SUMMARY FOR EUROPE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14699, 6 December 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

SUMMARY FOR EUROPE.

POLITICAL AND GENERAL. ; The past four weeks have been unusually full of |xilitical interest. Two days after the issue of our last summary of news Sir Joseph Ward, in hie. capacity ' js Minister ol Finance, submitted his Financial Statement, in the House of Representatives. This proved to be a most, comprehensive deliverance: it covered v.ithin its .u'opo not, questions of finance only, lint it to employed also as the channel for the declaration of the Ministerial intentions with regard to land legislation, internal defence, legislation as to the licensing question and as to the gambling evil, the betterment principle in respect of railway construction, and various other matters. Sir Joseph Ward skimmed very lightly over the state of the finances of the Dominion. As to the results of the operations of last financial year, ho referred Parliament to the memorandum ho submitted during the short session in June last. This, it may bo remembered, showed that the revenue for the year exceeded the expenditure by £1415,672 and that, after provision had been made for the transference of £800,030 to the Public Works Fund, the balance left in the revenue* account at March 31 last was £184,321. With respect to the current year ho estimates that the revenue will amount to £9,020,000, and the expenditure to £9,015,878, irrespective of such additional votes as may be provided for on tho Supplementary Estimates. This leaves, it will lie ,*seen, a very narrow margin on the -Minister's figures, which are probably conservative in respect of tho estimate of revenue, and in the circumstances the Government proposes to raise a considerable amount of addition >1 revenue by the imposition of new taxation. The income tax in to be graduated' to produce- £80,000 extra; a revision of the death duties is estimated to yield £150,000; an increase of the long-distance passenger rata; on the railways is expected to augment the revenue by £100,000; and other proposals, including a surtax upon the duties of Customs, taxation of racing clubs' receipts, and additional taxation of banks arc estimated to produce over £133,000,—a total altogether of additional taxation of £463,000, of which a fair proportion should fall within the current year, Hid thus increase the balance- counted ipon by Sir Joseph Ward. There arc, however, new obligations to be provided [or, which will absorb next year the bulk of the proceeds of the new taxes. Tho gift of a battleship to the Mother Country is to be financed by the flotation of a special loan, the interest oh which, together with a 4 per cent, sinking fund to provide for the extinction of the loan within tho life of tho vessel, will amount to £150,000 per annum ; £150,000 is set down as the additional cost of internal defence under the Government's proposals; and the Minister of Finance proposes that

£30,000 shall he set apart for the strength-

ening of the State superannuation funds. The total of these new charges is estimated, therefore, at £330,000.' The Death Duties Bill has passed throngli its committee stago in the House of Representatives, but tho legislation necessary to give effect to the rest of the financial proposals of the Budget has not yet received consideration in the House: some of it has not even been introduced, and, so far, the members have devoted two days only to the discussion of the Consolidated Estimates, of which but a few classes have been passed. Yet ii. is seriously proposed that Parliament shall rise on December 22! It may be added (hat one item of the Est'unates-a vote of £400 for the payment of tho Hon. W. P. Reeves as financial adviser in London—was struck out, the Government being defeated gn it bv 35 votes to 25.

More contentious than any of the financial proposals contained in the Budget is the proposal of the Government for deal-

ing with the land tenure problem. A considerable proportion of tho .Ministerial

party in Parliament consists of members who believe that the State should retain possession of the Crown lands and dispose of them only on leasehold terms. The Opposition party, almost to a man, is favourable to the optional tenure principle, under which the Crown tenants are offered the opportunity of acquiring the freehold of-llio lands they have taken up under lease. It seems to have been fondly believed for a thno by the leaseholders in I tho House that the Government would adhere, to its land programme, enacted in 1907, when Mr M'Nub was Minister of Lands, when a new form of tenure, a renewable lease subject to periodical revaluations, was adopted and when the offei of'tho freehold option was made subject to conditions that rendered it a practical mockery. Tho Government, however, invariably follows the lino of least resistance. The freehold party is tho stronger iu Parliament, and the .Ministry, though two of its members were stalwarts in the loasoliold raiikn boforo they assumed the responsibilities of office, has brought down a new land policy that is devised to secure- the goodwill of tjm freeholders. The proposals of. the Government embrace the olfer of the freehold option to all [lasso; of Crown tenants-to the holders of leases in perpetuity of land that has been acquired for settlement as well as of ordinary Crown land and to the holders of renewable leases. The terms upon which the freehold is made available in the Land liill that is now before Parliament are not regarded by the Opposition as satisfactory. but it will support, the measure in the hope that it may be amended to meet its views. The leaseholders, however, feel that they have bcon betrayed by the Government, and they are promising themselves that they will resist the bill by all means that aro legitimately open to them. If they miry out their threat of an organised opposition it is quite ulear that the bill cannot be n;u-scil this session, or else that the session will not be brought to a close on the eve of tho Christina* holidays. ■ Ihe other features of tho Budget proposals do not call for s|>ecial reference lure. Their character ). 'ill be understood I'riMii die (summary of the Financial State- ■ mem that is published elsewhere in these pages. As wo have said, they have not yet been (submitted for the consideration of Parliament, .is a matter of fact, the only bill, bolides two Imprest Supply liills, that tus been passed by the Lower House during the last four weeks is the Hbpitals and Charitable Institutions Bill—a measure that proposes to make the authorities which administer hospital and charitable aid throughout the Dominion directly representative of the electors. Thus bill has also passed the Upper House with some important amendments. The fact that the results of the four weeks' work seem so insignificant is not to bo attributed to the Budget debate since. lie a matter of fact, two nights sufficed

for it. The Slate Guaranteed Advances Hill, which h;ia a twofold object— to secure that the money? required for advances to settlers shall be raised in future by the Advances Department, under the (lovernment guarantee, .-o that the amount, of these luiiiiii may l)e distinguished from the other borrowings by the (.lovernment, and to institute si new system of borrowing to moot the requirements of local authorities,—has been carried beyond the committee stage, but the, (lovenintonr. having been twice defeated on a question uf the investment of local bodies' sinking funds, seems to have lost its .enthusiasm over the measure. The Death Duties Hill, a bill for the amendment of the Shipping and Seamen Act, and a harmless hill, the Designation of Districts Bill, empowering the (lOvornor-in-Council to alter the names of boroughs, counties, and districts, have each passed the committee sta»c in the Lower House.

The Socialists of the community have lieen wounded in the house of their friends. The occurrence of a serious strike of coal miners in New South Wales was seized by the Labour party in that State as the occasion for advocating the nationalisation of the mining industry as the sovereign safeguard against the recurrence of industrial troubles that paralvso the trade of the country. The. existence of two State coal mines in Now Zealand which, tho supporters of nationalisation profc ; sed to believe, were prosperous concerns, was pointed to by them as an illustration' of the success of tho system

of State ownership. Unfortunately for their cause, the miners in the more important of the two State collieries in New Zealand—that at Point Elizabeth-struck work several days ago, ami the mine is now deserted. The strikers are beyond the reach of punishment under the antistrike provisions of tho law. for the registration of their union under the Arbitration Act lias been cancelled. They are evidently relying on their ability to " squeeze " the Government into concedinc their demands. These are that they should lie relieved of the necessity of trucking and " jigging" the coal from the face. They ask for concessions that have not been yielded to miners in other collieries on the West Coast. For the present, however, the Government is firm in its refusal to grant the demands of the strikers. To do so, Sir Joseph Ward says, would increase the working expenses by £4000 per annum, and the mine, he admits, has not returned a profit this year. The strikers •seem to bo in hopes that they may be able to induce the men at other mines to strike out of sympathy for them, but it is probable that in this respect they are relying on a broken reed.

One of the meet interesting and surprising announcements-ill the Budget was the statement that the Government proposed to introduce legislation embodying the results of reasonable and honourable con. cessions on tho part of both sides on the licensing question. Positive amazement was created when tho terms of this compromise were subsequently disclosed. The lion and the lamb were to lie down together. The " trade " had agreed that the proportion of votes necessary to carry no-license should be reduced from 60 to 55 per cent. Moreover, the votes recorded for 'local no-license should be counted as vote* for colonial no-license. In return for this, the prohibitionsts had agreed that a period of two-years should elapse before ' no-license, when carried, should operate locally, and a period of five years before colonial option, if carried, should operate. Both parties had, in faet, agreed to gamble on the throw of the dice so far as the votes of the moderate electors, who hold the balance in their hands, were concerned. The "trade" evidently calculated that the moderate voters would oppose local no-license rather than run the risk of the adoption of a system of colonial no-license that would deprive them of the opportunity of obtaining their own supplies of liquor. Those who represented the prohibitionists in arriving at tlte compromise, which was effected through the agency of tho Attorney-general without the parties coming together, seem to have concluded that the reduction in the majority requisite to carry no-license would more than counterbalance any losses their party might sustain through tho defection of voters of moderate views. A convention of delegates from no-license organisations throughout the Dominion has refused, however, to accept this conclusion. It insists that there should be separate issues for local option and colonial option. The outcome is that tho attempt to compromise has failed, and the introduction of any Licensing Bill this session now seems to be wholly unlikely. In any event, tho enactment of any mcasuro dealing with the subject is simply impossible.

Wo have to record with deep regret the death of one of the most useful citizens of Dunedin, in the person of Mr Alexander Sligo, a, sterling man who, in a quiet, effective way, did a great deal to advance the interests of the community and was specially prominent in friendly society work and in his devotion to the cause of education Mr S. C. Phillips, who has also passed away, was best known' as gaoler in Dunedin for many years, but be was also closely identified with temperance and religious work. Mr Alexander Mackay, who died at Fcikling, in the North Island, was for many years a judge of tho Native Land Court, and Mr John Stevenson, of Henley, closely associated first with pastoral interests in Otago and subsequently with the progress of the important dairying industry.

A moral degenerate, named Arthur Roberts, was convicted in the Supreme Court at Chvislchnrch, on the clearest evidence, of the murder of ,1 young woman named Alice Newman, n housemaid in a pmate hoti'l there. The sentence of death which was passed on him has been commuted to imprisonment for life.