TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1912, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

¦ + "The, gas supply has bean very bad tot the past eighteen months," Tired, said a Hanmev depututioniet yesterday to the Hon. T. Mockonzie. Minister of Tourist and Health Resorts. The complainant was discussing natural gas, and he was apparently referring rather to quantity than quality. It seems that the Minister wae to discover, personally, whether the supply of gaa was bad or not, ana ho was also worried about a bore that had been driven either too far or not far enough through a pool. The recital of the woee of Hanmer fell upon tired Alinifiterial ears. " Ministers,"' Mr. Mackenzie said, " should have something else to do than to be bothered with the administration of these resorts." Then he referred to Rotorua, the State's own township, nursed aoid fondled, fed with pap at the taxpayers' expense, till it wae strong enough to bite at the hand that held the spoon. Rotorua has been petted, pampered, spoiled. It is a wayward child, crying for the moon, if only the taxpayers will bo kind enough to stand the cost of getting it down. Rotorua'* prayer is not only, "Give us this day our daily tourist," as a wag remarked a few years ago. It is also, "Give us this day our daily dole from the Treasury." Largesse has been lavished on Rotoiua, but the more the State town gets, the more it growls. "Take Rotorua," sighed , the Minister. "We have had more objections from Rotorua proportionately than from any other place.' The Government comSlams that Rotorua is a bad child ; otorua retorts that the Government is a bad parent. Anyhow, Mr. Mackenzie is weary of all the wrangling. He does not wish to be bothered with gas, good or bad, drains, bores, notice-boards, and spas. "Does it not all show," he asks, "that the Government is foolish to bother with these places at all?" In his desperation he recommends that the management of the public property at these resorts should be relegated to private hands. This doctrine contrasts quaintly with previous official chronicles and vocal statements regarding the State management of the tourist business. We have long had a belief that the exploitation of the tourist is done at a cost of which the people of this country do not know the full extent. We are hopeful that in any stocktaking which the public may presently witness, the tourist enterprises will not escape notice. Life 13 never dull, summer or winter, by the curving shore The Oriental of Oriental Bay. By Race Meet, sunlight, by moonlight, the „ sea there lias charms to drive dark care away. There, too, the little children, free for a tirno from the terrible syllabus*, frolic on the sands and drag the, cockle from its cool bed in the shallows for a roasting on a piece of " seaweed " (galvanised iron or kerosene tin). When the f>ky is kind, mothers sit by the blue bay and watch their little ones making merry through the bright hours. On -week days one sees such scenes, full of peace and restfulnesß for adults who have fled from the rush and roar of the city streets. On Sunday morning the bay shakes off its air Arcadian, and takes on an atmosphere of high carnivaj. In a letter in The Post yesterday on the "Oriental Bay Races," a much-perturbed "Resident" described the Continental character of the Sabbath morn on the " poor man's beach." Horses are' rushed abput by riders in scant attire. The animals are raced up and down by the amateur jockeys with noise enough to alarm even the ordinarily callous cockles. "Assuredly," complains our correspondent;, " someone will be butchered to make a stableboys* holiday." He suggests that the aea-bathing of horsey on Sundays should be restricted to the time between 7 and 9 o'clock in the morning, and this is a reasonable suggestion. The bay is for the people an Sunday morning. The residents have rights to some peace, and all folk, old and young, should have the liberty of access to the water front without running a risk of being knocked over by a mounted youth, keen for "sport, ' at anybody's expense except his . own. If next Sunday morning is fine, a constable should stroll to the bay and see the wild romping. It may be well foi him to have his baton in readiness m case he is charged by the. frisky cavalry, the, admirers of Mr. E. G. Jellicoe must have received a severe The Judgment shock when they read of Jellicoe. in a London cablegram yesterday that "after revolting New Zealand he found all his political views falsified by the working of Socialistic reforms." But among those who are not included in that select company the announcement is more likely to occasion perplexity and amusement. What were Mr. Jellicoe's political views that have been so cruelly shattered by what he saw during his recent visit to New Zealand? Was he once a Liberal, and is he now a Tory? Was he once a Socialist, and is he nbw an Individualist? On these fundamental points the Press Association's correspondent has assumed that the people of New Zealand are fully informed. As a matter of fact, they know very, very little, and they care still less. The correspondent has assumed that Mr. Jellicoe is a person of political note in New Zealand, and that his views are of vital moment to ita people. But both assumptions are without justification, If they were not, and if we knew what his opinions used to be, it might thrill us all to learn that the working of Socialistic reforms in this country ha 3 falsified "all hfe political views"— alj, all "at one fell swoop." It might thrill us still more to learn that "individual thrift and enterprise have been substantially annihilated" in this country, that We are ""almost op the brink of ruin," and that "the Arbitration Acts are spurious, and have resulted in the creation of a host of well-paid officials, who live by harassing trade and industry.' Even so wo might derive some comfort from the fact that Australia is just as far removed as New Zealand from the Utopia of Mr. Jellicoe's austere imagination. But as Mr. Jellicoe lived for many years in Wellington without inducing his fellow -citizens to attach the faintest importance to his political opinions, it would be foolish to expect any of them to be flattered now by the rubbish with which he has been loading the democratic columns of the Standards Any one of the " wild peers " who slew the Budget of 1909 could have talked of New Zealand's progress as fiercely as Mr. Jellicoe, and could hardly iiave -displayed a grosser ignorance.