The Star. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1927. NOTES OF THE DAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18339, 16 December 1927, Page 6

The Star. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1927. NOTES OF THE DAY.

r I TROTSKY’S EXPOSURE of conditions in Soviet Russia ■*" should be sufficient to convince the most fanatical Communist that the end of Czardom did not mean the end of tyranny and terror. In the course of an interview in Berlin this week, he said that the dictatorship of the proletariat had degenerated into a personal regime of the ruling clique, which had deprived the workers of freedom of speech, assembly, and professional defence of class interests. Apologists for the Bolshevik system frequently make themselves heard in Australia and New Zealand. They profess to believe that for the worker Russia is a wonderful country, free from oppression and full of opportunity. Well, to-day they have evidence in the opposite direction from a man who cannot be accused of capitalistic sympathies. “ The Russian workmen,” says Trotsky, “ are compelled to work ten hours a day for a miserable pittance. It cannot be borne any longer.”

IN THE MATTER of Rugby enthusiasm, New Zealand must evidently take a back seat to South Africa. The Dominion, except for a few zealots here and there, allows argument on football topics to fade away with the approach of the summer season. South Africa to-day, when it should be debating the performances of certain English cricketers now paying those shores a visit, is thinking of little else than the coming tour of the 1928 All Blacks. Under six-column headings, the “ Cape Times ” yesterday dealt with test match prospects and the best methods of selecting the Springbok fifteen. Experts arc spilling vast quantities of ink in an endeavour to point out ways and means of beating “ the world's strongest Rugby combination.” All this shows how serious a business the South African visit is going to be for the New Zealanders. Our team, however, has been selected, and the players are waiting patiently for the date of departure. Virtually, only one thing remains for the controlling authorities here to insist on so that chances of success may not be jeopardised—a stiff medical examination and the elimination of any unfit man before the boat sails.

CANTERBURY PIONEERS and their descendants can look back with pride to-day on the events of the past seventy-seven years. The anniversary of the province should be an occasion not merely for rejoicing at the achievements of the early colonists but one on which to recall the hardships that faced those brave men and women set down amid strange surroundings aud left to battle for a living with the poorest of implements. Life on the Plains in those days was far different from what it is now. Here is a picture from the pen of a “ Star contributor who arrived in Lyttelton sixty-eight years ago as a small boy with his parents:—

Some of the dwellings were of a primitive nature, some of one, two or three rooms, built of cob or sods, with roofs thatched with rapu or rushes. Some were built of timber, roofs covered with palings, but there was no lining or paper. Most of the walls inside were plastered with clay to keep the wind from extinguishing the “slush lamp” or candles (if they were procurable), and also to keep the bedclothes from disappearing during one’s slumbers. Clay took the place of floor boards, a discarded skirt or some such article, filled the place of glass for the window. Chimneys, of course, were of sods. Such were the dwellings of many of the early settlers.

Only men and women of high courage, strong physique and firm character could have triumphed under such conditions. How nobly they fought, how patiently trials were borne, how skilfully they prepared for the days to come arc matters of history. It is a great privilege on December 16, 1927, to be a resident of Canterbury and pay a tribute to the memory of the pioneers.