NOTES AND COMMENTS

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 4130, 30 October 1920, Page 2

NOTES AND COMMENTS

-4»-. ' - Extreme Crime Wave. New Zealand will bo getting a bad name overseas, where th© only news they get cabled concerns sensations. Just now there we now fewer than three murder cases within the Dominion—one just outside Auckland, another out of Taumarunui, and the third in Timaru. This trio of tragedies in a record for New Zealand, and represents an wave ot crime. Chance for Municipalities. Men and women with money to spare for investment are a bit worried just now as to what to do about it. We wonder whether they have noticed the advantages of investment in local bodies debentures. Mr T. F. Martin, of Wellington, whose knowledge of local bodies' finance in relation to recent legislation is excei> tional, asked the other day for his views, replied: "If a man who is now in the 7s 6d scale (Income Tax Assessment) should have all his income in municipal debentures, he would, under the new clauses, pay only the flat rate of 2s 6d in the pound, which should make municipal debentures popular with large investors, whilst small men get refund of excess tax." • Some Comparisons. Apropos of the short-sighted policy of the British Labour leaders in striking, it is worth noting that the averago colonial workman can see at a glance the absurdity of any man opposing direct action at" an important meeting and a few months later falling in with the plan to establish a Council of Action for direct action purposes. We have realised for some /time that the reason why many Labourites at Home make these bad breaks is that they are largely the slaves of theory, and they arc probably the most self-opinionated men upon the earth. Men who have never been oiib of Great Britain know all about every country in the world, and have quite' decided'how they ought to !be governed. The colonial, who has generally moved about a bit. is not so sure." The English Labourite has often swallowed Karl Marx in chunks. Ho has his theory of the international brotherhood, and is prepared to denounce every statesman, Government, Parliament, and country that does not if all in with it. The colonial Labourite, being nearer to the East, with its teeming millions, and even familiar with the Asiatic as a competitor, is less disposed to spill over on the sentiment or theory of universal brotherhood.