A GOOD RECORD

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 219, 10 June 1920, Page 6

A GOOD RECORD

PRIME MINISTER'S TASKS

SIX MONTHS' ACHIEVEMENTS

IMPORTANT THINGS DONE

ii- The Prime Minister has hecn carrying 19 a very 'heavy over-load sinco the'clecr. tions, and lie hns had all too littlo prein paration. for the business of tho session. '1- It is well known that last year, on l'is arrival from Paris, ho had to face a most rs difficult political situation, had to re- '' 9 construct his Ministry, meet the House 'I- with a group of Ministers some of whom '» were new to office, and had to. rush ; i through a great deal of important businoss in a session compulsori.y limited as t- to duration. Then he fought an election s - campaign, and in the battle did a p'hen- *• omenal amount of the actual fighting '' for his party. The elections, successful "j as they were, brought no rest. d His first big task was to deal with the J" trouble in the coal mines. The miners ,'; had been "going slow" for a long time, , the coal output was low, and men -vero 5 leaving the coal fields. Mr. Massey con- *■ rened a conference of the owners and '* the minors, personally presided at iho I" conference for 60ine ten days, and the , end of it was a settlement of all jiffer- '" ences. There have been 6ome slight '' troubles since then, but those could not '; have been foreseen. ' Next in order of importance was the ? part he took in getting the trains runj ning again at the time of i!h<s railway J, strike, which occurred within a day or ? two of the landing of 'the Prince of Wales in New Zealand. Mr. Massey had lately boen in hospital—a matter of [ ' a fairly extensive* operation to his neck. / Ho was at Botorua- when the news reached 'him that tho rai'.waymen had gone on strike, but he set out by motor, in j severe wintry weather, to make the difficult journey to Wellington. He er,f rived late in the second day, and had a j conferonce with representatives of ell !. three railwaymcn's societies before ho e slept that nig>ht. At tho end of tho c< nferences he had laid the foundations of K the settlement ultimately reached, s and two days later the strike r was called off. Tho settlement . was not final, but it enabled 1 the arrangements for the Prince's tour i to be carried through, and enabled the a people to como into the centres to see e him. f Another industrial trouble which - migiit have been serious was a striko : at Waihi. Eight years ago there was a ' strike at. Waihi, and the town has not yet recovered from it A strike now ' would have meant ruin for everybody ' there, and Mr. Massey was asked to do ' his best to settle tho trouble between ' the miners and tho gold-mining cora- ', panies. Ho induced the parties to consent to a reference of the dispute to ' an arbitrator or conciliation commis- , (doner, nnd then he sent Mr. Hally up to Waihi to do his best with it. The result was a complete settlement, i Following on the temporary settlement ; of the railway strike, committees had i to be set up to investigate the several . branches of the dispute. The higgest . society in the dispute, the A.S.R.S., has i como to a complete settlement with tho management on all points, and with this business Mr. Massey was in daily touch, although not a member of the committee, lie had to agree with the terms of settlement before there could be a settlement, and in order to do this he had to know all about the negotiations. The locomotive men's Dart of tho dispute Is still under consideration. As president of tho Board of Trade he hns had a great deal to do with a host of important matters. When he came back to Now Zealand last year there was on embargo on the export M hides-, and tho oxistence of that arrangement led to fantastic results in connection with tho marketing of hides in this country. Mr. Massey never made any secret of his conviction that there should bo a free market for hidf.9, and that the embaiio was- doing an injustice to producers, without any corresponding advantage to consumers. The embargo was removed. The predicted rise in the price of "hides came along, but Mr. Massey freely expressed his opinion that this was in great part due to tho abnormal state of tilings existing, and that the fomino prices would not hold. Everyone knows now that his prediction was correct. He. did a similar thing in regard to bacon. An attempt had been made by the Board of Trade to control the price of bacon. The prieo was still htyh, but tho result of the control was that bacon was going off tho market, and farmers were ceasing to grow pigs. Mr. Massey was instrumental in having the control removed, nnd tho result has- been a big inerenso in the production of bacon, and a consentient drop in price. An agreement with tho Colonial Sugar Penning Company for 'the supply of sugar to New Zealand was runnir.g out' on March 81. This agreement was to supply sugar at a price which made tho retail price 3Jd. per lb., a littlo more than half of the Australian price, and much less than half the price ruling in any other part of the world. Mr. Massey arranged with the company for (in extension of this agreement until June 80. A new agreement was cui- '. eluded in the meantime, by which the • price will be. increased to about fid. re- : tail.'half the English price. New Zea- : land will still have the cheapest sugar in the world. The extension of the agreement for three months was worth not less than ,£150,000 to New Zealand. Other smaller matters with which ho had to deal in conjunction with the ( BMird of Trade were the setting up of tho anti-profiteering tribunals, tho distribution of cement, the fixing cf prices j for wheat and flour, and in another capacity he had arso to deal with the distribution of coal. The anti-profiteering j tribunals havo not worked openly to any great extent, but rvery buyer of goods knows that sinco tho tribunals were established prices for clothing havo dropped. The orrangomonts for the future sale of wheat by the farmers have hud the effect of giving the farmers con- . fidonce, and an incren««l acreage is being sewn for next year. Tho prices of bread and flour have also been fixed in conformity with the prices of wheat. All of , these matters have bten problems of difficulty, demanding hmrs a day of Mr. Massey's time. A. business which Mr. Massey has had entirely in his own hands has been tho i purchase on bahalf of New Zealand of '■ a shire in tho phosphates of Nauru Is- ' land nnd Ocean Island. This deal is now • almost completed. New Zealand's share of the purchase money will probably be ' paid over in a few weeks. At the time t of the labour trouble nt Fiji, when there t seemed to bn a danger of a rising of the t Indian labourers thcrOj..New Zealand was J asked to send a ship and a detachment ' of soldiers. New Zealand agreed, but the affair was tho cause of no littte anxietv. . Tho Tutanekai went over with a body ] of the Koyal New Zealand Artillery, and l tho men returned without mishap. i And tho bigee.'it care *i all was in con- < viection with the visit of His Pioyal Higbr- ' ness the Princo of Wales. The visit of a j Royal personage to tno Dominion entails j a creat deal of preparations, and no j little anxietv to tho bead of the Govern- ( ment. Happily, tho visit was a great sue- i cess, Eor a great part of tho time wtan those t heavy duties havf. fallen upon him, the ! Prime Miniver has had to work w''h 1 Ifo*=!<a than a full complement of Ministers, j and one result was that ho had to do £ much more than one man's f-.haro of work. B