PUBLIC OPINION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 14973, 20 April 1909, Page 7

PUBLIC OPINION.

FROM YESTERDAY'S NEWSPAPERS. (By Telegraph.) COMPULSORY TRAINING. Defence in New Zealand at the pro sent time is left to a class, the Volunteer class, which is splondidly enthusiastic, wretchedly equipped, farcically disciplined and almost wholly irresponsible. A Volunteer may be sneered at by a weedy youth, who is not fit to untie his shoe-strings. He may in marching be smothered by the dust of a property-owner's motor-car. This constitutes a class distinction of a very individious character. What a large section of patriotic New Zealanders want is that the weedy youth and the property-owner shall he brought compulsorily into line and Tendered efficient to give effective service in the defence of this dominion should the painful necessity arise. Nobody wants to murder anybody, bpt everybody wants to prevent anybody from murdering us.—“ New Zealand Times.” AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Mr Deakin prophesies a confused election and a discordant Parliament, and in these circumstances it is possible that the Labour Party may come back at the end of this year with a working majority. Three years of labour rule would bind the wavering opposition sections together a« nothing else could. What is more likely is the continuance of three-party strife for at least part of another triennium. The Liberal and Conservative forces lack a dominating leader. Tho Labour Party’s organisation has this virtue, that caucus discipline supplies the place of leadership.—-*' Evening Port-.” CLOSE SETTLEMENT. The work is in its infancy in Victoria and a large amount of interested opposition will have to be overcome before a policy of close settlement can be carried out with real effect. But Sir John M’Kenzie had to meet the same sorb of difficulty in New Zealand and we can only counsel the Australian Minister (Hon H. M’Kenzie) to be strong and very courageous. He should certainly try to get rid of such hampering restriction as is involved in the provision that the specific consent of both branches of the Legislature must be secured before any estate is compulsorily resumed. Mr M’Kenzie seems to have been favourably impressed by what he has seen of the conditions of land settlement in the dominion, though when ho says that there is a great demand for the freehold by those settled on tho short lease basis, he makes it clear that some of • his investigations have not been of a very searching order. Such evidence as is available indicates that the short lease of 1907 is going to bo decidedlv popular.—“ Dunedin Star.” • LAWRENCE-ROXBURGH RAILWAY. To condemn the Roxburgh line because of the “ distressing outcome,” as Sir Joseph Ward expresses it, of the central line is the height of ineptitude. The argument that the prospects of any lino of railway are to be judged by the result of another line is absurd, but if the argument based oil the results of other lines is such as may be applied at all it should be applied generally and the figures we have quoted should raiso grave doubts in the minds of the Government concerning tho wisdom of prosecuting any further railway undertakings in Auckland. Further it is impossible, if the test of probable earning power is to be considered, to overlook the tremendous waste of money which is involved in the construction of the Midland railway..—“Otago Daily Times.”