WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.

Evening Star, Issue 12943, 5 May 1908, Page 1

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.

A REGRETTABLE INCIDENT

Ulo attitude of the people of Blackball ini connection with the arrest of Mr Hickey is cause for regret and reprobation. It is the failure of the Government to compel respect of the law of the land by, instant r>i ,®, rm rc Pression of the law-breakers at Blackball which is directly responsible for the Lamentable exhibition. A little more dalliance with the dignity and effectiveness of the law by those whose duty it is to enforce it without fear or favor, and the ugly head of anarchy will begin to rise in our midst. The Hon. the 1 remier has announced that he will have no part with revolutionary Socialism. The Blackball strike and the Hickey incident shoidd be sufficient to impress upon him that unless he checks its growth, now ' isiblo and tangible, at its birth, by backing up the existing laws with . all the power at his command, the only conclusion of all sensible men will be ‘that' he is quiescent simply because he is not opposed to lawless conduct by extremists and their sympathisers.—The ‘ Dominion.’ COLONIAL FINANCE. It seems remarkable to us that while the Premier is boasting that he has remitted revenue to the people during the List year of over a million (including Customs dues £400,000, and railway and postal charges £600,000) he should propose to Ijorrow two millions for public works and other objects. The very fact that the country is enjoying a trulv wonderful period of prosperity is just the reason why the people can afford to pav for some of these works out of their* own pocket. Have the people on the whole got any good by these concessions? Does the worker find the cost of living decreased one penny piece by the reductions in the (Customs dues? Does he reap any benefit at all from the reductions in railway and postal charges? Everyone knows that he does not. ihe benefit of these reductions is reaped almost entirely by that part of the community which least required them. As far as the general public is concerned, we venture to say that the loss of a million on tho revenue was not called for, and ■that, they would have been in no worse case bad the old charges been maintained. As it is, tliey have derived little benefit, and they have tho certainly of increased charges of interest on the mounting debt.— ‘Hawke’s Bay Herald.’

THE POLITICAL SITUATION. Tho community pays little heed to Mr Massey s talk of Socialism, because it knows that his party is bankrupt of ideas and must have some material for its speeches. But if the Premier were to join him he would at once give the (Socialistic movement a now importance, and Socialism, which is now a vague term covering a multitude of tendencies and impressions, would become, a defined political issue. We are not sure that this ultimate development would be a catastrophe, hut we should be sorry to sec it reached by live nioans suggested by our Opposition friends in Dunedin. It would he a catastrophe indeed for Sir Joseph Ward to abandon the principles of Liberalism which ho lias held for a lifetime .merely to gain the support of a handful of disappointed politicians. whose assistance, under existing conditions, he is never likely to need.— ‘Lyttelton Times.’ ter SYLLABUS. BP everybody whose views arc worth Kjisuiting objects strongly to the syllabus, and the department is doing nothing to rectify its admitted deficiencies. The position indicated by the Inspector-Gene-ral—that the school inspectors should be allowed to remedy the defects of the syllabus at their own arbitrary discretion—seems to us thoroughly inconsistent with the principles of a sound educational system. If the syllabus is wrong, it ought to be altered ; if the regulations are sound and sane, they ought to be enforced. At present teachers cannot possibly know precisely where they stand, and'their work must suffer in efficiency. But this is a small matter compared with the evil that inevitably results from over-pressure, and tho substitution of relatively unimportant work for the training that should lay tho foundations of education for our children. Auckland ‘Stax.’ POULTRY FARMING. It is not always that the Government is successful in such a side-line :ls poultiy farming, though it by no means follows that anything Government takes under its protecting wing is necessarily a failure. But we are afraid that those who are responsible for the success or failure of these poultry farms, being under the impression that they are as necessary as any other Government establishment' have not that incentive to make them succeed as if the business was their own and they had to hustle to obtain a profitable existence. While we can rail go so far as to say that poultry farming cannot bo made a 'profitable business when carried on by itself, we feel bound to aver that in our range of experience a profitable poultry farm of itself lias never come under our observation in this Dominion or anywhere else.— ‘ Grey River Argus.’

MEN AND WOMEN TEACHERS. Mr Hogben compares New Zealand conditions to foreign conditions, which hardly affect our New Zealand youth when considering their choice of a profession. They compare their prospects in the educational service to their prospects elsewhere, and wo repeat that the prospects at the present time arc still not sufficient to fill vacancies in the service with applicants who passed through the secondary schools. So we continue the inexcusable pupil teacher system. And, speaking of female we certainly waste twothirds of our training school expenditure when we devote it to girls who, according to the Inspector-General, “ in at least two cases out of three enter the service only for a term of years.” If we paid enough to secure for the service capable male gSluatcs of the secondary schools, and encouraged them to persevere with the prospect of promotion for constancy and merit, wo should certainly find it pay us better in the end than does the present system.—-Auckland ‘Herald.’ THE GAMING ACT. There is no shadow of a doubt that the Gaming Act has operated in the direction m which it was intended it should operate, and has done a great deal to kill the almost universal interest that used to be taken) in horse-racing. Scores of people who read the sporting news in the papers a year ago and invested a modest pound or two at meetings at their own doors have ceased to take any interest whatever in racing with the cessation of tho publication) of dividends, and they have been practically weaned from the habit of gambling as a oonsequen6e. The big bettors and the confirmed gamblers still pursue the even tenor of their way, but the racecourse has been shorn of much of its attraction for the multitude by the operation of the Act.— Christchurch ‘ Star.’ '•