PUBLIC OPINION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2504, 18 May 1909, Page 3

PUBLIC OPINION.

THROUGH THE STRAITS

The Minister for Marine persists in his refusal to erect a warning beacon to mariners on Terawhiti headland, off which, two marine courts have decided, the ill-fated Penguin came to grief. (The. .Minister stands almost alone in his attitude. The skippers whose duties take them' in and out of Wellington . are unanimous in declaring that their arduous work would be assisted by more light. Fourteen master mariners consulted by a Wellington contemporary agreed that there was absolute necessity for a beacon on either Terawhiti or Tongue Point, and they were men: engaged in the trying criastal service which requires from them the greatest watchfulness and resource. “I don’t care a rap what anyone says,” declared an emphatic first mate,’ “but I’m quite sure that a light is required on Cape Terawhiti, and very, badly too.” The official answer is that the Straits are already sufficiently lighted, and additional' facilities would tempt captains to take dangerous risks. But as one blunt sailor put it, “The Minister does not have to bring ships through the. Straits in bad weather.” It is to be hoped that the representations now being made will ultimately bring the Minister for Marine into a more reasonable frame of mind. New Zealand does not want the need emphasised by another Penguin experience.— Manawatu “Standard.”

LABOR’S EVIL COUNSELLORS. Labor should certainly fight for its rights, but it should beware of entrusting the conduct of the battle to heartless demagogues who promise impossibilities and who counsel a course that leads to widespread distress and ruin. Rut for the inflammatory speech of Tom Mann, as a. Melbourne contemporary points out, the miners of Broken Hill would have to-day had over £200:,000 more in their pockets and would have been in as good a position in respect to their claims as they were before. “Many of them arc now scattered, the, majority are workless and the responsibility of their plight rests mainly with leaders who will not share their suffering.^—“Dominion.” r\ [ . NEW ZEALAND THE MISSING • y V; LINK. • . j. ] It is certainly a matter of interest to us all that the acreditod representative of one of the most progressive states in the American Union has expressed his conviction that New Zealand has solved one of the most difficult of all social and industrial problems bv finding -•The Missing Link between labor and capital. 7 Colonel Weinstock seems to have,/formed this view before he had any personal experience of our industrial arrangements and the working of our labor laws, but it may be gathered from the general tone of his remarks that while there are undoubtedly many points in which our industrial and legislative system are still defective, still on the- whole, in his opinion, the Australasian colonies have gone, farther than any other civilised state ton aid the realisation of the economic idea of peaceful co-operation between capital and labor..—Auckland; “Star,-

AUCKLAND COMPLAINS. 1 . We are always'pleased to see in. tho North those southern holders of ministerial portfolios whose real business. hes mainly in this island, for the administrative injustice' of winch we have such bitter i reason I to complain is possibly due as much to ministerial ignorance as to any wilful intention to mismanage nubliJ affairs. Ob tho .‘fertile soil and ichial-climate of the - vast .stretches o ‘arable land to, be found m every part of the multifarious resources w Inch, a Ihoaoii still so largely undeveloped makw Auckland City easily .the fust of the New .Zealand < quartette, they « a usually so profoundly lgnoiant "hen Sic v take office that wc can hardly wontiliu to because tin n sou erri railways , are ,so •'•.tah’C: that ;o.urs, are unable to cent F-erv:;ce« of decent, equipment.— , ' - v 4 J , . *'■ ’ ■ f,'i rt 1 ' ”•. -• .