struction of the fleet, in preparation for which, apparently, a large quantity of high explosives had been secreted in and near Sevastopol. Under present conditions, it would seem futile for Russia to increase her navy. What she needs is- loyal Russian sailors^ — but whero i 8i 8 ghe to find them?