OBSERVATIONS

Observer, Volume X, Issue 629, 17 January 1891, Page 3

OBSERVATIONS

ON THINGS IN GENERAL.

(Bs the 0.M.)

§0 the Hospital Inquiry is to go on, with Drs Giles and Hassell as Commissioners. The Government seem bent upon making as bad a bungle of the job as the Hospital Board did. Two doctors, holding Government billets, ought not to inquire into charges against a third doctor, holding a local government billet. Oo public and personal grounds, Dr Giles had good reason for being relieved from serving on the Commission ; but the Government has ordered him to go on. Verily, Mr Mays is honest when he says that neither the Board nor Dr Collins has anything to fear. But what of the P ublio? .

On the ninth page of this issue, ' Young New Zealand ' has a most instructive communication upon the relation that exists between rates of usury and the general prosperity of a oountry. I have for some time been firmly convinced that the legal rate of interest in New Zealand ought to be reduced from 8 to 5 per cent. The restrictive effect of a high rate of interest has more to do with colonial ' depression ' than bad land laws, or property tax, or any other single cause. • It's money makes the mare go,' and the New Zealand mare will not go ahead until her drivers profit by the lessons of history.

The Trades and Labour Council of Auckland has honestly accepted the lesson of the late strike. It has resolved not to federate with the Unions in Australia, but work on independent lines. It will be well for New Zealand if all the labour organisations act in the same manner.

Chairman, secretary, treasurer, and rate-collector are far too many positions for one man to hold in the same district. James Greenwood, who held these offices at Omaha, seems to have broken down under the strain, and he is now awaiting trial on a charge of embezzling about £100 from the Road Board funds. There is an analogy between this case and that of a shopkeeper who exposes his goods in such a way as to tempt people to steal. The Omaha Road Board should either be put in the dock beside the sorely-tried chairman, oollector, secretary and treasurer, or they ought to be sent to the Asylum as born idiots.