CURRENT TOPICS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7849, 11 July 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

PARLIAMENT MEETS ON JULY 27. A series of Cabinet meetings is being held this week in anticipation of th© assembling of Parliament on Thursday, July 27th. Appropriations were taken last session until July 31st, so that it will bo necessary to pass an Imprest Supply Bill tho day after Parliament meets. Sir Joseph Ward and Sir John Findlay are expected to reach Wellington on August 21th, when Parliament may be expected to bo still occupied in debating the Address in Reply. If this debate does not continue so long, there will be a number of Government measures ready for consideration. The leadership of the Legislative Council during Sir John Findlay’s absence will, we understand, bo taken by the Hon James McGowan, formerly Minister of Justice and Minister of Mines. THE PRICE OF BUTTER. Butter is steadily rising. It now stands at Is 5d per pound retail, with a possibility of Is 6d being reached before tb© end of the week. A Wellington merchant, discussing the matter with a “Times” reporter yesterday, emphasised the point that the traders were not responsible for the high price ruling. He road two telegrams sent to dairy factorymanagers in response to inquiries for quotations. Ono was from Kaupokonui offering tho output of July and August, estimated at 316 boxes respectively, at Is 3d per pound wholesale. The other was from the Mangorei factory quoting Is 31d. “This shows,” observed the merchant, “that the traders in tow-n are not taking any undue advantage of tho public. Of course, this state of affairs cannot last very long. In a fortnight or three weeks, with decent weather, prices should show a change." IMPERIAL SCHOLARSHIPS. Our London correspondent writes under date Juno 2nd :—To the current issue of “T.P.’s Magazine" Sir Joseph Ward contributes a brief article on “Practical Imperialism," in which ho insists strongly that the great factor in the march of progress is facility for business and social intercourse, and that the chief aim of progressive States should be the cheapening and accelerating of all means of communication. Sir Joseph points out how the late Cecil Rhodes clearly saw the benefits the Empire would derive from bringing its more brilliant sons together at one of the world’s greatest seats of learning, and how tho influence of the Rhodes scholars must make for a better feeling and a more intimate understanding, not only throughout the Empire but throughout, the world. Tho New Zealand Prime Minister then pours out fatherly benediction on Mr P. A. Vailc's “Imperial Scholarships” scheme, which Sir Joseph declares is tho natural corollary to Cecil Rhodes' great idea. He says: “Mr Rhodes’ scheme may be called centripetal; Mr Vaile’s conception is both centrifugal and centripetal. The first gathers the scholars at a centre in England; the other distributes them from the great centre, London, throughout the Empire—throughout tho world, in fact — and then draws back from them their knowledge, and later the scholars themselves, for the benefit of England and the Empire. Mr Vaile’s plan of conferring scholarships on condition that the holder should proceed to specified portions of tho British Empire, there to study on the spot the special laws, the social experiments, the institutions and voluntary associations, the industrial systems, including the relations between employer and employee, by and through which each part of tho way along the path of progress, and so be able reliably to inform and instruct other parts of the Empire of the true nature of these agencies, seems to me to he a scheme likely to bo especially efficacious for securing that better Imperial understanding which X have already emphasised as the tree basis of national solidarity and unity.” Mr Voile's scheme has, by the way, the support of, amongst other men of eminence. Lord Milner, and Mr

F. E. Smith, K.C., Y the "hope of the Conservative party/ Lord Milner says: '‘There is no conflict between Rhodes’ great idea and Mr Valle's. Indeed the two schemes, so far from being opposed, are complementary. - ” Mr Smith declares that the Now Zealander’s scheme "is such an extremely simple, business-like proposal that it seems hard to sec how there can be any difficulty whatever in its practical working; indeed we know there cannot bo, for the underlying ciple has been proved sound again and again, and where root principles arc sound, details are easily arranged.”