WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.

Evening Star, Issue 13102, 7 November 1908, Page 1

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.

CHEAP MONEY. ’’'^l? ;Tbe comparative few who hare boon iblefe get Government sections of land at mSfr i'V rents are in good ease. But the wettien out* ’ •>’ side one or two favorod dosses have little' wise to bo grateful to the Government, ft ' they want to buy land they have to pay the ‘ inflated prices lately brought abmit W. ' l ’ Government action. If they -want to money they have to pay the high ntoaebt •: *’ interest for winch the Government ere Imetiv:? responsible. Their bunion of local and general, has been latgely increased ■'*r by reason of (be inflated vahiations. It is'an I easy matter by legislation to take money, or ' : 1 money's worth, from one section of the public T " and give it to another. It is not eaer to i alter cconomio laws so ius ato benefit the'* community us u whole.—Christchurch ‘Trees/! 1 WORK AND WORKERS. . New Zealand, when it received tic Arbftmuon Act, sold its industrial efficiency for jfa. v dustrial peace. And it has not even got .the peace. Had the Act never been passed, there might or might net have been strikes, I bat there would have been no loss in kwhie- ' tnai efficiency. Wc make bold to say that Jn \ one month to-day the economic waste adduced by the Act exceeds all the economic' waste that would have resulted from ell the strikes that would have occurred without the Act.. When the Act is repealed it wiD be on , account of its injury to industry no less than ! to its unfairness, injustice, and tyranny. -It , is to the Act that is partly due the develop. I ment of the extravagance and thriftless- J ness which arc at the bottom of the outcry against the increased cost of living.— I Hie ‘ Dominion.’ DEBT AND CAPITAL. Owing to there being no group of private individuals sufficiently endowed with money, it has devolved upon the State to develop tlie public services of the Dominion, end incidentally render such financial assistance as is possible to the people. Tffie result is that we have State loans for public works, for advances to settlers and local bodies, and for other undertakings of a mutually advantageous character. In America, where practically all of the public services are carried on by private enterprise, and in England, where it is less so, when a company raises money for such purposes it is called “ capital.” In New Zealand, when the State or municipality raises money for identically the same class of works, it is “ debt.” What is the Public Debt of England if there must be added to its hundreds of millions the further millions of railway share capital, the sums invested in the privately-owned and extensive system of canals, the capital of such concerns as the National Telephone Company? Auckland ‘Herald.’ ARBITRATION. It is a strange charter of liberty this right to strike. Unmanly, ungenerous, unprincipled, unworthy in every way and to every degree, yet there are men who seriously insist upon its maintenance as a right, because it is impossible to imprison all mankind. Now, the only people who are ever likely to .. get to prison in an arbitration matter are tho jf’ irreducible minimum of perversity. Insteaff of praising a Government for being afraid/o? putting the innumerable recalcitrant -Into prison, the right thing is to praise another Government for facing the responsibility and imprisoning the few who reject sense and reason and civilisation, for unmanliness, selfishness, and brutality.—‘Southland News.’ DEATH DUTIES. To our mind, if a men leaves an estate worth £500,000 in tihs country, bis heirs, who, in general, may be said to have contributed nothing towards the accumulation, should be prepared to pay more than £50,000 for the privilege of inheriting iti And it must be remembered that an estate left by a husband to his wife pays no duty at all, while estates left to children or grandchildren pay .only half the scheduled rales. The. community, which really creates the values of estates in many instances, receives an entirely inadequate portion of them as ils share, and there can be no reasonable objection to a very substantial increase of the rates in the higher grades of the schedule.—‘ Lyttelton Times.' ADVANCES TO SETTLERS. Tho original intention of the Advances to Settlers Act was to cheapen money and liberate the struggling settlers from the toils of (he money-lender, and it cannot bo denied that it has fulfilled its purpose, to the great benefit of those availing themselves of its aid, to tlie satisfaction, even beyond their most sanguine anticipations, of its friends, and to (lie enduring discomfiture of its opponents.—‘ Gore Standard.' CONSCRIPTION. At present defence matters are under the supervision of the Defence Council, the best system yet tried by the Government; and still military matters arc in a worse position now than ever. Surely it is a useless waste of public money to continue trying to patch up such a worn-out garment as volunteering. If young men were compelled to give up half the time now devoted to sport, and devote it to learning how to shoot straight, no ono would be the worse off. The country is prepared for conscription. Let the Government take the nccesary preparatory steps, and it will not find tho people backward in supporting the scheme.—‘ Geraldine Mail.’ OUR RAILWAYS. If the voters arc aware that the railways of New South Wales under Commissioners are developing traffic and inducing trade faster than our own, and at the same time paying n handsome profit, tho question they want answered is "Why are tlie same results not obtained in New Zealand? Unless we havo belter results to show, why thorild we submit to the annual deficit, more especially as wo know that the deficit woull bo very mnch larger than (ho admitted figure if we did not charge our foot warmers and other valuable and permanent assets of tho sort to loan account. —‘ Southland Times.'