PUBLIC OPINION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10011, 24 November 1910, Page 3

PUBLIC OPINION.

FROM. YESTERDAY'S NEWSPAPERS.

THE GAMING BILL,

On the whole it is to be feared that the bookmaker, who is known to have powerful friends at Court, will not come out so badly when the measure is passed as it was hoped lie would. It is a pity Parliament could not see its way to declare in. explicit terms that bookmaking is illegal wherever practised, and to have nothing whatever to do with circumlocutory expressions and verbal obscurities that may turn out to mean something very different from what was supposed.—-" Otago Daily Times." MR MASSEY'S CONFESSION.

The Prime Minister put in a return showing that in respect of thirteen estates owners had asked altogether for over half a million pounds more than the Government had been called upon to pay after the Compensation Courts had heard evidence and assessed values. To this Mr Massey retorted that if the State was going to compulsorily acquire a property of his he would ask three times the value. It is just as well for settlers and .other taxpayers to know this. Mr Massey and his party have opposed all the measures passed and proposed for twenty years to land available for settlement. While professing to bo friends of the settler they have done all in their power to prevent his multiplication, and they have resisted all proposals to simplify' and facilitate the acquirement of properties.—" New Zealand Times." THE OSBORNE JUDGMENT. The compromise that is needed is an arrangement that will allow a majority of the members of a trades union to tax themselves by a compulsory levy for a political purpose without infringing the rights or violating tho consciences of tho minority, but nobody iias been ablo to suggest any method for rescuing the minority from injustice without practically reducing the power of the majority to that of levying a voluntary subscription, which, of course, would be futile. The payment of members will undoubtedly take a large part of the sting out of the Osborne judgment.—" Evening Post."