WHAT OTHER WRITERS ARE SAYING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17835, 1 May 1926, Page 8

WHAT OTHER WRITERS ARE SAYING.

ANTICIPATING THE STRIKE. At the time of writing the latest word we have with regard to Great Britain’s coal crisis is that. “Mr Baldwin is continuing the conversations,” and that “it is hoped there will be a favourable development very shortly.” With only three days to go from the date of the despatch of this message until the time comes when we are led to expect matters to culminate in a strike unless some basis of settlement is reached, there is no very great reassurance to be drawn from such an indefinite statement of the situation. What the Duke of Northumberland has to say about Mr Cook, the miners' inflammatory secretary, or Mr Cook about the Duke of Northumberland, one of the biggest drawers of mining royalties. does not for the moment matter very much. These two may be taken to represent the irreconcilable extremes in the case, and what does matter is the fate of the mass of the population that lies in between them, should the worst come to the worst. That worst would not only be a general strike of the workers in the industries and services essential to the sustenance and maintenance of the whole population of the country. The position is made still graver, if that be possible, by the news that the International Miners’ Federation has announced its decision to support the demands of the British miners, and, in the event of a strike, to take all possible measures to prevent the shipment of Continental coal to Britain. —‘ Hawke s Bay Tribune.” A DAIRY* SCHOOL.

Sound commonsense, and a generous appreciation of the national need, marked the decision of the public meet ing held in Hawera this week to consider the claims of South Taranaki as a site for the agricultural college shortly to be established in the North Island. Experts having decided already that the location of the college shall be somewhere in “the Palmerston North-Marton area,” it was too much to hope that South Taranaki might be chosen; but, nevertheless, the meeting could have made itself a nuisance to the authorities by adopting the parochial attitude which has lately become so pronounced in Palmerston North, Feilding and Marton. That it refused to do anything so paltry is to the credit of those public men responsible for the resolution adopted. It is a matter for regret that the local jealousy between Auckland and Wellington, over which the decision for the Palmerston North-Marton district was an undoubted triumph, should now have been transferred to the several centres within, that area; but the Government and its advisers, more particularly the two Professors of Agriculture concerned, may be trusted to over-ride all other influences in the desire to fix upon the best possible site in the interest of the whole of the Island.—“Hawera Star.”