TOPICS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 67, 20 March 1914, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

"Barrows are a relic of barbarity," said Councillor Fill' Fruit-barrows ler, summarily, last and the Hindus, night, when the City Council was discussing street hawkers. Antiquarians and professors can refute the allegation, but no amount of debate will change the fact that Hindu barrow-men have become a problem in Auckland and Wellington. In the North the city authorities were urged to discriminate against the Indian "British subjects," but such dangerous procedure is not practicable. In- these cases the by-laws, rightly,- take account of character, not of creed or colour, and no racial distinctions can be drawn. The Wellington City Council lias adopted a recommendation that a special uy-lajW should be ing.de to pro*

hibit, generally, the selling from stall* or barrows in tho city. Of course the council may be aiming as straightly at Europeans as at Asiatics, because shopkeepers, who pay rates, are not so much concerned by the colour as by the competition of the street vendors, whose working expenses are comparatively small. It is true that these traders are not How allowed to pick their own stands ; they are not at liberty to post themselves near shops that' sell similar goods, and they are not permitted to shout about their goods. ' Yet the man whose shop is the open street does give much anxiety to shopkeepers, who are plainly at & disfttl vantage. So long as a civic social system depends for the "amenities" on revenue from rates, a City Corporation is obliged to give reasonable protection to the established shopkeepers, provided that there is no >ing" for unfair innatlon of prices. A u'y-law of the kind proposed will not solve the problem of. Hihdu immigration. Ihe aliens woultt merely vary their occupations. A man who now stands all day by his barrow, waiting for the public to come to his goods, may walk in the suburbs all day, taking his goods to the public. The Government has to be the chief actor in the difficulty with undesirable immigrants. That unreality in the estate-breaking efforts of the GovernLiberals and ment, discussed in v the Laiid. N leading article to-day, was rightly one of the points made last evening by Mr. Atmore in his indictment of the Massey policy, Subdivision is going oii) because the price of land compels it. " Expanding markets and high values of primary products are reflected, perhaps more than reflected, in the price of land, and owners are induced to sell by the money offering rather than compelled to subdivide by graduated taxation. Mr. Atmore's point is a good one, but, unfortunately, it is also valid against Sir Joseph Ward, as an inter jector in the 1 audience promptly pointed out. 'Replying .with commendable wit, Mr. Atmore compared Sir Joseph with George Stephenson, and asked how anyone could expect Stephenson to be a Westinghouse. But on the land tax issue the ex-Prime Minister was no Stephenson ~and no pioneer, and the circumstances in which he shelved his contemplated higher rates of taxation have been laid bare by the, Hon. J. D. Ormond. Liberalism has, so far given no proof that it is solid' pn the land question. That is Liberalism's greatest weakness, but it could be made its greatest strength. The importance of the proposal made by Dr. Hardwick Smith The Proposed that the Wellington Radium Hospital Board should Institute. obtain a sufficient supply of radium cannot be over-estimated. As Medical Superintendent, he is- naturally most anxious that suffering that can be relieved by the application of any of the latest therapeutic agents should not be allowed to wait. In this he will, we feel sure, have' the utmost sympathy of the public, expressed in terms of cash, if need be. But he is moat to be commended for the fair and judicial manner in which he has presented the 1 matter to be board. While pointing out the uses and limitations of radium, so far as they are known, he also indicated the dangers attendant on the handling of this still l|ttle-known therapeutic agent by the inexpert medical man. In Dr. Herbert (who was interviewed by The Post on the subject at the same time) Dr. Hardwick Smith has a strong supporter in his view that the use of radium in medicine is still of an experimental character, and that it is riot a "cure-all." Dr. Herbert suggests waiting for two years, and Dr, Hardwick Smith does, not advocate hot haste.' This is certainly the proper attitude to take. Should, then, the proposed Radium Institute wait? If the preliminaries of its establishment were begun at once, it would probably be nearly two years before all was in fair Working order. In any case, the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board will take some time to discuss it, and in ,the ihterval more and moro^will be learned about the curative properties of radium also the risks and dangers attending its application, even by the expert.