WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.

Evening Star, Issue 14999, 5 October 1912, Page 1

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.

If Mr Hat-court wishes to servo tlio best interests of tho sport of horse racing lie will find a. more promising causa to champion. It would lie bad policy on tho part of racing bodies to stir up feeling against the- localised gambling machine by ondo-ivoriiip- to increase its scope by the introduction of the double totalisator. Moreover, there are many people who are nor opposed to the totalisator in its present form who would resist strenuously the adoption of Mr llarcourt's idea. When racing men have succeeded in securing fair treatment for a few clubs which have been unjustly deprived of their single event totalisator permits they will do well to rest content.— Timaru ' Post.' * * * The fire loss last year averaged I?s Ojd per capita, of the population. This, it is claimed, constitutes a record for the world. Whether the heavy losses arc due to over-insurance "is n matter for speculation, pure and simp!?. Possibly, wore the Government to institute a system of endowment for insurance, the fire losses would not be so great. Tho present system, under which insurers pay for years and then have their risks cancelled and their buildings condemned, is an incentive do the 'application of the fire-stick.—Tv nirarapa ' Age.' * * * At the present time many thousands of children are not. securing the educational advantages that the State seeks to provide because the supply of really competent teachers is woefully insufficient, and there seems to be no immediate prospect of an improved state of affairs unless Parliament resolutely faces the question.—Stratford 'Post.' ■Tr * * Fire losses would undoubtedly be reduced if Borough Councils adopted building by-laws which would make impossible the erection cf lire-trap buildings, if insurance companies carried out a more rigorous inspection of insured buildings, if householders, shopkeepers, and others were more particular as regards taking precautions against fire, and if the Government legislation on the lines of the City Pi re Inquests Act. which operates in the City of London. Already, of eourse, there is legal provision for inquiry into any suspicious iiro, but it would he a good thing if an inquiry were conducted into the cause of every tire.—Christchurch '.Press.' There can be no quarter in a free country tor lawlessness, and " hot air" resolutions about the despotism of Capital and the tyranny of vested interests will not blind tlio public to the fact that the issue at Waibi is the liberty of the workers to work when they want to, in regard to which, only one view is possible.—Southland ' Times.' ' * * •» After the elections, as a direct hid for the Labor vote in Parliament, the Keformcrs excepted tho national endowments from their raid.' This practically was all we knew of their policv when Mi- Massey came into office last July, and naturally we feared the worst from the use they would make of their opportunity. But the Prime Minister and his colleagues bad not entirely lost hope of attracting the Labor members to their side of. the House, and when they brought down a Freehold Land Bill in which. " present value " was substituted for "origin"! value" wo had some reason to be relieved and surprised by their moderation. This moderation, however, does not reconcile, us to the nroposal to sell the remnant of tho public estate which the Liberals have striven for 20 ■ Years to save from the grasp of the "freebolder." The proposal seems to us iniquitous because it utter!, v disregards the right of nine hundred thousand landless people to a share in the soil of the country. The renewable leaseholds are really their freeholds, and whatever provision Mr Mns'*ev niiiv make against aggregation, he cannot protect the landless . people from the monopoly that will be the inevitable result of his policy.-—' Lvttelton 1 imes.'