TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 22, 27 January 1911, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Though the City Council has approved its Lighting DepartThe Rival merit's offer to supply Illuminants. the Charitable Aid Board with electric current at 3d a unit for lighting and l^d for heating, it is plain that the battle shout the two illuminants is far from finished. The 3d quoted for the board is 2d cheaper than, the price charged to large consumers in the city, and is 4d below the ordinary tariff for private householders. Usually there is onlyone retail price, and one wholesale price in the same market at the same lime for th& same commodity, but in the case of electricity — a "subtle fluid" — the City Council's experts say that there are special factors to make the price 3d in one" quarter and 5d in another. The ratepayers, for the present, have to accept the experts' report. Tho Mayor (Mr. Wilford) claims that the corporation is acting honestly and fairly in the competition with the Gas Company. "It is* a business proposition we offer," he said last night, and he declared that the sale of power to the- board at 3d for lighting would leave a profit. Here, then, are the ratepayers' representatives stating that they" car hoHourably offer a low price, without injury to the ratepayers' interests. The burgesses may be a little puzzJed still, but it is their part to trust the council's officers as long as they have no proven cause to bo dubious. In this lighting matter, if the corporation secures the contract on the terms mentioned, the ratepayers can only rely on time to test the statements made hy the city ' experts. The officers are on trial, and they should have a fair trial. Very watchful eyes will be following the course of the experiment. New Zealand should be grateful to Mr. C. W. Adams, of Apostles Wellington, for of Town-planning, his well-prepared address on townplanning at Dunedin on Wednesday. By his training as a surveyor, and his observation, Mr. Adams is well qualified to discuss this subject. He has noted the distressing blunders and bungles perpetrated throughout New Zealand in the I'ap-hazard making of towns, and he has closely studied the planning activities of other countries. The meeting to which Mr. Adams presented his forcible, admirable case was warmly in agreement' with him, that a definite move was urgently needed in New Zealand, and it was decided to recommend legislation on the lines of the British Town-Planning Act. At least one Minister, the Hon. G. Fowlds, is favourable to reasonable .legislation, and he probably has the support of the Hon. Dr. Findlay, who has included town-planning among his farranging studies. We hope that this little band of enthusiasts will be soon largely recruited. The object of legislation would be to provide machinery for remedying, as far a-s possible, the mistakes already made, and to prevent their repetition in new territory. Much as the General Government may do to atone for past apathy, more may be effected by healthy public opinion in particular localities. It is some years now since the "town plan" became a feature of American municipal life, and the movement has made remarkable progress. The "plan" has hastened progress by fostering tho "psida of placfl" feeling in the cgjainuniky,. Mr, Adams an,d. his friends

may make a quicker march towards their goal by an effort to secure the sympathy of local bodies. Misleading catchwords are potent for j evil, and their value is " Unwritten wel) known to ingenious Law." men with a point to work. To a notorious case of recent years in the United States, where limitless wealth and the ablest counsel were available to- secure a failure of justice, the language owes a new phrase, "brain-storm," and an old one perverted to a new purpose, "the unwritten law." Both are euphemisms to disguise ugly realities, and they have been effectively worked in deluding unthinking folk .who assume that a new word must signify a new thing. Any | vindictive man may, by giving rein, to evil passions, induce at will the fictitious malady supposed to relieve him of re- j sponsibilifcy, and the new reading of ' 'unwritten law" is a supposed principle j so preposterous that any attempt at formulation would betray its inherent folly. The "lex non seripta" of ancient jurists, and of the England of to-day, is "unwritten" only by a figure of speech. It is, in fact, the whole body of principle on which public liberties rest, otherwise known as "the common law," so firmly established as to stand in no need of amendment — the basic as distinguished from statutory law, which, based on the supposed expediency of the day, is essentially experimental, fluctuating as party exigencies dictate, perpetually subject to amendment as it is "written," coded, repeated, and re-written in order that its contradictions may be removed that it may become even temporarily practicable. But the misused phrase has gained a wide vogue, and is conveniently applicable as excuse or justification for every crime in the calendar. Men who would indignantly resent the imputation of being anarchists are accepting a definition which substitutes for the highest of human laws the negation of all law human or divine. How criminals avail themselves of the new loophole was shown a day or two ago in the case of the Dutch 'parricide who openly declared that in his own land he would have stayed his hand, that in an enlightened country like the United States no jury would convict him when it heard his reason. Some infamous charge against a man no longer there to defend himself would be the murderer's plea. American juries are becoming as sentimental and tolerant of crime as the French juries who have long been notorious for shielding the worst criminals from capital punishment on the pretext of "extenuating circumstances. '* In the United States very few murderers are convicted. Ihe widespread custom of "lynching " tortures and slays hundreds annually without trial on charges improbable and ! otten false, yet no offender has even been convicted of murder. In Paris, as we learn to-day, the perpetrator of a cold-blooded double murder on a railway platform in full public view has been acquitted. No reason is given, but it seems plain that it is "the unwritten law again. The evil seems to be even touching the Old Country It is a social pestilence, and threatens the very foundations of society. No doubt the "hobble' 1 garment (it is ti ..rr 7 . , „ ? carcel y comet to term The Hobble" it a skirt) has a serious in Wisconsin, purpose, despite all the , ridicule penned and pinned upon it. One bright morning the makers cf fashions did not say: °£t is a fin© day. Let us go out and kill something— women, for choice, with hobbles." Let it be charitably said that the primary purpose of the harness was to control the skirt, and hold it in decorous folds, blow the wind never so rudely. But in fashions secondary and tertiary periods quickly follow the primary, j When the "hobble" was wedded to the sheath" in Paris the ladies had to have very reliable silk for their taut and tight raiment, and had to hop like rabbits or kangaroos. Not a few hopped to dusty death in the congested streets. Some cynics have spoken bitterly about the. "hobble," but the large hearted legislators of Wisconsin are kinder. Americans do love their womenfolk, and Wisconsin dons not lag behind other States in devotion to the dear ones. Wisconsin men, dreading disaster to the ladies by any dangerous tethering of the limbs, intend to forbid the "hobble" by statute law, but they gently offer an alternative, tho trouserette, such as Turkish women wear. This offer of the trouserette is evidence of Wisconsin's belief that the main function of the "hobble" is to keep the- skirt withna bounds. Practically the exaggerated "hobble" skirt means that two legs have to be fitted ,-into one trouser, and generous Wisconsin offers a pair. Will .the ladies be grateful?