THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2087, 22 February 1894, Page 26

THE WEEK.

11 Honqoam allnd notnra, allnd «*piontla iSlxlt."'— Jc7*a- j. 11 8oo<In»tnro «ud gooa »en»o u>n:t cvor Jcia. '- Popj. No real progress is being made towards forcing to a solution tbc tvorCharity. pressing question of c! aritable aid. To the for. Us- ate pereon with a philosophic turn of mind, >»nd a total absence ot personal interest io 'he matter of rates, it is a ourious and inteie&ting

mental exercise to speculate when, if ever, the actual point of revolt against their wrongs will be reached by the ratepayers or their representatives. It is difficult to say how long the process of adding pallets to the pile has now been going on ; probably ever since the present system of forced contributions from the ratepaying section of the community alone was instituted, 10 years ago. This has turned out to be a "progressive" measure in a very undesirable sense. It is, in fact, a progressive land tax under a name which conceals the fact. Tbe municipalities and county councils of the country are approaching the point when they would all be better described as poor law boards — with a gracious permit from Parliament to spend the revenue left over after satisfying charitable expenditure (when any is left over at all) upon filling up a puddle here and there in the roads or possibly providing a few barrow-loads of gravel in an unusually prosperous year.

The disoussion at the Charitable Aid Board referred to in our local columns this week is only a repetition of many snch discussions that have gone before. The expenditure on charitable aid is increasing hand over hand— doubtless owing to the phenomenal prosperity of the country, which the Government are always tclliDg us has been brought about by their administration — and the ratepayers, whom the same Government constantly threaten with the withdrawal of eveu the paltry subsidies they now receive, are compelled to go on making the increase good. The ratepayers growl at their councils for giving them no roads, and the councils urge their representatives on the Charitable Aid Board to put a stop to the constant increase, and the Charitable Aid Board lectures and even threatens the Benevolent Trustees, until the latter much* enduring body gets snappish and falls back upon its voting power in the board itself to take the sting: out of the lectures and threats. But it all ends in smoke, and it always will. The principle is wrong; and Governments, in their own interests, are determined to keep it wrong. While that is the case, relief is hopeless ; and it will be the case so long as charitable aid remains a strictly class tax, and is not adjusted equitably among the whole of the taxpayers of the communir-y, as the present Ministry and its admirers now claim that the central taxation at Wellington is. The municipal ratepayers and the country settlers practically share the whole burden between them. They pay all the first half, and about four-fifths of th 3 second half which the Consolidated Fund contributes. But the process of extraction is stealthy and roundabout, and so they blunder into a quarrel with the most obvious and immediate cause of their troubles — which happens to be the Board of Benevolent Trustees— instead of going deeper into the matter and recognising where the grievance really lies.

The (Hugo Central Hallway.

The history of the Otago Central is simplyscandalous. There is no party question involved: we do not know that one Ministry has been much worse than another; but certainly Mr Seddon's record in the matter does not inspire blind confidence in hid present and future actions. Mr Earnshaw, M.H.R , tells the tale of the befool ment of Otago, if we may so term ib, in oar columns in this issue. He gives chapter and verse for hia statements, and we have checked his references without discovering an error. Promises, £111,000; performance, £80,308 18s 9d ; difference, £30,601 la 3d ;— that is the eloquent summary of the whole matter for the last three years ; and it is to be remembered that these figures pre-suppose the entire expenditure before March 31 of the £45.000 allotted last year : "if we get it (7)," as Mr Earnshaw significantly remarks. Then, again, there is that periodical undertaking — or, rather, expression of hope — of Mr Seddon's about the opening of the line for traffic to Hyde. In last year's Public Works Statement the Minister said, " The Government hope to be able to open the line for traffic to Hjde in tJis early part of the Neio Year." What limitation does Mr Seddon attach to the " early part of the New Year " ? The New Year may signify any time ; the poet, for instance, makes the first of May the merriest day of all the glad New Year ; but we venture to suggest ttiat, according to the ordinary acceptation oE terms, " the early part of the New Year " has already gone. Yet we have observed no announcement of that belated ceremony, though we doubt not that Mr Pyke is quite ready to preside over the function. With these facts in view, can Ministers wonder that, in the absence of satisfactory evidence, there is some measure of suspicion regarding the due appropriation of that £45,000 ? "We were too subservient to a Liberal Government," says Mr Earnsbaw, in his speech at the meeting on Monday night, with a pathetic candour which mu«t have shocked his colleagues ; and who are wo that wo should question the justice of hio confesfcion ?

We are far from wishing to make party capital out of this question, which is an Ofcago, tot a party question ; and thia elimination of controversial feeling is the more advisable when it is remembered that what is cliielly necessary is absolute and even enthusiastic unanimity on the part of all the Otago members of Parliament. Governments may coiie and Governments may go, buttbe Otago Central must go on ; not, however, go on for ever, as ia the past sesmed too likely. Mr Pickerton declares that the Minister for Laads is very anxious to further the interests of the line, and we are quire willing to believe it; but might not Mr irKeuzie display that anxiety a little more openly and a littlo more practically ? We vr ill not say, " Perhaps it was right to dis««mble your love, but why did you kick me dowustiirs 1 " but we wouH certainly eoiphagipo the remark made by Mr O. S. Keeves : •' Thia work was neglected, while the Government purchased land in other portions of the colony and drew population from Otago." It "may be, of course, that Mr Earnphaw's suspicions — natural suspicions, we repeat— are unfounded, and that the £45,000 will be spent before March 31. Wo shall be very glad to hear that such is the case ; but, be the ficta as they may, Mr Seddou will only have his past remigsness to blame for the sagacious doubts of the friends of the Otago Central railway.

Our Ambassador.

There ia a considerable fuarst, m iv'r 1 "o Smith's apfioitiiijrai f/ i>h3 Canadian misd<)i,ap: Mpoiii,ment weaieabl .mr^.t to approve. We are quite sure that Mr Smith's first. Bmbp.-,aa> ii;v experietice will bring no'^hiut; Jut, c- ! ir to himself and to the colvdj he will leoitrtint in the far north. We are inclined to tW n,»:p ; 'i-' in,v "hare is something to be dove ip Oanada. The fewer instructions Mr Smithtakos there with him the better. That is alvays a good rule when you have picked a good man ; it is especially so when the objects of bis mission mu&t be to a great extent indefinite, and dependent largely upon his personal powers of observation and his natural kriack of improving the occasion/ In thiß kind of mission, it is of particular importance to draw the esactline between fussiness and dulnesß. Colonists who have greatness in the shape of a foreign mission thrust upon them are seldom dull when they get to work, but they are very often fussy. We have seen so much of it that we almost like them better dull. Mr Lee Smith will probably turn out to be neither. We can wish nothing better for him than that his contribution to next year's Blue Book should possess the rare virtue of being readable — which it will not be if he is eifcber dull or fussy.

Tiic Banks and Thoir Deposits.

Considerable attention has lately been directed to an alleged scheme on the part of some of the banka to create a scarcity of money in this colony by lendiDg New Zealand deposits in Australia. The subject has been dealt with in two waye — first, in its direct aspect as being obviously a great disadvantage in a commercial sense to this colony ; and, secondly,' in its indirect aspect as providing a means by which the banks in qaestion may escape the payment of the New Zealand income tax. The Colonial Treasurer bad something to say on the latter point the other day, but direct clearness of expression is not among Mr Ward's many good points, and he left a good deal unsaid. Of course, it is obvious that if a bank takes deposits in this colony and lenda them in another where an income tax is not in force, it does escape taxation, It pays out, say, 6 per cent, over here, and it gets in, say, 8 per cent, over there — in other words, the transaction in the colony where income tax is levied is aU expense, and in the colony where it isn'c levied is all gain. No doubt, if possible the revenue ought to be protected against a lofs of this kind, and perhaps it is possible to protectit orcornpeEeateit. Wedonot.however,believe — infact.itseemsirconceivablein any business sense — that the evasion of income tax is the chief or even a leading reason why the banks are carrying out such a plan, if they are doing so. The question of income tax could not outweigh in a bank's counsels the mauy much more weighty factors which determine the due disposition of advances.

With regard to the complaint formulated in some quarters, and caughb up rather eagerly by the Premier at Foxton the other day, to the effect that a bank which takes New Zealand deposits and lends a large bulk of them to Australians commits a wrong against the colony, it certainly seems rather odd in the first place that in support of such a charge the New Zealand returns alone should be taken. The Australian returns ought to be compared with them before any conclusions at all can be formed. But apart from that, a very pregnant reflection indeed appears to have been entirely forgotten. When a bank takes deposits it does so as the financial agent of the depositors, who by committing it to the bank avow that they prefer a low rate of interest with the advantage of the bank's special financial knowledge and means of rigid examination to starting out in the lending business at higher interest for themselves. It is the first duty of a bank which takes depoßits, therefore, to lend them where they are judged to be safest. Its second duty is to its shareholders, and here the obligation comes in to lend the money where lending it it at once safest and most profitable. When a bank neglects these duties, swift retribution overtakes it — as many recent examples prove — and the public, premiers included, are unsparing in their impeachment of the directors. It may be very inconvenient to Mr Seddon to admit that real property, upon which money is mostly lent, is ,iow much less safe as a security for loans than when his crusade against all property was initiated, but it is obvious that not even for his convenience can considerations such as the above bo entirely ignored. We repeat that it is quite inconceivable that the mere desire to save income tax could materially affect the lending policy of a bank, and if New Zealand money is gravitating to Australia it is because the financial agents of New Zealand money-lenders Cor depositors if the word bo preferred) find that they can best serve their principals' interest by so investing the money they hold in trust. Deposits are not earmarked by banks for special loans, and where the banks are lendiag the depositors' money, depend upon it they are also lending their own.

Kirn Don n.

A directly Buccessful heresy hunt— the kind which ends in the formal expulsion of the victim — is rare. Indirectly successful ones, on the contrary, are common enough. In these more common cases the alleged delinquent, who may be (and we rather fancy generally is) a better Christian thau his hunters, is pursued and worried to such an extent and with such unrelenting persistency that through pure exbaustion he gives in, aud either starves silently or founds a new sect. The former plan is supposed to be the best for the church he leaves, while the latter is best for trade (as it means new buildings, musical instruments, and so on), but whichever is followed it never happens thai the canee of Christianity is benefited. The founding of new sects is quite a thriving industry in these days, but in so far as they depend upon microscopical variations in the incerpretation of New Testament texts they attract, iictle or no attention beyond the end of the nisi htreel, and are heard of only in the qukqueumal census returns. On the whole, starvation in perhapH the natural cour3e for th« victim or a successful heresy hunt to follow. We often wonder

whether those who join in the chase with such holy zeal ever really reflect upon this or indeed any department of the question except that which relates to creeds and dogmas. Mr Neill, of Auckland, who has just been expelled from his charge by his assembly for dabbling in Blavatskyism, does not seem to be a very judicious person, but it is difficult for any one but a religious enthusiast to see why for such things as are alleged against him a reputable citizen should in these days be suddenly deprived of his means of livelihood by a vote of his fellow-professionals. Churches would save themselves an infinity of public censure if they would only learn to leave things (and people) alone a little. Theoretically, no doubt, the heckling of a minister who develops an uncanonical originality in a mild way is quite defensible and logical, bufc if such theories were carried out in business or political life we should have all the good men cast out and a small residuum of prigs to pride ourselves upon. Moreover, if the maintenance of a church's standing in the general community is worth considering, it is foolish to permit these Ecandal3 except upon inevitable occasion. Synods and assemblies might look the other way much oftener than they are inclined to do, with the reverse of evil effects upon morals and religion.

I*llo Anarchist Sj

All the newspapers in Europe are writing about (he Anarchist?, but none of them are doing any good, and unfortunately while the Anarchist conspiracy remains what it is, the terror is a real one, and the rescue the remotest of possibilities. It is not the professional criminals and scoundrels that are to be most feared. These are attracted, it is true, into the ranks of Anarchy, but it is in the hope of prey. It is their business to be about when there is a row or a scare, for their hauls are made when people are off their guard, as they always are when an explosion has come off. Next to a good fire or a street accident, the professional rogue loves an explosion. Indeed, there is only too much reason to fear that in the higher ranks of scoundrelism there has already been a disposition to take a lesson from the evolutionary history of dynamite as applied to the fishing industry. It was noticed at an early stage of the use of submarine explosives that one of their byproducts was a harvest of dead fish, and this result was generailydeplored. But the poachers thought otherwise, and forthwith made the deadly dust an important implement in their trade. Similarly, the confusion and horror constantly observed to be wrought by the throwing of bombs, though inexpressibly agonising to the ordinary observer, came to be looked upon in an altogether different sense by the human beast of prey, who saw that through it he could make the " earnest " anarchist his jackal. So the gaolbirds of the slums form the audiences of anarchist spouters and the willing spies and intelligencers of the dynamiters — gratifying their instinctß doubly by helping to circumvent their enemies the police, and by preparing a promising harvest for themselves. But it is not these criminals who throw the bombs, and it is not they who are most to be feared. They mostly care too much for their own skins to be more than ordinarily dangerous. Bat the fanatic who desires to kill and maim, and who is ready to risk death himself among his victims, is a creatare before whom laws are almost as powerless as they are to actually prevent anyone from shootiDg or stabbing his enemy in Princes street to-morrow. A little chemical knowledge, accessible to everyone, and a fanaticism that does not quail before the fear of punishment, will make a successful anarchist of everyone who likes to try. This is why Anarchism is such an invisible terror to-day. Such extremely satisfactory anarchist explosions as that which took place outside Greenwich Observatory last week, and dismembered only the scoundrel chiefly concerned will, we fear, be only too rare. There cannot possibly be too many of them.