THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1907. AN OBJECT LESSON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8504, 7 August 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1907. AN OBJECT LESSON.

The whirligig of time brings many changes; none sjtranger, perhaps, than the entirely altered relations of Canada with the United States. Fifteen years ago Canada seemed to have no future outside absorption by the United States; she was a suppliant for fiscal favours which would give her an entrance to the magnificent market on her S3Uthern border. But the United States was an overhard bargainer, and the tariff wall from Oregon to Maine grew higher and higher. It was sharp medicine, but gave Canada just the tonic that was needed to brace up her national spirit and develop her resources. Instead of to. the easy market of the SDutb, Canada diverted her energies to the East and to the West. She is now in the position of granting fiscal favours rather than soliciting them. In her trade with England and the Pacific she finds abundant outlet for the illimitable resources that have • scarcely been drawn upon. Here is the opportunity of the century—if the Imperial Government can rise to the height of it. ! i THE DUTCH CONFEDERATION. !

The Letters Patent granting a Constitution ro the Orange River Colony are in exact accord with the statement made in the British Parliament in December last and with the Transval Constitution. There are two chambers, of which the second will become elective four years hence; manhood suffrage for whites over twenty-one years of age wlio have taken the oath of allegiance; and reservations with regard to servile labour, the treatment of coloured races, and land settlement. The latter is to be temporarily controlled by a board appointed by the Governor. Like the grant of the Transvaal Constitution, the Orange River Constitution must be pronounced an experiment with a good deal of risk attached to it. Only the future can show whether it will turn out well or ill, though all the King's loyal subjects will echo his Majesty's wish that it may conduce to the prosperity

and contentment of the colony. Practically South Africa becomes henceforth a Dutch Confederation of States. In the Transvaal the Dutch are at present supreme; in Cape j Colony they will, there is reason to believe, ultimately control; in the Orange River Colony they must be : overwhelmingly in the ascendant. JSJatal alone of the four important ; States remains British and under a distinctively British Administration. The loyalists who fought in the field against the Boers for the British cause have seen their interests abandoned by the Mother Country, and are the real sufferers by this act of "magnanimity." What an Imperialistic Government the Bannerman Administration is! How eager they are to watch over the interests ! of the loyal subjects who are ready to lay down lives for the flag that has braved the battle and the breeze for a thousand years! Never in the past did a British Administration act with such precipitation in granting autonomy to a people which had fought against the British flag, or so remorselessly sacrifice its own subjects. But the leap into the dark has been taken, and it is now futile to cavil at its impolicy and peril. WORKERS' HOMES. The address which the Hon. J. Rigg, M.L.C, will deliver in the Ma ;terton Town Hall, on Friday evening next, should prove interesting and instructive. Mr Rigg is, of course, a prominent figure in Labour circles, and, though one may not be prepared to agree with many of Mr Rigg's views, at the same time it must be conceded that he has an intimate knowledge of the workers' needs. Politicians may differ as to the best method of ameliorating unsatisfactory conditions, where they exist, and as to what may be fair demands on the part of Labour,, but every honest, fair-minded politician, or elector, will always support any movement that is just in itself, and that has for its object the benefiting of his fellow men and women. It is understood that Mr Rigg has made a special study of the Workers' Homes question, and he will possibly be able to present the subject in a some.vhat new light to a Masterton audience. It would be an excessively parochial and narrow-minded person who could see in the establishment of Workers' Homes any injury or menace to the welfare of the landlord, or, indeed, to any class or individual in the community. As a matter of fact, the position is quite the reverse. The Government, however, could improve the Act by amending it in several respects, and the past administration of the Act, as it now stands upon the Statute Book, could be improved upon vastly.