TOPICS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 27, 1 February 1929, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

A recent Ministerial apology for the slowness of events under the townplanning legislation seems to be not uncalled for. Even in tho case of an enterprise that can be best served on lines of "hasten slowly," tho pace of dead slow ahead seems to 'be rather dispiriting. Now that the Minister has grasped tho need "to facilitate the co-operation of local bodies over an area sufficiently wide to ensure proper planning and co-ordination," he may be able to find an object lesson in the Hutt Valley, with its three boroughs and one' county; its still not completed bitumenised ono and only main road; and its neglected Western Hutt road. Everywhere in the valley there is development, and town-planning of tho future* is in danger of being prejudiced by present acts of commission or omission; but there is little vision and loss cooperation. To place upon local authorities the obligation to prepare a master plan is one of the Ministerial objectives. . Nowhere is its need more obvious than in this principal outlet of tho Capital City, which haa hitherto boon regarded piecemeal instead of as a whole.

Whilo Tadium is admittedly ''a double-edged sword" in the cure o£ disease—which fact was made clear enough when Uio publicity campaign for radium-purehaso was carried out in Wellington some years ago —yet the cablogram published 10-day concerning fifty-ono cancer patients who "assembled at the College of Surgeons to celobrato their ropriovo" must be regarded as a, remarkablo endorsement of radium treatment and therefore, of the wisdom of the purchase which the Wellington Hospital was enabled to make as a result of the campaign mentioned above. The "double-edged sword" is certainly capable of being. accidentally misused, but tho technique of the operations must havo greatly improved in recent years as the result of experience, and will continue to improve. Tho "great gaps in knowlcdgo of the curative powers of radium," to uso tho words of a professor of tho University of London, will surely bo filled, increasing tho percentage of success to which tho professor gives testimony. In this branch of radiology tliero has not for somo time been a cablegram so cheering. A parallel statement concerning radium treatment in this district would no doubt bo of interest it tho medical authorities l'cel justified in making olio.

Inter-Empire trado probloms arc fast sicciimuliitiiig and apparently but little is being dono to solvo them. Sir Benjamin Morgan, after another and recent visit to Australia and New Zealand, has compared tho British Empire trado to an inverted pyramid. Tho only way to place it upon its base, ho says, is to mako Britain tho main market for Dominion produce. Then he suggests that Britain should assist the Dominions in maintaining their high standard of living, and instanced tho competition of tho Mediterranean dried fruits, produced by low-priced labour, with tho Australian articlo. produced under comparatively high-cost conditions. But Mr. Baldwin has said again and again that whatover the present Government's viows on safeguarding may bo, thoro will bo no duties or other imposts or conditions placed on imported foodstuffs to mako them dearer than they are. Most difficult and voxatious probloms, then, are arising day by day, not only in tho trade relations between Groat Britain and tho Dominions, but botwoon the Dominions themselves, and they grow bigger and bigger with the passage of time, generating unfriendliness and restricting trado expansion. As to Great Britain itself Sir Benjamin must know, for Mr. Baldwin has said so over and over again, that tho present Government will place no duties on imports of food. Whatever the present Government may promise to do in the matter of safeguarding, tho Dominions' producers cannot look for protection through the Customs against foreign competitors in tho wheat, meat, dairy produce, and fresh fruit markets of Great Britain. Besides, who aro they to insist upon the exclusion of tho foreigner from those markets, when they do their best and —in the caso of exports of New Zealand butter to Australia and Australian wheat and flour to New Zealand-^-suceced in destroying each other's export trades. British husbandry is admittedly in a deplorable condition, but it can look for no protection from tho present Conservative Government and would expect none from a Liberal or Labour Government against competition in its domestic markets from foreign countries and tho Dominions. To tax tho foreigner selling foodstuffs in tho British markets; to restore the pyramid to its base,

seems the only effective way to give effect to Sir Benjamin Morgan's views, and that the Baldwin Government has definitely said it will not do.

Shark-toll of human life this summer is again in evidence in Australia, and it is to bo hoped that tho reliance of New Zealand bathers in general upon differences of geography and climate (and therefore of shark habits) will prove to be well founded. A strange feature is the weakness of the deterrent value of shark tragedies. On the evening following the recent fatality at Bondi beach the handlines and rods of tho shark fishers were busy at the fatal spot, but on either flank surfers swam out far beyond the limits of the farthest bait. Thus it seems that payments of tho supreme penalty do not check the venturesome swimmer any more than the speeding motorist. Is there something in the human being that impels him to the taking of unnecessary risks? Everyone in New Zealand knows that these risks are being taken on the roads. Are they also being taken, unrealised, in bathing waters'?

Little seems to be gained by discussing morals in newspapers. Those newspaper writers who have had experience of pre-war and perhaps Victorian mannors and conventions realiso the great gulf. between, then and now, in that what was then done secretly, and apparently in no great volume, is now done 'openly, and perhaps in greater volume. That the mask has been lifted in, an amazing manner there is no doubt whatever, but since there is no readily available means of measuring the volume of unc'onventionality as between one period and another, careful people hesitate to make comparative statements. What in one opinion constitutes a land-slide in morality, in another opinion constitutes merely a land-slide in hypocrisy, and "one period is as good or as bad as another." This issue is so difficult to try that most newspaper publicists doubt their ability to' try it, and therefore refrain. But their genoral desire to face the new order of things with as liberal a view as possible does not prevent an occasional venture on to thorny soil, and it is certain that the commonts of an Australian writer on week-end manners, published elsewhero on this page, have at least the merit of being nonest and disinterested. Ho writes of what he sees, and what he gathers in impartial inquiry. To all the older generation—and possibly to the younger—his utterance ' will ring true and free of malice. What, then, is the ultimate 1? Whither is unconventionality leading? Is it better to bp virtuous, or to "assume a virtuo if you have it not," or to go all unmasked? Questions far moro easily asked than answered!