THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1927. THE YEAR IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19833, 31 December 1927, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1927. THE YEAR IN NEW ZEALAND.

It sometimes happens, when farewell is said to a closing year, that the deepest feeling is of relief because it has ended. This was so in Britain at the close of 1926, the year of the general strike and the great coal strike. New Zealand should not experience a similar sense of emancipation when 1927 is rung out, making way for the new year. The Dominion has had difficulties and disappointments to face in the twelve months past, but it has not been all drab, the year now ending. Industrial depression there has been, it is true. Unemployment again reared its unwelcome head, especially in the winter months. These were adverse features in the year's course, and their effects have not yet passed away; though the worst difficulties of 1927 will carry over to some extent, the last months showed features justifying a confident expectation of better things in store for 1928. No great disaster or crisis appeared as the year passed. If neither the happiest nor the most prosperous New Zealand has known, its trouble's were not of the swift cataclysmic kind that become landmarks in history. Though the difficulties seemed serious enough to a people who have grown accustomed to a life cast on pleasant lines, it would not bu necessary to travel far in search of comparisons proving that this Dominion is a favoured land, a country with permanent material for abundant thankfulness. In the retrospect the troubles seem, less oppressive than when they filled the near foreground. In happiness, 1927 was not illsupplied.

During the year two visits of importance emphasised New Zealand's relation to a wider community with interests and loyalties in common. The Duke and Duchess of York, visiting Australia to open the Federal Parliament in its new. home at Canberra, spent several weeks in the Dominion. New Zealand's devotion to the Empire and the Royal family was fervently acclaimed in the welcome given the Duke and Duchess wherever they appeared. An enthusiastic greeting was assured long before they came, but their actual arrival, the completeness with which they won all hearts, raised popular feeling to as high a pitch as that reached when the Prince of Wales was in New Zealand; more than that cannot be said. After the Royal pair came a representative of the British Cabinet, in the person of Mr. L. S. Amery, who only recently left on his return journey. As Secretary of State for the Dominions, he has established a valuable precedent by visiting them while actually in office. A very useful complement to the periodical trips by the Dominion Pi-ime Ministers to Britain for meetings of the Imperial Conference, Mr. Amery's tour marks a new development in the cultivation of closer relations between the component parts of the Empire. Everywhere he went he proved to have a close and practical grasp of Empire affairs. His reception in New Zealand was cordial in the extreme. When his tour ended, it was felt that much had been learned from it on both sides. The handicap of time and distance which has always been so severely felt in making the different parts of the Empire well informed with regard to one another is being gradually overcome, a fact of which these two visits are eloquent probf.

Few outstanding events have marked the domestic affairs of New Zealand. At the beginning of the year the absolute control of dairy produce exported to overseas markets was in operation. The controversy which had marked every stage of its development quickened and intensified until, its promoters, bowing to the logic of facts, reversed their policy. Though a certain aftermath has been left, the whole subject seems headed for happy oblivion. On a wider stage, Western Samoa, the island territory New Zealand administers under mandate, exhibited signs of restiveness, and the administration was bitterly attacked. Close inquiry on the spot was made by a tribunal whose competence and impartiality nobody has had the temerity to question. The result has been the discomfiture of the principal critics, whose allegations proved utterly incapable of meeting the test of cross-examination under oath. Since the commission reported a new and startling turn has been given the affair by the deportation of those adjudged most active in fomenting unrest among the natives, and most irresponsible in appealing to their easily-aroused "prejudices. Parliament sat long, and debated certain hotly contentious subjects. Chief among them were the liquor laws, the gaming laws, and the Bible-in-schools question. A revision of the customs tariff and the introduction of a special tax on motor spirit were two outstanding points in the programme. A by-election in the Baglan electorate resulted in the Government losing a seat to the

Labour Party.- A long dispute between the Government and the contractors working on the hydro-elec-tric development scheme at Arapuni was ended by the Public Wo'rks Department undertaking to complete the power-house, over which the difference originated. From this brief and not exhaustive catalogue, it will be seen that 1927 was not wholly uneventful in New Zealand. It passes with skies brightening after the depression which marked much of the year, and the dominant feeling at its close is that 1928 will bring better days for a country that can count itself fortunate even among its temporary difficulties.