CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 174, 2 November 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

ALIEN SEAMEN. The cheap alien seaman on British ships has been a sore point with the white seafarer for a good many years, and the point as far as it affects New Zealand was made much more prominent recently by the Seamen's Union, which put forward some well-defined and perfectly calm and just protests. The arguments in favor of lascars are well known. They are cheap, they do not cost much, they are inexpensive. Those are the arguj ments. Being cheap great shipping comI panies whose boats may some day be used as auxiliaries to the Navy are so little patriotic that they employ lascars in preference to British seamen. The old excuse that it is impossible to obtain white seamen is just plain falsehood. But you cannot obtain white seamen for slaves' wages and to cat slaves' food. In the House of Representatives the other day the Prime Minister was definite on the point. Legislation is. to be introduced extending the laws now applying to the New Zealand coastal trade to Australian and South Pacific waters. The Premier was asked by Mr. Masscy how that would affect the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and Sir Joseph Ward replied that if the proposed law was to stop the company from trading to New Zealand he would have no objection, if lascar crews were cojnpeting with men who earned higher wages. Mr. Massey enthusiastically said "Hear, hear," and New Zealand generally will echo the cheer. It is not a question of animosity against the lascar, but one of fairness to our own race. A time may come when every British seaman who can be scared up may be wanted badly. If subsidised companies' ships on such interesting occasions have then to depend on crews of aliens the outlook would not be cheerful. In the meantime shipping companies' dividends obscure the Imperial outlook.

AN INTERESTING FIGURE. Unrest of various kinds produces men to deal with the varieties, and there is hardly a more interesting figure upon the European stage of events than Senor Jose Canalejas, the Spanish Premier, who has been engaging in a difficult controversy with the Vatican. He is just forty-six years old. His life has been a curious mixture of literary study and practical affairs. He wrote a novel when he was ten, and the novel was published, and when he was eighteen he was appointed assistant Professor of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Madrid. Afterwards he became the secretary of one of the principal Spanish railway companies, and while he held this position he published a book called "The History of Latin Literature." In 1880, when he was twenty-six, he became a journalist and joined the staff of a Madrid Radical newspaper, and in 1881 he was elected a member of the Spanish Parliament. Seven years afterwards, he obtained his first ministerial position, and held office for seven or-eight years, finally leaving the Liberal Party owing to his disagreement with their Cuban policy. In 1902, however, he was again a Minister, and his future policy was suggested by the fact that he only took office on the promise that strong steps should be taken to curb the super-activity of the religious orders. He represents the Middle Party in Spain, is in favor of democratic progress, and is distinctly monarehial. Incidentally, he is the proprietor of El Heraldo, the principal Madrid newspaper. The career of the Spanish Premier will be worth watching, for he may shortly have to handle matters of extreme gravity in King Alfonso's dominions.