HOME NEWS SUMMARY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1717, 25 January 1905, Page 2

HOME NEWS SUMMARY.

(From "Public Opinion.”) THE ZEMSTVOS CONGRESS. LONDON. November 25. We confess to a certain amount of, we hope, pardonable pride in recording the meeting of the Zemstvos in St. Petersburg this week. The war is doing for Russia what at the outset Ave ventured to predict it might. Russian disasters have given the reformers their chance, and if the Czar has the courage and the initiative to emulate the example of his grandfather, he Avill turn the tragedy of the Far East to splendid account at home. The demands advanced by the Zemstvos Congress this week mark a stage on the road to a constitution Avhich would bring Russia into line Avith other Western Powers, and change her Avhole character. At first it Avas intended that the representatives of these local councils should meet openly in St. Petersburg, but at the eleventh hour the Government decided that the Town Hall should not be placed at their disposal. However, there was no attempt to prevent the Congress from being held, and the lines on which the discussion proceeded ai'e well known, though they have not been officially published. The corrupt and reactionary "regime” is for the first time confronted by a demand, Avhich is listened to without intolerance, in favour of a peaceful revolution. Happy will it be for Russia if November, 1904, marks the beginning of a new era. EARL GREY, Earl Grey, as the guest of the Canada Club, on Monday night, afforded an idea of the views with Avhich he Avill assume the Governor-Generalship of Canada. He pointed out that the United States started on a basis of three millions population, with no railways, and had grown to huge proportions, and he asked what might they not expect in the future from Canada, which has a population of ■ six millions, is admirably served with railways, and will be better served in the near future. One phase of Canadian wealth—agriculture—formed the subject of Mr W. Staley Spark's paper, read at the Royal Colonial Institute meeting, on Tuesday. In Mr Shark's opinion no country in the world has developed by such rapid strides during the last ten years as the Dominion. The area of Canada now under cultivation amounts to about 30,167,000 acres, and there remains untouched probably more than double this amount. It is difficult, therefore, as Mr Sharks says, to assign a limit to Canada's agricultural possibilities. He considers the Canadian farmers the most intelligent, industrious, prosperous, moral, and contented lot of men he ever met; he is convinced of the loyalty of the people and the Government to the CroAvn, and he ridicules the idea that Canada 1 would ever consent to join the United States.

POLITICAL, LEAD EPS. At a dinner given to the Liberal Unionist members of the Government. on Friday last, Mr Lyttelton described the Opposition as in a state of "angry stagThe paradoxical phrase fits the case exactly, and a letter which the Duke of Devonshire, the sometime Liberal Unionist leader, has addressed to Mr St. Loe Strachey is calculated to emphasise its aptness. . Shall Unionist Freetraders on all occasions support Radical candidates rather than Unionist Tariff Reformers? That was the question the Duke was called upon to consider, and he answers in effect: “In most cases, yes; in certain cases, no; antecedents and principles must be taken into account/"' If confidence that the people are overwhelmingly opposed to tariff reform could win the day, a Radical triumph would be assured. Mr Asquith is convinced that Mr Chamberlain has sown dissention in the Unionist party from which it will not recover, and he sighs that Mr Chamberlain may return to continue his excellent work of encouraging the Radical party. When the Liberals are in power they will show by their enlightened economic policy that the real cause of the country’s difficulties is not fiscal disability, but the wanton and wasteful expenditure of a Jingo Government. FISCAL QUESTION: COLONIAL VIEWS-, A valuable and informing article on the colonial aspect of the fiscal question appeared in the ‘'Saturday Review'’ last week. It puts the whole case for preferential tariffs, in our view, in a couple of columns. Tc summarise this excellent summary is not easy, but what it shows is that whilst the colonies have maintained our exports in a way which has rendered the decline of our foreign trade less obvious to the man in the street, our hold over colonial markets is much smaller than it should be and might be with a\ little encouragement. Whilst he colonies imported fifty millions a year more during the period 18981902 than they imported during 1883-1892, the increased imports from Great Britain amounted to less than eleven millions: hence the percentage from the United Kingdom fell from 42 to 36. Colonial imports per head have increased in ten years from A 7 9s 2d to A 8 4© 6d, but from the Mother Country they are only A 3 3s Gd as against A 3 2s Bd. Colonial exports to foreign countries are rising rapidly, and the tendency must be mutual. Mr Chamberlain has contended from the. first that preference would divert much of the improving - volume of colonial business to British, and away from foreign, markets. N AVAL INTERESTS. 11 Me jo r-General Sir A, B. Tulloch lecture''! at 11)e Royal United Service Institution .on Friday on the question of uavui coaling ports and their garrisons, lie it rged the necessity for a naval base in the Mediterranean in addition to

Malta, Gibraltar, being, of course, the only suitable place available. Neither Malta nor Gibraltar, in his opinion, is a fit station for military purposes. The opportunities for training regular troops are inadequate in both cases, and he therefore advocated garrisons of Marine battalions instead of regiments of the line, as at present. With regard to the approaching termination of our lease of Wei-hai-wei, he urged the importance of our retaining territory there, Wei-hai-wei, in his opinion, being much better than a flying na\ r al base. His vieAV is that it would be advisable for the Navy to take over Gibraltar and Bermuda, but nothing else but the submarine mines and searchlights at all naA'al ports. East of the Cape of Good Hope he Avould hand over all coaling ports to India. The discussion folloAving the paper showed usual division of opinion among the experts as to the best policy to be pursued in the vent of the Empire finding itself at Avar with a iia’vai PoAver. STATE DEVELOPMENT. Mr Wyndham's Rectorial address to the students of GlasgOAV University on "The Development of the State” resolved itself into an essay in denunciation of a featureless and enervating cosmopolitanism. It contained an admirably sustained plea first for race, secondly for nationality, and thirdly for Empire. Rome went to pieces Avhen it gave itself up to cosmopolitanism, and the Avarning is one to b 6 applied nearer home. Many strains, as Mr Wyndham showed, have gone to the creation and enriching of British nationality, and for the ideal State of the future "both the intension of race and the extension of Empire are necessary.” There should be pride in the one, patriotism for the other. "A life of polyglot restaurants and international sleeping-cars does not conduce to civic virtue.” It would tend to lap us in the listlessness of cosmopolitan luxury. Mr Wyndham's brilliant plea for patriotism against the inroads of cosmopolitanism lends a neAV significance to the acceptance of Mr Alfred Beit's generous offer to found a Professorship of Cp’onial History at Oxford. Mr Rhode*) sought to bring colonial and American students to Oxford, Mr Beit is anxious that they, as Avell as others, should acquire there an adequate idea of British colonial history and deA r elopment. POSITION OF PASSIVE R ESI STEPS. A decision of the Lord Chief Justice, Mr Justice Kennedy, and Mr Justice Ridley in regard to passive res;stem ivho refuse to pay the Education rate Avill, unless the next general election should take place on the existing register, disenfranchise every opponent of the Education Act who has had the courage of either his conscientious convictions or his partisanship. It is held that the Education rate is part of the poor rate, and anyone refusing to pay the Avhole rate is debarred from voting at Parliamentary elections. The three Judges do not merely express their vierv that that is the law, but declare that they have no doubt about it, and in the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice the law is in accordance Avith common sense. This decision means nothing less than that those who ha\ T e been struck off the lists by the re\'ising barristers Avill lose their Votes, and others whose names have not yet been removed Avill be disqualified at the next revision. It is a serious matter, and Avill seriously affect Radical chances. But if upholds a great principle. Individuals must not flout the Avill of the Imperial Legislature, but if they object to its enactments must use well-defined constitutional means to make their objections effective.

RED CROSS SOCIETIES. Lord Ivnutsford has issued an appeal for assistance in perfecting the organisation of the Central British Red Cross Council, of Avhich he is chairman. Of the inestimable services rendered by the Red Cross Societies in war time it is not necessary to speak. They are Avritten in characters of gold OA 7 er the pages of every Avar history. Want of proper organisation has hitherto prevented the Red Cross officials from achieving the maximum of good, and Avhat Lord Knutsford now asks for is the money to enable a scheme which his Council have in hand to bo fully developed in peace time. Wars break out so suddenly, and make such demands on the resources of everybody concerned that it is undoubtedly a business-like humanity that suggests that every effort should be made to perfect whilst peace lasts the means for the relief of its victims. The Red Cross Society depends on voluntary aid, though its Avork is of national importance. OUR DESERTS. "Do we get our deserts?” is a question asked and answered according to their light by all sorts and conditions of men (women are remarkably silent) in the "Dailv Chronicle.” The "symposium is inspired by "The Prodigal Sen” of Mr Hall Caine, who has made a long contribution to the discussion. There is a great deal that is sad in what is Avritten, but little that is novel in the problem debated or in the manner of tlie debate. We fear the questioning on every hand about faith and fortune implies a morbid condition of society. It indicates a crisis in the pursuit of leisure. We all Avant to bo something that, av© are not. We despise work as a thing in its el i, and desire only the Avages thereof. We have destroyed the old landmarks., and cry out like the- child that is lost. Money is our main, if not our only, criterion of pereonal worth or of individual chaiity. A. generation or more has been born into this condition. No Avonder, then, that those avlio believe that it is better to labour with the poor than to give of the results of your labour are scorned or pitied as star-gazers. A simpler' life is the only solution of present discontents, but the return to it can be faced only by the most courageous. As to the question Avith which Ave started, it was a healthy thought that prompted one of the “Chronicle's” contributors to turn to a noA T elist other than Mr Hall Caine,

and to quote from Mr Barrio' a pages th# remark that.’"lf all of us got our deserter most of us Tvould be knocked on the head with a broomstick.”