The Otago Witness. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1924.) THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3672, 29 July 1924, Page 43

The Otago Witness. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1924.) THE WEEK.

***unquam allud natura, allud sanlentia dixit. ** —JUVENAL. “Good natura and good sense must over join. Pops. The Financial Statement which was submitted to Parliament last The '"eek was, in some respects, Budget. a disappointing document—it told much that was known already and it omitted to disclose certain things concerning which paiblio curiosity was excited. Mr Massey had previously let it be known that he pro*

posed certain remissions in the income tax, that substantial concessions were to be made in respect to railway fares and freights, and that the tariff was to be adjusted at least to the extent of a reduction of the duty on tobacco. The taxpayer fondly anticipated that the Budget would reveal the extent to which relief from a heavy burden would be granted but all he has been told is—and this is perhaps the only definite statement 111 a lengthy document—that Mr Massey “hopes to be able to ask Parliament to reduce taxation by £1,000,000, particulars of which will be given in the legislation dealing with the subject." The reason given for withholding these particulars is plausible enough—viz., that pending the discussion on the report of the Taxation Commission the decision as to the form which the reduction in direct taxaton will take must - be postponed. As with the income tax reductions, so with the railway concessions. The Commission of Investigation into Railway Affairs and Management has yet to get to work, and until the report is received the whole matter must remain in abeyance, and the travelling public and the commercial world must possess their souls in patience. The smoking public, too, is in the same case, and the amount of the reduction in their weekly tobacco bill still remains an uncertain quantity. The hopeful feature in the situation is that, by reason of a number of favourable factors, Mr Massey is clearly in a position to give the public considerable relief from, the burden of taxation, and this without in the slightest degree endangering the financial fabric. The balance of revenue over expenditure during the past financial year is £1,812.366, to which must be added an accumulated' surplus of £4,954,714, making a total of £6,767,080 all to the good. And there is reason to suppose that Mr Massey’s estimate of the revenue for the current year as about the same amount as last year is on the side of safety. While the public has a right to expect an appreciable reduction in taxation, yet there is sound sense in Mr Massey’s warning as to the need for the avoidance of waste and extravagance and the practice of economy. Nor should it be forgotten that the commitments for the current year are exceedingly heavy, including provision for the renewal of loans falling due amounting to nearly £12,000,000. While it is gratifying to know that New Zealand’s credit stands so high on the London money market, it is equally important that nothing should be done to endanger that credit. With alternate spasms of optimism and pessimism, the delegation to The Allied tile -^ lied Conference on Conference- the German reparations question is settling down to work. The difficulties presented by the various intricate problems involved m a settlement are undoubtedly such as to induce pessimism, but the necessity of reaching a settlement somewhere and somehow incline the more philosophic minds to ultimate optimism. In any case, it appears that the united efforts of Mr Ramsav MacDonald and M. Herriot have advanced negotiations further than at any point reached since the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. In the first place, the question of settlement rests with the financial magnates of Britain, Europe, and America, and there has to be reconciled the guarantees required by the bankers before the necessary money can be found, with the maintenance of what France holds to be her sovereign rights under the Versailles Treaty. All sorts of suggestions have been made in the hope of effecting a reconciliation, and at one point feeling became so aoute that thibreakdown of the Conference was freeiy prophesied. The crisis has passed, however, and, although Mr J. Pierpont Morgan discreetly declares that his trip to 'London is in no way connected with the Conference, he takes the optimistic view that most of the points under discussion will eventually answer themselves. Quite the most hopeful feature in a constantly changing situation is the decision of the Conference to invite the attendance of delegates from Germany, and this on the advice of the report of the jurists. The comprehensiveness of the matters involved include the turning of the German State railways into a company under Allied control, as suggested in the Dawes report. One of the perils in the way of a settlement is the nervousness of the Paris - press, ever breaking out into discordant clamour; it was a timely act on the part of M. Herriot to assemble the London representatives of the Trench newspapers and to beg them to urge the public of France to calmness and patience. The Olympic Games in Paris, for -which such great preparations had The been made and towards Olympiad. the cost of which the French Government voted £200,000, have ended somewhat sensationally and disastrously. Abandoned in Greece about the fourth century, they were reinstituted as international athletic sports in the reconstructed ancient stadium at Athens in 1896, the meeting being held every four years up to the time of the Great War, in Paris in 1900, St. Louis (U.Sf.A.) in 1904, London in 1908, and Stockholm in 1912. The Games were resumed at Antwerp in 1920. Except at the London meeting in 1908, British athletes never took a prominent part in the games, but the Paris meetin ct just concluded was to alter all this. The excitable French temperament exhibited' itself in a number of unpleasant incidents, especially in the boxing competitions, which were_ of such a nature as to create antagonistic feelings between Englishmen and Frenchmen. The Times went so far as to say “disturbances of this kind, culminating in open expressions cf national hostility, might conceivably Snd in worse trouble. The peace of the World is too precious to justify any risk, however wild the idea may seem, of its being sacrificed on the altar of inter-

national sport.” A less serious view, however, is taken by British sportsmen who attended the Olympiad, and, while admitting that French crowds scarcely show the impartiality peculiar to British sportsmen, they deny that there was any unfriendliness among the competitors themselves. Lord Cardigan, president of the British Empire Olympic Association, argues that it is the mission of Britain and America to inculcate the true sporting instincts in which the English are the modern crusaders, and he refuses to believe that the death-knell of the Olympiads has been sounded. It has been truly remarked that the British athlete and the BriRugisy Union tish public are much more and Rugby interested in team games, League. such as cricket and lootball, in which the individual player works not for himself but for his team, than in competitions such as the Olympic Games themselves. It is a long cry from tiie Rugby “big-side’,’ game as described in “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” to the many modifications of football as the game is played in Britain, America, and in various parts of the British dominions. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, professionalism should invade the football field, as it had already taken possession of the cricket field, and in the late ’eighties the formation of the Rugby League in England made professionalism a permanent feature of the game. The League has been a long time coming to New Zealand, but, beginning in the north—as it did in England—a strong attempt is being made to introduce it into Otago, a territory hitherto kept inviolably to the Rugby LTnion game, into the merits of the dispute which is creating so much controversy we do not desire to enter, but the deplorable consequences which sometimes follow on professionalism are vividly set forth by Mr Harold Brighouse in his play called The Game,” in which the purchase of a. prominent player and his transfer to a rival team form the motive of the drama. In a “note” to the play Mr Brighouse says : “The ‘transfer’ of a football player from one team to another cannot now be made with the rapidity shown in this play. At the time when ‘The Game’ was written such a transfer was possible. A year or two earlier, indeed, transfers were made at least as quickly as in the play—and one is -allowed a certain license of. compression in a play. The instance in point is recorded in the World’s Work for September, 1912. In an article entitled ‘ls Football a Business?’ Mr ,T. J. Bentley, ex-president and life member of the Football League, tells how he effected the transfer of a player named Charles -Roberts from Grimsby to Manchester United on a Friday night, the player being at Grimsby and Mr Bentley in London. The matter was settled by telephone at midnight, and in 16 hours after signing Roberts appeared in the Manchester United colours.’ ’’ When, eight years ago, Mrs Gertrude Atherton published tier Newspaper novel, “Mrs Balfame, Trials. readers wondered whether the picture drawn of the methods employed by American pressmen was not an exaggerated one. The story described how a woman, suspected of murdering her husband, was persecuted by a gang of reporters in search of the latest sensation, and practically tried and sentenced by them before the court of justice had a chance to assert itself. Apparently the evil has grown in the interval to menacing proportions, and as a result crime and murder are on the increase. According to reports, Chicago, already notorious for the youthful criminals Loeb and Leopold, has had a murder daily during June, and a total of 177 murders since the beginning of the year. Only about half of those arrested for murder were convicted, and only a small proportion of the murderers found guilty were condemned to death. The Chicago Tribune calls for a drastic restriction of publicity before a trial, and says that “newspaper trials before a case is called have become an abomination. Journalistic lynch law is the rule.” The contrast drawn between British and American justice is all in favour of the former. “Criminal justice in America,"' says the Tribune, “has become a Roman holiday, and the courts are the Colosseum. The British law is infinitely superior for conducting trials.”