CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 291, 3 May 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

SLOW SUICIDE. The Governor of Xew South Wales (Lord Chelmsford) the other day called attention to the fact that Colonial Minister? of the Crown are overworked. There is no doubt about the truth of the contention or that colonial minister.? are themselves responsible for it. Admitting that Ministers are spurred to their t?sk mainly from a desire to serve the people faithfully, it is possible that the modern passion for publicity and notoriety has a good deal to do with it. Colonial communities regard Ministers as a sort of public service that may be switched on very much in the same way as one switches on an electric light. Engaged in the most important public work, they are ever available for the most trivial and unpayable social demonstrations. If one were unaware of the tremendously heavy task of Xew Zealand Ministers, one might make the mistake of believing they were glorified bagmen whose chief duties consisted in laying foundation stones, declaring bridges open, attending innumerable banquets, and in firing platitudes into the ears 'of the people. A Colonial Minister is not content with directing unseen. He must not remain hidden behind his dignified office. He must be feted, applauded, patted on the back—and worked to death. He has become something more even than a Colonial Minister. He is switched off from the signing of papers or the opening of a bazaar to attend Imperial conferences, and to make the path of the nations plain. He must not rest. In fact, it is necessary for him to be a giant of physical health and strength to keep abreast of his job. Ministers fly about the country in special trains. Glorious time? But the work follows them. When the average banqucttcr is "getting over it," the average Minister is furiously overtaking his work in a railway train with the aid of a secretary and a typewriter. In New Zealand we have had many examples of the inability of the most robust Ministers to stand the tremendous strain of looking after details ranging from matters only solvable by a commercial genius to those worthy of a junior clerk. Leading politicians at Home have of late years emerged from their dignified seclusion, and some of them have been finding that two hours sleep a day is insufficient. Probably there is a spur in politics the ordinary layman never feel?. But the spur so frequently drives the person who is being ridden to an early grave, or at least to the hospital, that the lust for office is amazing. Maybe some day an admiring populace will insist on Ministers taking requisite rest, and in confining themselves to the solution of matters that cannot be dealt with by less exalted personages.

TO THE TOWNS: A while njro a. New Zealander visited Australia. Tie returned. "You have, been seeing Australia?" asked a friend. "No." hp replied, "I have heen seeing Sydney." There is a difference. Australia produces. Sydney uses. New Zealand towns use, New Zealand crows. And so when one sees by examination of the census returns that our ehief cities are becoming more densely populated, hut that there is no corresponding increase in the urban population to justify the city increases, we cannot boast of real progress. An American thinker has lately] shown that in one century the percent-.: age of people who live in American town,? has increased from a little over three per cent, to thirty-one per cent. America has, therefore, decreased woefully as a producer and increased tremendously as a user. America's case is in nowise similar to the case of Australia or New Zealand, for America passed through a period of tremendous activity as a food supplying country to a period as a user of raw materials. The Australian tendency is to concentration

towns without having passed through a like period. That is to say, the people of both countries want to become users without producing in accordance with the increase of town population. The tendency in both countries, too, is to regard small bodies of users as the essential human element, much to the detriment of the person engaged in primary industry. In periods of peace, countries which are extensively engaged in manufacture do not feel the pinch. A period of struggle for existence in either America, Australia or New Zealand would force decentralisation -and a return to the more natural pursuits. We read with more or less unconcern /and very frequently) that the wheat yield of such and such" a country has declined «o many million bushels. If we would onlv believe it, the breaking in of new areas of land for the production of food is of much more importance than increased town population, the erection of vast buildings, and world preparations for the destruction of man. The nation tliat commands the bigj gest food supply is the nation that will be most virile and unconquerable. "Civilisation," said Sir John (lordon, "rests upon the slender spiral of the wheat stalk." Many people affect to believe that it rests on large towns and public libraries and land speculation.