UNIVERSAL TRAINING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2462, 29 March 1909, Page 2

UNIVERSAL TRAINING.

There is no blinking the fact that the country must have a defence army. Universal training must come. It has been delayed too long already. The farmers, the commercial and manufacturing classes, and almost every representative body have declared in favor of it, and if the present scare brings it about, it will have served a good purpose. When New Zealand has set its own house in order, it will be tne It tter prepared to assist in the mere ise.of tho fighting strength of the Britob Navy.—Feilding “Star.” THE RAILWAYS. The attitude of the Government end its friends towards the critics of the railways administration has very gieatly altered in the last year. A year ago the critic who complained that the railways do not pay could count upon drawing upon himself a violent onslaught from Sir Joseph Ward and his journalistic supporters. To-day it is not merely admitted that the railways do not pay; it is not even seriously contended that the annual loss on the system is defensible as a matter of policy— Mr Millar has definitely stated that public policy requires the railways to pay; the people who once so fiercely resented criticism are driven, into the last trench, and are concentrating their energies on resistance to the movement for independent control.—The “Dominion.”