CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 110, 30 October 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE. A number of timid legislators, pi ml to hoar the doors of Parliament clanging behind them, have '-knocked off work to carry bricks." and are at once beginning to show cmi-c why the people should again return them to Parliament. Under the party system, the political candidate is very much in the position of a commercial traveller who exhibits his wares and begs for your esteemed custom, and you are asked to examine his samples and judge of his past work. To-night the fight in ' the Taranaki province begins in earnest, and Mr. Massey, carrying a heavy armament and allegedly better prepared for the fray than ever will flesh his sword in F.ltham. He will, it is possible, make his familiar allegations and assert that the country is going to the dogs. It has managed to (prevent itself going to "the demnition bow-wows" for so many, years that there are still hopes for it. The Hon. T. Mackenzie, though not in the best fighting trim, owing to his recent illness, will tell the people of Kaponga why he should ibe returned as Kgmont's representative. He has a record of constructive work behind him, and that, quite apart from party, makes him an interesting personality. It maybe believed that a lot of people would vote for Mr. Mackenzie even if the fight was not a party one. Mr. Jenning?, a tried and trusted politician, opens fire at Waitara, and, as lie says, he "will give an account of his stewardship"—a very exellent thing for a politician to do, for it should be on the basis of what a man does and not what he says that the people should give him his place. Mr. Hine, of whom so much has been heard, intends to take the-people into his confidence to-morrow night, and the Stratford fight is made more interesting bv the fact that Mr. J. McCluggage ha*s donned the war paint and is out after Mr. Bine's scalp. Mr. McCluggage ha* had a, slight advantage in being able to make his dispositions while Mr. Hine was charming Parliament with his silver oratory. Mr. Wilson, who desires to represent Taumarunui, and Mr. O'Dea, who wants the Patea seat, have both been sowing the seed, and it remains to be seen whether the people of the various electorates named will be content with the old originals or whether they believe an infusion of new blood will be good for them and the country. Although party feeling is probably higher at the present time than it has been for some years, there is no harm in expressing the hope that, the political giants, even if they do light hard, will not "hit below the belt." The people want light and information and political education and not personalities.

A UYIXtI WAtJE. TiiiH 1 was when the mill] whoso solo capital was his power to work was exploited as a matter of custom. It was commiiulv agreed that it was perfectly equitable I o' obtain the largest possible amoiiiit of labor out of him for the Miialle-t fraction of its worth. Whatever mac have been the opinion of the exploiteil individual, he did not advance it. niainlv been use he had a quite erroneous idea of llic power of the employer, not fecliii" that such power was simply lent to him by the worker. Then' may have been cases previous to the discovery of the worker's power' of demand, whole a sentiment, of fraternity united master and men and ensued justice, and it. is deplored in some quarters that this sentiment no longer exists under present day conditions, tint while there may have been workers wbo lived in small paradises, tlic frrcat majority simply toiled for hare existence. ' All'those bad old occasions have not entirely disappeared, but the State—almost any State —to-dav the justice of eiiMirinjr a livin« wage for the man who toils. A particularly lucid expression of opinion on the modern relation of employed, employer and people was tendered in the Sydney Industrial Court the other day by Mr. Justice Sclioles. "It is better for the State that a man be paid a liv-

ing wage/' he observed. ''ln all our in- \ dustrial legislation, the State has made ' itself a party to every individual agree- ' nielli. It is not now simply a ease of John Smith making an agreement willi John Brown. It is a case of employer, employee and public, and the view of the public is that it is better for ■ the State that a man sho'.ild get a living wage, rather than he should be paid less than a living wage, even though it be in accordance with the value of his work." The man who obtains less than a living wage must live. If he does not obtain an adequate wage his employer simply invites him to he dishonest or' to partially starve. The State af a late hour in the day recognised that all classes of the community should have a chance to live, because the public forced the State to such conclusion. In the future when the humanitarian tendency becomes even more highly developed, the distress that is still so pronounced a feature of our civilisation will vanish, just as the barbarities practiced bv our immediate forefathers vanished with the I wider diffusion of knowledge. >

LAXI) TAXES IX AUSTRALASIA. The Hon. W. Pcmber Reeves, President of the Economic, Science and Statistical section of the British Association, now holding its annual meeting at Portsmouth, on August 31 delivered a long address on the subject of "Land Taxes in Australasia." Although primarily of a local character, the address made a wide and strikingly appropriate, appeal, inasmuch as it dealt, with the land-taking experiments of Australasia, and provided valuable d;ita for consideration of the probable results of legislation on similar lines in the Old Country. For the most part, said Mr. Reeves, revenues had not been the chief objects of those who imposed the land taxes in Australia and Xew Zealand. Most of the land taxes had been, and were, policy taxes, put on 1 with the avowed intention of sharply j stimulating the subdivision of land. It | was this unconcealed aim, this politica\ ! and economic intention, which gave them their interest, to students. What was the result of this policy? So far, according to Mr. Pember Reeves, they luve been almost negligible. A year ago the Australian land taxes had utterly failed in their crusade against great estates, and even in Xew Zealand they have not "burst up" large properties in quite the manner hoped for. But, Mr. Pember Reeves pointed out, the taxation as now levied is henvier than before, and Governments had had experience in drafting Acts and assessing land. To what extent will the larger Australian and Xew Zealand proprietors yield? To what extent will they go on paving the greater part of £2,400.000 in yearly land taxes, as well as a. large share, of some £4,000,000 of local rates? In good times the landowners may be able to pay up. and go on holding, but bad seasons and low prices may make another thing of taxation. In lflOO-10 the yield of'the State land taxes in Austral'ia was £330,000. In 1910-11 the Xew Zealand tax produced .£020,000. The Federal land tax of Australia is levied on values over £SOOO when owned by residents and on all land held by absentees. The latter elass also paid under special scale. The tax was expected to bring in from £1,350,000 to 1 £1.500.000. It remained to be seen whether the experience of Xew Zealand would be repeated in Australia so far as diminution of very large estates went. COMIXG TROUBLE IX RUSSiA. [ While Great Britain is only just getting over her labor troubles,' w-e are told that Russia, in her turn, is now to bo the scene of another campaign of revolutionary agitation, and perhaps even something worse. All the revolutionary processes of other countries are said by the well-known writer. M. Menschikoff, to play the role of magnetic induction I as regards Russia. The successful revolutions in Constantinople and Lisbon, which may have owed something to the lessons of the Russian revolutionary movement of 1005. are supposed to have had the efi'ect, inter alia, of restimulating Russian agitators to further action. In any case, we are apprised that two waves of revolutionary criminality are about to sweep across Russia, one" from the east and the other from the west. Whilst Russian socialistic emigrants and anarchists are flocking in from the European west, a corresponding influx of discharged and runaway political prisoners is taking place from Eastern Siberia. At the recent conference, held in Paris, of some thirty Russian socialist revolutionary leaders from all countries, it was decided to unite all parties for reinforcing their propaganda amongst the Russian masses, especially amongst the labor proletariat in the towns, as it was shown that this class, together with the troops, were the elements which gained success for the revolutions in Constantinople and Lisbon. It was also decided to adopt revolutionay expropriation, otherwise robbery under arms, to fill the revolutionary coffers. A similar conference, with similar aims, was held in Paris by the Russian social democrats. Many emigrants ore known to have already returned to Russia in disguise. The return of the political convicts from Siberia this year is so considerable that it is expected that quite half the number of exiles sent there, after the revolutionary outbreak of 1005 will have come back home by the end of the present navigation season. According to a statement in the Duma, the rural school teachers alone who were exiled to Siberia at that period numbered over 20.000. The great majority of the village hooligans who were condemned for burning down farms and homesteads are also now leaving prison at the expiration of their sentences. As if in fulfilment, of the resolution passed by the conference at Paris, there is already a recrudescence of political murders, robberies and labor strikes. '