The Otago Witness. (TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1920.) THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3455, 1 June 1920, Page 40

The Otago Witness.

(TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1920.) THE WEEK.

■WITH WHICH IB INCOEPOKATKD THE BOIiXHEHN UEItCUHY.

"Nimquam allud natura, allud sapientia dixit," p-jTITKIfAL. "Good nature and good sense must ever join."— Sops.

It would be little short of libel upon the reputation of the Dunedin

The Weather and the Winter Shew.

climate was the weather to improve for the Winter Show of the Otago Agri-

cultural and Pastoral Society. Winter Show weather has well nigh passed into a proverb;'its memories are ordinarily associated with Scotch mists of varying densities, a temperature nearing freezing-point, much mud, and a general feeling of damp discomfort. Happily there have been exceptions to the general rule when bright sunshine has dispersed the gloom and tempered the wintry blast, enabling country visitors to the city to peregrinate and amuse themselves under the best possible external conditions. It is little short of folly to be optimistic about the weather, _ but there are factors about the present situation which would almost seem to justify an anti-pessimistic attitude of mind. Dunedin rose royally to the occasion m the matter of weather during the Royal visit, exciting the wonder and amazement of the weather prophets and controverting the jeremiads of the oldest inhabitant. So soon, however, as the hour for the departure of the Prince drew near, the wailing of the winch and the weeping _ of the clouds commenced, and the weeping and the wailing has been proceeding with more or less regularity ever since. As a matter of fact the spell of inclement weather, to »vhich Dunedin, in common with the greater part of the Dominion, has for the past ten clays been treated, may be compared to a Maori tangi, when the weeping and wailing, although long drawn out, comes to an end at last. The barometric indications are all in favour of a change, and these induce hopes that the sun, which for a few brief minutes every clay last week made a brave attempt to shine,' will at length succeed, and that the Winter Show, which opens to-day, may be able to welcome its visitors under curcumstances of comfort. Given good weather the attractions of Show Week should be sufficient to induce the country residents to visit Dunedin in large numbers. Apart from the Show itself, the amusement programme in the form of theatrical attractions, picture houses, concerts, lectures, and other entertainments is a full one, sufficient to afford variety for every day of the week. Efforts are being made to overcome the difficulty of accommodation, and so long as country visitors are willing to put up with a little of the inconvenience which congestion involves, there is not much fear of disappointment. After all. however, the real interest of Show Week centres around the Show itself, and this at a.time when the importance of demonstrating the relation of prices to production cannot be too strongly emphasised. New Zealand's contribution to the problem of the increasing cost of living is twofold : first, by making the greatest possible increase to the stock of foodstuffs of the world, and secondly, by reducing to the smallest passible limit the consumption of articles imported from overseas. The Winter Show offers valuable inducements under the first head, since nothing can be of greater value educationally than the stimulus to production given by spirited competition. The object lessons provided of what the producers of the Dominion can do in cheese and butter, fruit, live stock, wool, and grasses suitable for pastoral pastures, will doubtless be lanrelv availed of. Thus the Winter Show Week offers not only a week of pleasure to men and women who, month in and month out, devote themselves to never-ending toil whilst engaged in agricultural and r>a. r toral pursuits, but at the same time it serves to teach the town-dweller how intimate is the relation of town and country in the path of progress and prosperity.

The efforts- of the women of the Dominion, manifested es-

Wcmen and Prices.

peciallv in Auckland arid Dunedin, to band them-

selves together in an effort to check the upward of the prices has been likened, to the belated efforts of the Ocean Beach Domain Board to save the sandhills of St. Clair from the assaults of the raging ocean. It is by no means certain, however, that the simile is a sound one, since it is from individual "Sorts that all great reform movements spring. And if the women of the Dominion, united in a real endeavour to promote national well-being, succeed in pledging each other to abstain from the purchase, for a period of six months, of anvthing but the absolute essentials of life, the effect will be felt in business and financial circles, inducing a meed of caution in operating and a judicious curtailment of orders, which in its turn must react upon the Home markets. The action of the women of New Zealand amounts to a; measure of protest against an economic condition which is enriching a few at the expense of the many, and which is made possible in the fact that the world demand for essential commodities is greater than the world supply. At the same time the evidence of an inflated currency has provided a laivo section of the people with a greater spending power than before, and this ability to par high prices on the part of the moneyed minority helps to aggravate the tendency to rising markets. What is the matter with the world to-day is that fchere is too much money and too little goods, and that this induces a disposition fto produce goods to gratify the luxurious

extravagance of the moneyed classes at the expense of the necessities essential to the life and well-being of the masses. > So long as the demand for luxuries persists, and so long as profiteering plutocrats are permitted to indulge their desires to the full, so long in fact as avarice and extravagance go hand in hand, there is little hope of an improvement. Already, however, there are signs both in America and the United Kingdom of a sentiment of revulsion of feeling against both extarvagance and high prices, a sentiment which the great world financiers are quick to detect and to take into account. It must be ever borne in mind that the world to-day lives in a very delicate and elaborate organised system of credit, and that never before in the history of modern finance were the world's credits so tremendously swollen as they are to-day. The first 'effect of an organised attempt to decrease the consumption of non-essential commodities and to increase the production of essential articles would have an immediate reflection in the curtailment of credits; indeed, the beginnings of such a movement are already hinted at in the cables. Thus the agitation of the women of New Zealand against high prices is in direct accord with economic laws, and if ■persevered in and brought to a successful issue may be handed down to posterity as yet another example of the way in which New Zealand led the world in the path of reform.

It is good news that His Majesty the King has consented to be-

The Fight the Famine Fund.

come patron of the Imperial War Famine Fund and that it is proposed to _ ex-

tend the effort throughout tiie dominions and make it an impressive Imperial movement by the whole of the British peoples. This should serve to remove the obstacles placed by the New Zealand Government in the way of the exercise of laudable charity for the relief of the millions of starving women and children in Europe. For some reason, as yet undisclosed, the efforts made in Dunedin and other parts of the Domincin to establish a branch of the Eight the Famine Fund were met with a curt official ultimatum that "it is not advisable to remit further funds at present' '; and since an appeal for such a purpose must have governmental sanction the desire to assist in the relief of the famine in Europe Avas effectually nipped in the bud. The welcome news that the King himself is at the head of the movement and that His Majesty's desire that the dominions shall participate, will, we trust, have the effect of removing all official qualms, thus permitting a natural charitable impulse to have full and complete sway. The tragic plight of a large portion of the population of Europe has been established beyond dispute; the very fact that millions of unfortunate women and children, who had neither voice nor part in precipitating the terrible war which is so severely afflicting them, are facing the horrors of actual starvation and are dying daily for lack of nourishment, needs no stressing. The situation is awful enough in its simple statement. Apart altogether from the humanitarian side of the tragedy, there is the fact, ad mitted by publicists and economists alike, that the world cannot hope to recover its financial equilibrium until the needs of the starving millions of Europe are adequately catered for. There is the additional reason advanced by leading statesmen and politicians that the surest way of combatting the wave of Bolshevism advancing over Europe and the East is to remove the reproach which widespread famine casts upon existing civilisation. In other words, if the existing system allows millions of people to perish without an effort to relieve suffering, a weapon is placed in the hand of the would-be revolutionaries which will be wielded with tremendous effect. In the dual interests, therefore, of the stability of authority and of the milk of human kindness, it is to be hoped that a clear, definite announcement may at once be made by Mr Massey setting forth the King's wishes in the matter and encouraging rather than deprecating the collection of the needed funds. The movement, to be' effective, must be a united one, in which Church and State, political, municiapl, and industrial efforts shall alike have full play, and whatever is done must be done quickly.

Happily the criminal record of the Dominion is ordinarily a

A Wave of Crime.

light one; thus, recent happenings serve as a shock to the public conscience.

The heavy sentence of fifteen years hard labour for attempted murder, upon an educated and cultured man, who occupied the position of Mayor of Wanganui, and who actually welcomed the Prince of Wales to the city, ly.s, in cosequence of the srtange and sensational circumstances by which the crime was surrounded, startled the public to a degree scarcely paralleled in New Zealand annals. Within the past week or tw.o the criminal happenings have exceeded both in number and in nature anything before reported; as witness, in addition to the Wanganui sensation, the Ponsonby murder, the murder of a young woman at Palmerston North, together with the suicide of the murderer, the tragedy at Otago, where a father stabbed a daughter, afterwards taking his own Ifie, and the terrible incident at Rongahere, involving yet another father on a charge of murdering his daughter. So sad a record, taken together with the_ increase of sexual crimes against young girls, revealed in recent Supreme Court proceedings goes to show that the wave of crime which is invading almost every civilised country as an aftermath of the war, has reached the shores of this Dominion, jt is perhaps inevitable that participation in present-day warfare, involving familiarity with scenes of horror and outrage and making the sacrifice of human life a daily occurrence, should serve to deaden conscience and to brutalise character. It is a strange paradox that the very warfaro which, under some circumstances is pro-

ductive of the most wonderful heroism bringing out the finest qualities of human nature, should under other circumstances lead to bestialities and brutalities for which no parallel can be found, and this without respect to race or character. There are good reasons for believing, however, that this outburst of criminal acts, which has so sadly stained the New Zea : land record, is evanescent and sporadic and in no ways affects or reflects upon the heart of the people. At the same time there are lax ideas abroad, especially among the younger men and women, which need careful watching. A writer in a Home magazine discussing "The Failure of Marriage," remarks: "It is impossible to obtain statistics on the question of irregular intercourse, but it can scarcely be doubted that there is much more of it during the last ten years. Fifty years ago there were three powerful deterrents —namely, the fear of. Hell, of conception, and of venereal diisease. The fear of Hell has disappeared, and the community is widelv supplied with information how to prevent conception and how to avoid infection. Public opinion is, to say the least, not austere, and the Ch-urcn has ceased to exercise any strong influence. This is really a very serious state of affairs." There is reason to apprehend that similar tendencies are manifesting themselves in New Zealand society and that the Dominion, although outwardly exceedingly moral, is in danger of developing a dangerous and insidious form of social disease. This is a matter which concerns the welfare of all and to which public men, medical men, and ministers of religion will do well to give careful attention.