Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1912. EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10408, 23 July 1912, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1912. EDITORIAL NOTES.

IN the Yoloe of Lanonr a contributor shows bow the genuine workers regarded Ward ism. We take the following extracts from his article : —“By the defeat of the 22-year old Liberal fakir Government the main prop of Toryism in New Zealand baa disappeared, . . . The new Government may do better; it can hardly do worse. . . It was certainly not good tactics foe the Labour members, to try to keep In

office a party who have beguiled and basabQO’aled Labonr for 22 years. There has been nrnob deliberate and gigantic lying in regard to the cost of living. The most impatient liars are the individuals who swear that tli-3 cost of living has not gone np. They are evidently prepared to swear anything. Seven y ears ___ Right Hon. R. J. Seddon said the cost of living had increased by 50 par cent, since he became a minister of the Grown. Many commodities have still farther increased in price daring Che past seven years, as we all know. Rents.£too, have advanced considerably. “The higher cost of living,” we are told, “is doe to the highersfcandard'of living.” This ia good. Most men In this country do not average £3 per week.' How ia a man with a family to raise his standard of living on £3 a week, and pay from 15a to £1 par week rent? The tenth is the standard of j living has gone down instead of np daring the past four or five years. The British workers of seventy years ago were assured that freetrade would rain all their industries. And what was the result? Free trade benefited all the industries. . .

Ask any really intelligent business man, and he will tell yon that to abolish the Customs tariff would be to red nee the cost of living at least 50 per cent. That being so, we would of course be in a 25 per cent better position to compete with manufacturers of other countries. Therefore to talk about freetrads mining trade Is simply stuff and nonsense. ”

THE comments of the Louden Titans on the raising oS the last loan are certainly not calculated to induce Mr Massey to seek the aid of any raembsss of the party bow oat of office If he wants any assistance Ja fisancial matters. That gouroal on Jane 12th in a special article on the situation on the Stock Eschengs said:-—“The Zealand Government last week made an issue of £4,500,000 Threa-and-s-helf per Gent. Two Years’ Debentures at 99, and the market did not like it at all; 'sot only because the - amount la inconveniently large from the point of view of capitalists who already hold many similar issues, bni because the yield is eo to make existing colonial securities lock dear. Many people are beginning to think that there havebeenenougb of those issues of short-dated debentures, or ‘notes’ as our ontspokeaToonslDS across the Aliaatlo orTI them, when issued by railroad companies. That the issue is, nevertheless, the best way for the New Zealand Government out of a difficult position is probably tiros, but some very good Judges are of opinion that it would have been better finance to fasae a long 4 per cent, loan at & trifle under par than to pay over possibly a good deal over

that rate for the ohauca of renewing on better taenia in two ybara’ Sims. Hs must be a vary sanguine man who caa feel confident that the state of the mousy market asd of Now Zealand’slSaances will bo such that that State will be able to borrow at Igbo than 4 par cent. when tfasso debentures fall due. Thera is no use crying over spilt milk, however, and if the meaning.of the issue la fully grasped by everyone, goad may result; for there is no doubt that the terms of this loan more nearly represent the facts as to the credit of New Zealand and of some other countries than the Ideas hitherto prevailing* in official circles on that subject. To awake oat of & foci’s paradise is disagreeable; but ito go on sleeping in It is to court trouble.” Sines then effect has been given to the awakening of the electors.