POLITICAL POINTS.

Evening Post, Issue 51, 29 February 1908, Page 12

POLITICAL POINTS.

* INJUSTICE OF THE "SECOND BALLOT." The Spectator asks its readers to give their most serious consideration to the^ whole question, and nob to commit" themselves to an assent to any scheme for second ballots until they have looked at tho matter from all points of view. "We take it,' it says, "that tho qrdinary man who is not held fast in the grip of party or is not a 'machine' politician, desires to see minorities represented in tho Houso of Commons. He does not, of course, want the will of tho minority to prevail, bu« he would like to sco tho minorities get their fair share of representation. In other words, every unprejudiced citizen desiro3 in the abstract tho representation of minorities, though no doubt ho has a very hazy notion as to how such representation could or ought to be obtained. Put it cannot at present decide how minorities aro to bo represented, at least let him refuse to take any step which will give them less representation than they now possess. Under a system of single-member constituencies without the second ballot it is possiblo that, owing to more than two candidates standing in certain divisions, minority representation may be indirectly secured. If, however, when, owing to a split, a candidate is elected by less than an absolute majority of tho voters — i.e., he has not qbtained half tho votes in tho constituency plus one or more — a second ballot takes place between the man who carried most votes and tho candidate who camo next in order, nothing but tho will of tho majority can prevail. For example, in the recent by-elections where a Socialist has been returned owing to a three-cornered fight, that Socialist would have had to recontest the seat with Iho Liberal or Unionist candidate whichever polled more votes, and would in all probability have been defeated unless ho could have bought support from tho Unionists or Liberals, as the case migjit be." The Spectator detests Socialism, but as long as there arc Socialists in tho country it thinks it only just and right that they should have representatives in the Houso. "Yet, under a second ballot, rigidly applied, it might well bo that, though they numbered one- fourth or one-fifth of the electors, not ono would be elected." The Saturday Review acrasps the Homo Government of closing its eyes to the developments of race-hatred until they hayo assumed "alarming dimensions within its own dominions. It say:— The British Govemmert finds Itself in a humiliating position of inability to secure equality of treatment for one class of its ovn subjects within tho confines of its own Empire. A condition of affairs so destructive of all conceptions of Empire on the one. side- or humanitarianism on the other is unexampled in history. The Unionists have no desire to embarrast the Ministry in a matter of extreme gravity for the Empiro j and they aro stopped from doing it if they would. Tre existing Government should havo endeavoured, however, long before this, to evolve a policy to meet tho crisis which they must have known would be certain to confront them." The new Radical weokly, The Nation, like the rest of the pi ess and public, is disquieted at possible changes in tho policy ami management of The Times It complains that tho great daily has never been in favotu with "the children of light," ( !) but is constrained to ad-mit—-grudgingly' enough — that it haß possessed some of the highor virtues. Ihe public, it says, "will want to know whbthwr the best featm-os of the Times — tht> fairness, of the correspondence, the balance and impartiality of its reports, and tho weight and authority of its foreign intelligence — are to be preserved, or to bo gradually modifir.d until the paper becomes as crude an organ of sect as tho new Standard. The Times' eccentricities have not spoiled the paper, or made it less interesting to thfc student of politics, or less important as an exchange medium for tho powerful and well-in- ] former!. Here it stands alone, or lot us say, with a small and fi* company,, of which n few contemporaries, like the I Temps, or the Debnts. or tho Now York ! Evening Post, are less significant members." Advocates of old-age pensions (says the London corei^pondcnt of tho Bri-li-ih Wrokly) are uneasy They hear that if. Mr. Asquith is to provide pensions in his next Budget he must fyjht the Admiralty. Retrenchment is easy to preach in opposition, but difficult to practice in power. Sir Henry Oamp-bell-Bannorman and his colleagues contended year after year that expenditure depended on policy. Their policy is pacific, but notwithstanding international agreements tbo fighting departments keep up the estimates, and it is difficult to resist the . experts. The prospect before the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not rosy. Ho cannot calculate on a large growth of the revenue on tho basis or existing taxation. The increase of the death duties on great ostates may not add much to the weight of the national purse, and the effect of the incoma tax changes is not yet made clear. A new tax must be found, or retrenchment must prevail at the Cabinet Councils. Tho Spectator says: — If the rJritish people are wise, they -will shut their cais against all sensational and "viewy" talk as to this or that influence .vhich is going to drivo us out of India. Wo shall remain in India os long as we aro capable of holding it and the native population as a whole are incapable or aot desirous of combining to drive us out, and not one moment longer. At present there is no indication that wo havo lost the power of rule, or, again, that the inhabitants of India have the least desire to drive us out, or any capacity of combining to accomplish that work. Our rule in India, no doubt, is to some extent in the nature of a miracle, but it is one of those miraclos like that which preserves a man's eyesight in face of a thousand risks run by day and night. Thero is no reason why it should not continue for another hundred and fifty y<saTS. Further than that no wise man A'ill care to look. We, at any rate, l-efusa to be pessimistic about India. The machinery of our rule i 3 thoroughly sound and efficient, if we take it us a whole, and, what is more, is still inspired by the true principle — tho desire and the resolve to govern in the interests of the governed, and to allow no other considerations,, whether , of sentiment or of interest, to interfere with that resolution. While that lasts, and while we refuse to make any concessions to folly, ignoianco, or guile, wo aro safe. Winds and tempests may, no doubt, arise for a time to shake our dominion, but they will not uproot it."

Tho ex-Empress Kugione was a passenger' tv Colombo from Mars>ei'les on the last voyage of the steamer Mooltan. (Jieat interest was evinced in the Stic/ Canal by the distinguished lady, who Mas passing through it roi the'scumd lime only, since eho opo.'ied this great in 1869,