WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.

Evening Star, Issue 12982, 19 June 1908, Page 1

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.

PREFERENCE. Certainly no one can have contemplated thai a manager who had been on an estate for five or six years—a young, capable man who could easily find employment elsewhere —would be permitted to take up 2,892 acres, valued at £15,140, without, competition. Gentlemen of this description can very_ well shift for themselves without any special assistance from the Stale, and it should be made quite dear by the law that they are not the objects of the Government's solicitude. The Minister has avoided at Culverden the mistake that was made at Gtckaike, but he must not leave on the Statute Book a provision that is capable of such easy misconstruction. 'LytteJton Times.'

THE CARDINAL LOGUE "ESTERVIEW." There is no experienced journalist "in New Zealand but knows the" faults and follies of the American "yellow" Press—the manner in which it places the criminal on a pedestal, the notorious and wholesale urtreliabHity that 50 often characterises its alleged ''interviews," its recklessness in assertion, its insincere praise and lying abuse of public men, and. the extent to which it merits the epithet flung at it by Robert Louis Stevenson—''the mouth of a sewer, where lying is professed as from a university chair." The knowledge of all this—the remembrances of the repeated exposures of the past and of the notoriously unreliable conditions of the present—ought to have sufficed to induce the New Zealand Press to suspend judgment on the now exploded New York "interview," apart altogether from the intrinsic improbability of the message itself.—' New Zealand Tablet.'

WAGES. The fathers and the fathers' fathers of the men of to-d!ay were at least' free men, who valued their independence, even though it meant'only "a crust off bread and liberty "; but their descendants, both employers and employees, have sold their birthright for a mess of pottage, and established in New Zealand a plutocracy of trusts and combines which is a menace to true prosperity. The worship of the Golden Calf, in the form of wages and profits, is paramount in New Zealand, and as long as this is the case the character of its people will deteriorate.—Warrarapa 'Times.'

WHAT OP THE FUTURE. We are glad to note from their recent utterances that the members of the Ministry seem, to fully realise the danger that presents itself in the levelling process that Socialists and some of tlie Labor unions would desire 1o effect. The Premier is doing good work for his country when he speaks out boldly and exposes the fallacy of the Socialist idea, and if in the promised Labor legislation provision is made enabling the Arbitration Court to endue its awards with some amount of flexibility, so that in fixing the rates of remuneration intelligence and industry above the average may have due recognition and reward, a great deal will haivo been accomplished to put our industrial conditions on a better footing, and to open the way to that increase in enterprise that will make New Zealand the home of great industries.—' Poverty Bav Herald.'

HOSPITALS AND. FEES. Public hospital are established primarily for the benefit of the sick poor. The fact th:it a man cannot pay any fee is no bar to his admission; in fact, 'he is the exact type of patient that the hospital was built to Of course, there is no objection (o collecting fees from those jwtients who cannot conveniently or safely be treated outside, but who are yet in'a position to pay a reasonable charge for the care and nlttcntion they receive in the hospital, but these fees are naturally reduced to a very low figure to suit the needs of the poorer classes, for whom the hospital is chiefly intended.—Auckland ' Star.'

THE ASLVTIC TROUBLE, We want the Empire to accept our restrictive anti-Asiatic 'legislation. On the other hand, we expect the Empire to be prepared to keep open territory for its own Asiatic subjects where the climate, soil, and other conditions of life suit them. In that way the Empire may go on increasing indefinitely without bad blood between the various sections of its subjects; but if East Africa is to be made the centre of a new white colonisation, and the Asiatte is to be driven on to it. it is time for us to protest.—Wellington 'Times.'

AX AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. A youth desirous of becoming a fruitgrower in Auckland province, for example, might not be well suited by a college placed in a locality especially fit for graingrowing. The Minister might, therefore, consider whether some additional outlay upon the experimental farms, so that each could take a few local students, would not be a desirable concomitant to the idea of a central college, thus dividing the expenditure and possibly securing a greater practical result.—Wellington 'Post.'