WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.

Evening Star, Issue 14162, 11 September 1909, Page 1

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS. Ordinarily the duty of the State should bp limited to providing equality of opportunity to all, as it does in its schools, to the protection of the weak from oppression, and to the removal of obstacles which stand in the wa.y of general progress. A genuine spirit of self-help must, as Dr Findlay says, meet State-help more than halfway if we are to preserve a strenuous and improving type of manhood. But what our legislators and administrators should particularly and constantly keep in view is the necessity for strengthening individual character so that Statehelp may become less and ever less necessary. Unfortunately in New Zealand it is found that each year ttyo State is doing more for the individual instead of less, and that, we fear, is gradually sapping our character.—Taranaki ‘ News.’ THE COAL TRADE. Unless our whole industrial theory is wrong, internal trade is worth foster,n Si an d none _ more so than such a trade as coal mining. The Government draw into the Exchequer in various ways not less than 20 per cent, of the value of the total trade of the Dominion. Every sovereign spent in Newcastle is thus a direct loss of not less than four shillings to the Government themselves, and an equivalent gain to the Governments of Australia and New South Wales. And the loss is moro than this, for the most serious loss to an y cn n' nuinity is in tho reduction of profitable employment to industrious citizens, and the retardation of the development of great natural resources, let it may be said that a Government who deliberately lock up the land will think little of shutting down coal mines or of importing shiploads of foreign coal while New Zealand miners are walking about idle.—Auckland ‘ Herald.’ | UNEMPLOYMENT. I The poor have always been with us, and always will be until all surplus labor is absorbed in the great and final Armageddon. It is a pity that it is | so, but it is, and it is a seeming reflection upon the democratic tendency of modern government that there cannot be found work for all men and women who are able and willing to work. It m no new thing to have overcrowded cities. Babylon, Carthage, Athens, and Rome are ancient instances. The people will flock from tho dreariness of the country to the gaiety of the city as surely as steel flics to the magnet. It was so in the beginning, and will be so to the end.— ‘ Fcildin"’ Star. ■ & THE FARMERS’ UNION. The Farmers’ Union exists only for Hie one political purpose of fostering the movement for the sale of the freehold to Crown tenants. In this respect it is a somewhat negligible quantitv, and its only value lies in the fact that the executive is clever enough to cover its tracks by an occasional discussion upon the weight of comsacks or the price of sparrow’s heads, and so mislead a number of those who a,re engaged in the simple life, and who have joined the Union simply because it is called the Farmers’ Union. Christchurch | Star.’ THE BOOKMAKER. A question occurs at this stage which might with advantage be considered by Mr Millar and Mr Carroll. It is this; How many of tho fathers and mothers of this country would like to see their sous entering this school to receive the lessons of graduation ; how many would choose the occupation of bookmaker as a son’s calling in life? The answer is obvious. Not a fractional percentage. Why? Because the bookmaker is an anti-social force who ministers to an indulgence which usually becomes a vice, degrading the majority of its victims menially and impoverishing them all financially. “ You cannot beat the bookmaker.” If yon could tho bookmaker could not live. The fact that he doe# live and wax fat on unearned and often dishonest gains is a speaking commentary on the intelliRu i\r e „- the P co ple who patronise him. Wellington ‘Times.’ A SOCIAL PROBLEM. 'J'he habit of reverence is to bo acquired not by hook learning, but by a contagion of the spirit for which’ in oidinari cases no institution can supply an adequate substitute, as the much decried irreverence of too many colonial children abundantly testifies. Correct the home training and Sir John Madden s proposal of a curfew hell to take children, and especially girls, off the streets at a certain hour might prove a valuable supplement, hut the curfew ‘Post’" 111 UOt R ° far —' Wellington RAILWAY CHARGES. All that is wanted, of course, is that the railways shall pay interest on the cost of construction, and the full working and maintenance expenses, without recourse, as in the past, to loan moneys. Until that point is reached it is idle to talk about reducing freight charges.—Christchurch ‘Press.’