The Star. THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1928. NOTES OF THE DAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18419, 22 March 1928, Page 8

The Star. THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1928. NOTES OF THE DAY.

'C'URTHER RESTRICTIONS on the sale of tobacco will come into force in a few days, and shopkeepers handling “ smokers’ requisites ” will be compelled to close at the hours observed by tobacconists or else give up the sale of these commodities. It is rather interesting to sec that a Small Shopkeepers’ Association exists at Auckland, and that its president and secretary are trying to inform small shopkeepers in the other centres of the rights and privileges they may secure under the Act. It is to be hoped that the association will extend its activities to Canterbury, for the hours of selling everything that may be regarded as a necessity, or an article of common use, should be liberalised as far as possible, so long as undue hardship is not imposed on any body of shop assistants. We think that the tobacco regulations, like those covering the sale of flowers in fruit shops, were quite uncalled for, and if exemption can be secured under the Act the public would welcome it.

TV URGLARIES in the city and suburbs have been of such very frequent occurrence of late that citizens may be pardoned for feeling no little anxiety about the matter. If these outbreaks could be regarded as epidemic or the work of one or two gangs, the position would not be so bad, but for one reason or another burglary seems to be a comparatively safe occupation nowadays, and no very successful effort is being made to stamp it out. It is to be feared that the unchecked growth of juvenile delinquency is partly responsible for these crimes, and in that connection it must be very discouraging to the. police, time after time, to find that offenders who are brought to hook escape practically without penalty. Oil the other hand, it is a very grave question indeed whether the really capable officers of the New Zealand Police Force are not. too few and far between. It might not be a bad idea for the Commissioner to have available a highly efficient “ flying squad ” ready to move at a moment’s notice to the scene of any unusual outbreak of crime.

THE Minister of Agriculture remarked on Tuesday that New Zealand was a new country, and farmers did not have a full knowledge of the handling of the land. We think that it is about time this talk of a new country was dropped. The country is-quite old enough to have established its farming practice pretty firmly, and even if the country were, indeed, new, that fact in relation to scientific farming would be all lo the good, because scientific methods must be observed to-day in any country that hopes to compete successfully in the world’s markets. Everybody will welcome the opening of the Massey Agricultural College, which seeks to bring agricultural education up. to the point at which the very best methods alone will be employed. The tragic part of the agricultural situation, however, is not so much the lack of knowledge in i-cgard to farming methods as a lack of the opportunities for people to go on the land and develop it. Land settlement in New Zealand during the Reform regime is not very pleasant to contemplate, and agricultural colleges will not make up for the lack of a land policy.