Topics of the Day.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 14, 6 October 1909, Page 48

Topics of the Day.

By Our London Correspondent.

TH ROWING OUT THE BUDGET. .what it would mean—a striking WARNING. CHAOS AND A NEW CONSTITUTION. LONDON, August 20. C7T STRIKING article on “The / I Budget and the Peers’’ is conJ I tribute*! by Mr. Frederic Harrison. the well-known publicist, in the September number of the “Positivist Review.” Whatever the hot-bloods may say, whatever the rank and file may clamour for. the experienced leaders of Conservatism. financiers, and organisers well know what terrific risks they incur by defying the Commons, says Mr Harrison. In the first place, even if an immediate general election were held in October, the disorganisation of our whole financial, administrative, and industrial svstem would

be equivalent to the effects of civil war. Incalculable confusion would result, for the taxes, as yet unauthorised by Parliament, have already been paid on countless millions. The Funds, and with the Funds all investments, would fall 20 per cent. We should find ourselves the poorer. And even the poor, and those who have no realised property, would find work stagnant, industry paralysed. It would not be possible to throw the responsibility of this disaster on the Commons and the Ministers, for the plain truth would be that the Lords had brought it about in order to force taxation of the people's food. The chaos involved by this deadlock would be universal. Every man who pcssessed one hundred pounds of Lis own would find it worth no more than eighty; ami there would be no immediate use evm for the eighty. But the social and political chaos would l»e even more serious than the economic chaos. The old unwritten Constitution having been destroyed we should have to construct a new written Parliamentary Constitution. Who can say what that would be? No of Peers would figure in it, possibly not even a hereditary throne, sugffosts the writer. Ami when a now Chancellor of the Exchequer had to frame another popular Budget, the “unearned increment” clauses, the super-tax. the death duties and the like would not be the moderate percentage proposed by A’quith and Lloyd George, but more akin to that suggested by Carnegie. Snowden, and Kcir Hardie. No! The Conservative

leaders will not take that plunge. But social reformers should pray that they might. The English land tenure system, adds Mr Harrison, especially in towns, but also on every acre of English soil, is an obsolete conglomeration of rights and usages ingeniously contrived to give every advantage to the legal owner of the soil, to all creditors, to rent-receivers, as against occupiers, cultivators, debtors, and workers. It is an ancient system, the tyranny of which is concealed by law and custom from the conscience of those who enjoy it, and from the knowledge of those who suffer under it.

REMODELLING THE NAVY. “SIX YEARS OF PATIENT WORK" The result of the inquiry into the organisation of the Navy, which Lord Charles Beresford asked for. has already been cabled. The investigation has shown that during the time in question (1906), no danger to the country

resulted from the Admiralty’s arrangements for war. Those arrangements were of a transitory and provisional character, pending important changes in the general scheme. The following reforms have since been completed:-— 1. A large homogeneous fleet has been formed. 2. It is stated that this fleet will be placed under a single supreme control. 3. There is to be combined training of units with their respective divisions. 4. Some combined training of fleets took place during the recent manoeuvres. 5. It is believed that the effective strength at sea will be maintained by the substitution of those vessels away for purposes of refit or of repair by others. 6. The “nucleus crew” ships are now regarded as a reserve. 7. A Naval Strategical Bureau, or War Staff, at the Admiralty, to the necessity of which frequent attention has been called, is stated to be in process of formation. 8. A complete change has taken place in the organisation and distribution "f the fleet on the lines suggested. Lord Charles Beresford enumerates these reforms in a letter to the Press, and implies that they are the result of suggestions made by him during the past two years, and of his letter to the Prime Minister, asking for an inquiry. But it has been common knows ledge during the last four years that the main object of the nucleus crew

system, and of the vast reorganisation of which it was part, was to form ultimately a large homogeneous fleet, to afford combined training of units with their respective divisions, to maintain the effective strength at sea by the creation of the system of refitting and the scheme of repairs, to improve reserves by nucleus crew ships, and generally to administer and to distribute the fleet in accordance with this comprehensive and rational plan. It was understood that this plan could not be suddenly imposed upon the organisation of the Navy, but that, it must proceed step by step, and it was also understood that during the transitional stages the fighting efficiency had to be maintained by’ a succession of compromises. The eight items which Lord Charles Beresford now enumerates, are the result, not of two years of criticism, but of six years of patient work (says the naval correspondent of the “Times”).

THE LATEST NAVAL SCARE. ACCIDENT OK PLOT? The latest naval scare may prove to be the result of mere accidents, but they are the sort of accidents that ought not to be possible when British men-of-war are coaling. The presence of packages of high explosives among the coal recently supplied to ships of

war at Spithead and Sheerness was happily discovered in time to prevent any baneful consequences, but there are certain features about the happenings that are decidedly suggestive of something more than mere carelessness on the part of the men who win the coal liom Mother Earth. The first discovery was made a? Sheernese, when a number of blasting cartridges were found among the Welsh coal supplied, which was being taken into the bunkers of a big cruiser. A few days later, when the Duke of Edinburgh was coaling from the collier Fernhill, at Spithead, the first halfdozen tons put on board contained no less than three small packets of explosives. The first two escaped notice, and the third was only “spotted” by accident, for the parcel was only a couple of inches square. Of course, coaling operations were suspended forthwith, and the coal already taken on board overhauled thoroughly, with the result that two other packages came to light. The cruiser Drake had coaled from the same collier the day before, and naturally orders were at once given for a careful search in her bunkers, the result being, it is said, that other cartridges were found. The eoal supplied at Sheerness and Spithead came from different collieries, but was all loaded at Penarth. The peculiar thing about the cartridges discovered at Sherness is that they are not of a kind used in any of the South Wales mines, from which th*

Admiralty ha* bee* drawing naval coat supplies. Thia fact U certainly very disquieting, for it heavily discounts the supposition that the presence of the exs plosives was due to accident, and given strong colour to the suspicion that there is on foot a plot to eripple a portion of the British fleet. Strict investigation into the matter is being made, but so far the only result obtained is th* strengthening of the faith of those who have declared their belief that the explosives did not go with the coal from the mine to tbe collier which carried it to the warships.

A COMPLETE ANSWER.