The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. MONDAY, MARCH 30, 1931. MR LANG’S POLICY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 76, 30 March 1931, Page 6

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd.

MONDAY, MARCH 30, 1931. MR LANG’S POLICY.

Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND. Leaden ReareeeatatiTee l R. B. BRETT * SON HEW BRIDGE HOUSE. St/M NEW BRIDGE STREET LONDON. E.CA.

'M'EW SOUTH WALES has the distinction of being the first British State to repudiate its debts, and this repudiation will be all the more disgraceful if it is to apply to British bondholders and not to American. Whether the “ Financial Times ” is right or wrong in saying that stockholders may bank on Australia’s honour for the ultimate payment of the money, there can be no doubt that Mr Lang and the majority who have placed him in office are not of that mind. The ultimate implications of repudiation would be too disastrous to contemplate in the case of Australia generally, and therefore the country will have to disembarrass itself of Mr Lang and his doctrines. The disquieting part of it is that so many people in Australia have followed and are prepared to follow Mr Lang in his dishonourable policy, and if Australia is to emerge with credit from this crisis, there may have to be a pooling of the political forces such as Mr Lyons suggests. It is not surprising that some members of the Labour Party fear that Mr Lang’s policy threatens the very existence of the party throughout Australia. If the “ Financial Times’s ” faith in Australia’s honour has any basis the position could not be otherwise. TIME TO ENROL. JUST a little over a week remains for the enrolment of electors on the municipal roll, and it is timely to suggest that nobody should be disfranchised for lack of a simple precaution. The coming municipal elections will be of very special interest this year, because local bodies, like the general government, will have to pass through a transition period, in which some backbone will be needed on the administrative side. It is likely that very careful spending will be necessary to give relief to ratepayers who are already embarrassed by heavy taxation as well as growing rates. ARCHAIC LAWS. TT IS TIME that the police were *■ told very plainly that the prosecution of airmen for carrying passengers on Sunday can only make New Zealand look ridiculous in the eyes of the world. These prosecutions, it is to be noted, take place only in small centres, for it is likely that they would be laughed oiit of court elsewhere. The law as it stands does not include aeroplanes among the other vehicles—-taxi-cabs, four-wheeled carriages, and so on—that may ply for hire on Sunday, but that is merely because it was passed before aeroplanes were invented. To save the country from being made a laughing stock on this point, Parliament should pass a brief amendment to the law. Meanwhile, the Police Commissioner might very well give a hint to his officers that prosecutions of that nature are not in the public interest. FAMILY COMPETITION. in sport between members of the same family, which has been so marked in the inter-dub tennis tournament in Christchurch this year, is a subject on which a mind like Mr Arnold Bennett’s might have done some amusing and enlightening research. It might have been found that this was a part of that subtle conflict within the family, similar to that along which scx-discord develops on an ever-rising plane. For no doubt the non-competing members must take sides in backing the rivals. An argument on technique in the light of modern psychoanalysis might easily have iis roots in sex-antagonism. For according to Arnold Bennett, “If men and women were to wake one morning in perfect mutual comprehension and in the assurance that no discord separated them, on that day politics, even international politics, would cease to have significance. The sun—where it shone—would shine in vain. The globe would put up its shutters. The sublime adventure would he over.”