PUBLIC OPINION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15920, 4 May 1912, Page 13

PUBLIC OPINION.

FROM YESTERDAY'S NEWSPAPERS. (By Telegraph.) THE HON T. DUNCAN. It was only fitting that the prolonged, honourable and highly useful services of tho Hon T. Duncan should bo publicly recognised in tho centre of the constituency which he represented for nearly twenty years. His shrewd practical intelligence and sterling integrity gave him a distinctive, if not a distinguished, position in Parliament, and few discordant voices were raised ■when Mr Scddon invited him to succeed Sir John Mackenzie as Minister of Lands. Tho great champion of agrarian reform had had no more zealous supporter than the member for Oaniaru and (despite admittedly inferior qualifications) " Honest Tom " was not unworthy to wear tho mantle of " Honest John." ' He did good work during his term of office, and it was with a proper pride that he alluded last night to the results of his activity as representative and as Minister. Dunedin " Star." MR ISITT AT THE CAUCUS.

Presumably it is on Mr Isitt's own authority that Mr Adams indicated in this way that Mr Isitt's real object in taking part in tho caucus settlement was the furthering, or what he fancied was the furthering, of the.prohibition cause. Of course the member for Christchurch North is entitled to his private objects, but wo were all given to understand that it was his exceeding devotion to what ho and his "Liberal" friends call "progress," that alone persuaded him to become a party hack. Wo are not concerned, however, with Mr Isitt, but With Mr Adams's unwise dragging of the liquor question right into the fire of party politics. As a matter of actual fact, although the "Liberal" Party has for years had no stouter support'than that of the brewing interest tho fact is notorious that neither the "Liberals" as a party nor the Reform Party have ever wished to burden themselves with the liquor question as a party issue.—" Dominion." SUICIDE BY POISON. It may, of course, be said that if people wish to commit suicide they will do .so, and that if they cannot readily obtain one medium of accomplishing their end they will get another. This argument has little force, however, except as a plea for free trade in poison, and we have never yet heard anyone suggest that it should bo as easy to buy prussic acid as it is to purchase turnips. Yet lysol can be bought for the mere asking. No one would like to say that because some people cut their "throats tho sale of razors should be restricted, but when every week we read of some unhappy creature. swallowing lysol and paying the grievous penalty, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that it"would be to the public, advantage if access to this means of self-destruction were made less easy. The whole svstem of selling poisons sooms radically bad, first of all because anyone can get a license to soil, and next because some forms of poison can be t:old with impunity.—" New Zealand Times."

LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM. The design of the Bill, in ?o far as it relates to education and charitable aid. sc-ems to bf> to throw additional burdens on the ratepayers and thus to leave the Government with more money than it would otherwise have for expenditure upon other objects. And, with all its elaborate provisions for the creation of new governing bodies, the Bill does not make ajiy proposal in the desirable direction of decentralisation, and, as Mr Mitchell observed, it contains no provision that would tend to remove from Parliament' its character of a Board of Works in relation to tho distribution of funds for public works, although this is one of the respects ill which reform is most badly needed.—" Otago Daily -Times."