THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1926. THE NEW YEAR'S TASKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19215, 2 January 1926, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1926. THE NEW YEAR'S TASKS.

Never a New Year dawned unmet by a brave welcome. Hope springs eternal. Dawns themselves relight it. The calendar conspires with the changing vault of the heavens to provoke man to new departures. Each day, each month, each year, with an inspiration proportioned to the growing scale of these several periods, utters its call; and man instinctively responds, although he knows that what seems a new beginning is but part of an eternal yester-evc that brings next morning's light. The moon that waxes is the moon that waned. No magic change marks midnight as the Old Year dies and the New Year is born. Continuity, not disjunction, is Nature's habit. Seedtime and harvest and seedtime again is thf unbroken succession. And thereby hangs all musing that the New Year prompts. Looking out upon the coming year, in the conjectural way that is mortals' limited privilege, to-day's observer of the world anticipates chiefly the realisation of hopes that 1925 quickened. First in that vista comes the prospect of international peace. It has been as bright, and as unreached, as the rainbow; but its allurement has been strengthened by the Security Treaties and the definite venture of the League of Nations upon a disarmament conference designed to extend what the beginning at Washington proved to be a practicable plan. The promise of this is set down in what is known as the Final Protocol signed at Locarno; and the world has been explicitly told that the League has the matter in hand. Unless that promise be belied, the conference will meet this year. The League itself is to receive Germany into membership—in March probably, at Madrid, unless there be called a special meeting of the Council at Geneva for the purpose. The evacuation of Cologne is to be completed by January 31. In other ways, there is prospect of international understanding, for the Angora Government seems less disposed to scorn the League's decision concerning Mosul, and in the Far East the Powers are pledged to carry on remedial efforts based upon the Tariff Conference at Peking last October. Italy may meet»a crisis, Russia too is rotten-ripe for change, France must grapple with her financial problem ; but the sky of Europe clears as the year breaks.

In the British Empire there is betokened a year of consolidation. The Conservative Government can pursue without serious hindrance its programme of national betterment. No great legislative change is in view; the tasks set are mainly administrative.! The prospect of economic revival should have further realisation, unless industrial upheaval again break up the road to it. Ireland's entry upon a period of concord and prosperity has been effected through the abandonment of the boundary dispute> and the outlook for a traditionally "distressful country" has not been so bright for many a year. The British Government's care for Imperial interests is so thoroughly pledged that the prosecution of projects for defence and preferential trade is assured. A second disarmament conference may involve revision of defensive measures, but it will not be forgotten, either in international councils or in Cabinet discussions, that the Empire stands in absolutely unique need of protection of trade routes against inimical contingencies. In the Dominions, as well as in India, there is to be expected a year of some difficulty. India faces a delicate situation, in the need to placate a growingly assertive Swaraj party while having a care for patient tutelage in self-government. Canada will probably need recourse to another general election, in order to redress the indecisive result of the last. In Australian politics there is a likelihood of serious clashes, especially in New South Wales on the constitutional issue raised by Labour's dragooning of the Legislative Council. New Zealand's affairs promise to have highly interesting, although notspectacular, political events. A new Parliament will meet, with a Ministry firmly established and well able to give legislative effect to its aims. The personnel of the Ministry will soon be known ; there are portfolios to be filled, and their filling may be associated with other changes. Mr. Ooafces' announcement of his choice of colleagues is awaited with interest. Whether the Liberals will be displaced by Labour on the Opposition benches depends upon decisions yet to be given on the election petitions 'in the cases of Lyttelton and Westland. The Dominion's undertaking a further share in the Empire's naval defence will be instanced by the arrival of the cruiser Diomede this month as an addition to our unit. Matters educational, following the findings of the commissions employed last year, await definite action, particularly as to university, technical and agricultural teaching. Locally, there will be a new educational interest in the University College quarters being occupied and in Training College developments. These events fall in line with much that may be anticipated, abroad and at home. The New Year will take up tasks that the Old Year saw in progress. As 1926 enters, it is given the word "Carry on."