NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 26, 25 October 1919, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

The Prime Minister has promised to. introduce a Bill before the, session ends to amend tlio Widows' Pensions Act in the direction of giving more liberal assistance to those who comc under its provisions. The new rates of pension proposed, he told the House of Representatives yesterday, will bo a considerable improvement on tho existing stato of affairs. This is j satisfactory as far as it goes, but there does not seem to be any reason why.Mn. Massev should have made •the difficulty ho did about meeting the suggestion -advanced _by Mr. Luke that widows requiring assistance should be given pensions in their own right. At present widows cannot claim pensions unless they have one or more children under 14 years of age to support. A childless widow receives no pension. Presumably the Act as it stands is based on the theory that a widow without children is able to provide for her own support, but this is far from being true in all cases. Not .infrequently a childless widow, particularly if she is advanced in years, though short of the age at which, she would be entitled to claim the old-age pension, is quite incapable of earning a living. As a matter of ordinary justice and humanity such women ought. to be provided for, and there is no excuse for neglecting to deal with' the matter in the amending Bill which is about to be introduced. It ought to bo. a matter of no great' difficulty to apply such safeguards as arc necessary. Few women, for instance, arc likely to sacrifice the opportunity of earning an adequate income for the sake of collecting a small pension. It is obviously just that widows really in need of assistance should be given a pension in their own right, and the Government ought to feel no hesitation in asking Parliament to make this concession.

If talk would make roads and railways and bring in immigrant workers to assist in doing all the useful and profitable things that are waiting to be done in this country, Sir Joseph Ward would have earned universal gratitude by his verbal achievements in Parliament yesterday afternoon. As an outline of what ought to be done it would bo difficult to improve on his robust declaration that the timo has coinc to make an end of tho policy of building a large number of railways-at a snail's pace,' and that the workers who are needed must be brought in from Great Britain. This is sound sense, even if there was a strong flavour of electioneering about it. But in what he had to say about the pau j city, of the railway construction votes provided for the current year the Leader of the Opposition was indulging in obvious electioneering without the redeeming feature of it being cither justified or sensible. As Sir William Eraser pointed out, more money has been set down on tho Estimates than could possibly be spent during tho present financial year, which has only another five .months to run, and if Sir JosEpft Ward docs not know this then he is a much duller politician Hhan he is given credit for. Whether tho Government has done all that it should have done in paving the way for the introduction,' of suitable immigrants remains to' be seen. Butjas matters stand the progress of development work of all kinds is determined not by the amount of money it is possible to provide, but by the conditions of an acute labour shortage. Had Sir Joseph Ward been in charge of the Public Works Estimates he might have made a show of providing much larger votes than now- appear for roads, railways, and other i works, but the only result would : have been to deceive those peonle who arc noli aware of the facts. The actual, position is that more money is being voted than can possibly be spent this year.

Thf. present rate of progress in public works of course falls enormously short, of the country's rqquiremeiits, but something more than the. loud profession of guod intentions is needed to amend this state of affairs. What is needed is the formation of a systematic plan of immigration. Under such a plan, if due diligence is shown, it ought to be possible to begin to bring in additional labour for public works by about the. beginning of the next financial year, or even a, little sooner. If Sin Joseph AYard has the matter fit heart it is open to him to do good service by urging the Government to at once formulate a plan of this nature and put it into operation. Agreement between the two main parties would eliminate any obstacle that otherwise might impede the development of a practical immigration policy. Assuming, therefore, that lie desires to advance'the interests of the country the course the Leader of the Opposition outrht to take is clearly laid clown. It is rather strange that he did not raise the' question at an earlier stage of the session. He has himself to- thank if his silence hitherto, and his ill-supnorted criticism of a .conscientious Minister for not achieving impossibilities, are taken to mean that he is less concorned about the construction of roads and railways under satisfactory conditions than about the reconstruction of his own political fortunes.

A question of considerable practical interest is suggested by some, observations made by Dr. 'Newman in Hie House of Representatives yesterday. Why is it that Auckland Province is able to secure a lavish expenditure of public, money on such works as in the "Wellington provincial area are habitually neglected? As urgent railway works await attention in this province as anywhere in the Dominion—the Rimutaka and Paokakariki deviations .-are conspicuous instances in point. Yet these and other works arc deferred while in Auckland Province hundreds of men have been and are employed on railway construction. This balance to the bad is certainly not made up to Wellington Province in other .ways. A fore:! of about forty men is all. that has been found thus far, for instance, to carry 011 the works at Mangahao, one of the few big

undertakings in progress \ in this part of the .Dominion. The apparent explanation of the contrast in that people in this part of the country 1-ave accepted whatever treatment; was Dieted out to them by successive Governments, while their Auckland contemporaries have developed the art of parochial agitation .to a very iine point. Indeed, they have in .1 peculiar sense made it their own, and may he inclined to look askance at any competing attempt to trench upon their methods. But with the balance tipped as heavily as it is against Wellington in the matter of public works and public expenditure it is necessary to face even the risk of offending the Aucklandcrs by seeking in their own methods a means'of redressing the balance. For the people of Wellington Province it seems to bo a ease of learning to agitate in the Auckland fashion or of accepting constant neglect as a thing foreordained and inevitable.