PUBLIC OPINION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10595, 2 March 1895, Page 5

PUBLIC OPINION.

LABOUR LEGISLATION, One cannot read the Hon W. P. Beeves’ exhaustive summary of the recent legislation without admitting that this country is well nigh perfect in this respect—-so perfect that a little more will be enough, and a little more again more than enough.— Otago Daily Times. THE GRAND JURY SYSTEM. ■ In these days the Grand Jury system serves no purpose save to occasionally shield from the dangers of a fair trial persons in whose guilt there is strong reason for believing. The sweeping away of the Grand Jury is one of the reforms which we commend to the active mind of Mr Beeves, in the assurance that in so doing ha will merit and receive public commendation.- Wanganui Chronicle. THE GOVERNMENT AND LAND SETTLEMENT. While endorsing the policy of the Government, we have no hesita,tion in accusing them of extraordinary dilatoriness in pushing land settlement ahead. We cannot understand the delay in operating under the extraordinary powers conferred on them last session. * * ' * The financial year is drawing to a close, and very little of the half a million of money ho got from Parliament to settle the people on the land has been spent.— Temuka Leader / OYSTERS. There is no reason why New Zealand should not supply the great markets 1 of the world. Considering the striking suitability of the conditions, the enormously prolific power of the oyster, and the immense demand on the part of the consumers, there is no reason why, within five years, New Zealand should not export a thousand million oysters every year. At Sixpence per dozen here is an export value of not less than two millions sterling per'annum. —New Zealand, Times. RECIPROCITY. The reception which the treaty* of Adelaide has met with at the hands of the Victorian Cabinet ought to prove encouraging to our Government and that of South Australia. It shows that but. for the unfortunate clause prohibiting the making of other treaties it might have proved a powerful instrument in the cause of intercolonial freetrade. —Otago Daily Times. ABOLITION OF HOME LESSONS. An experiment that will bo watched with interest is about to be tried by a School Committee in the Hawko’e Bay dis>trict. It is intended to do away with home lessons altogether, the committee having come to the conclusion that home lessons are injurious, and that no good results from their continuance.— Taieri Advocate . RAILWAY EXCURSIONS. While we are not in sympathy with political control of the railways, common justice demands the admission that the new management is so far in the direction of popularising the railways and making them* more useful. If no loss ocours from the concessions already made they are not only justifiable but commendable. It was a kindly thought which prompted the cheap . excursions for school children. These excursions are, moreover, distinctly educating in their tendency.— Hawke's Bay Herald. CANTERBURY WOMEN’S PROGRAMME. The Canterbury Women’s Institute is composed of the most thoughtful and capable women in the southern province. Broad-minded, generous, anxious only for the welfare of woman and the future wellbeing of the race, they are doing a work that will have its effect in the near future. The members realise that there is an enormous amount of arrears to be made up, and that the race has yet far to travel before woman can understand her mission and man appreciate the position in which the so-called weaker sex now finds itself. These devoted women of whom wo speak have taken up a firm position in the world of politics, and their programme of social reforms is distinguished for its reasonableness and 1 far-sightedness.— Napier News* MINISTERS AND THE TOBY PRESS. The gieat Tory papers cannot understand how it is that the Hon John M’Kenzie and his colleagues do not sit quietly under the accusation that they ate rogues and vagabonds. One of these papers the other day expressed surprise that Mr M’Kenzie should defend himself against the slanders which had been hurled at him in its columns and elsewhere. There was no reason, it made out, why Mr M’Eenzie should go to so much trouble. After all, this paper was right. Nobody believed what it had itself said, for it wrote not so much to make known the truth as to do its utmost against long odds to serve the political party that is becoming submerged, not only in New Zealand, but throughout the civilised world. That its statements and expressions of opinion were ineffectual was proved by the enthusiasm with which Mr M’Kenzie’s audience received him and the practically unanimous vote of confidence which they accorded the Government. But, if the Tory papers are to falsify and vilify Ministers and then virtually tell an unsympathetic public that there is no necessity to take any notice of what they say, of what use are they ? Would it not be far more satisfactory if they were to join with the few Liberal papers of the colony in promoting honesty and progress ? — Oama/m Mail,