NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 152, 23 March 1921, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

Despite their protests against the postponement of the ordinary session of Parliament the Opposition leaders were unable to point bo anything in particular that was likely to suffer. Mr. Massey has followed the customary procedure in closing down Parliament during ' the Prime Minister's absence at an Imperial Conference, and the Opposition has followed the customary course of opposing an adjournment. Apart altogether from the Imperial Conference it is jxjssiblo that at this juncture Mr. Massey may be able to achieve decidedly more for' New Zealand in London than by remaining in the Dominion. Market conditious and the possibility of raising a public works loan in London are matters urgently requiring attention, and on. the result of Mr. Massey’s mission the character of the session to be held later in the year will be largely determined. If Parliament has a coat to cut, the sort of cont will depend on the amount of cloth the Prime Minister can produce. In the meantime, nobody during the late session has discovered anything unattended to of such urgency that it cannot wait until September next.

Mr. Petor Fraser, M.P., is a difficult person to please. Tn company with his associates in the Labour movement, he produces a frame of mind among the miners which results in the strangulation of the coal industry of the Dominion. Insufficient coal being forthcoming locally, the country is faced with the necessity of either cutting down its railway and steamer - services, closing down industries, and stinting household supplies, or else searching about the world for such surplus coal as it may obtain elsewhere. An expensive cruise wee made by one vessel, the Waihora, which went Bret for coal to Fewxrastle, and thence to Vancouver, end ultimately

—according to Mr. Fraser—after four months and fifteen days arrived back with 6500 tons. Mr. Fraser wants to know what this coal cost the country. We are quite prepared to believe that it was an exceedingly expensive shipment, and we should not be surprised, to hear that other shipments of coal also have been expensive. Mr. Fraser apparently regards it as scandalous that the country should be involved in such transactions. We agree with him. The Waihora’s coal shipment is a sample of the burdens the people of New Zealand are forced to bear in consequence of the activities of such men as Mr. Peter Fraser in stirring up strife and dissension in New Zealand.

In Mr. Bonar Law the British Unionist Party had an able leader, but one unable to impress hie personality on the public. Mr. Lloyd George inspires fierce love and hate, Mr. Bonar Law no more than a lukewarm regard and a lukewarm indifference. This morning it is announced that Mr. Austen Chamberlain has succeeded to the Unionist leadership. Mr. Chamberlain is the son of a famous father, who educated and trained him for politics, and whom he much resembles in appearance, even to the monocle be affects. The London "Times”— a publication owned by Nord Northcliffe, whose newspapers have endeavoured time and again to drive Mr. Chamberlain from office as an incompetent—admits that he is in every respect superior to the average son of a great name. It describes him as a reasonable man, simple pud unaffected in personal intercourse, a capable administrator, and an exceedingly effective speaker, especially when roused—but finds him purely bureaucratic in his ideas, obsequious to the course of events, but forestalling, originating nothing. Mr. Chamberlain is this year 58 years of age, and first held Ministerial office in 1895. He is now serving a second term as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which post he has of late been fiercely assailed for his failure to effect a sufficiently rapid reduction in expenditure to please his critics. His personal qualities do not promise any more dominant leadership for the Unionist Party than that of Mr. Bonar Law.

Records in long distance telegraphy have been established by the dispatch of the results of Test matches from Sydney to London in fifteen minutes. This is a wonderful performance and eclipses even the twenty minutes taken to convey the King’s message to the Prince of Wales last year with the result of the Derby. A few days ago reference- was made in a cable message to a new record in wireless telegraphy by the transmission of a message from Cavite to Washington, a distance of ten thousand miles, in three minutes. Long distance wireless has the advantage, of course, of involving no repetition of messages en route, but the delay at each end before and after the wireless transmission from the high powered stations would probably bo greater than by ordinary telegraphy. Even if a sufficiently powerful wireless station were in existence in the immediate vicinity of Sydney to transmit direct to Britain, it would probably 'be found that the submarine telegraph record of fifteen minutes from a Sydney cricket ground to a London office was not an easy achievement to beat.

One of the economies proposed by the Public Service Commissioner in a memorandum, extracts from which appeared yesterday, is the withdrawal of the commissions at present granted to officers in the Insurance and National Provident Departments for introducing new business. It may be worth considering in this matter whether an immediate saving might not mean ultimately a much greater loss. So far* as the State Fire Insurance Department is concerned, the system of paying commissions to officers was instituted by Mr. F. M. B. Fisher when he became Minister in charge in 1912. There was presumably -t relation of cause and effect between this and the fact that the pext two. years were the most successful in the history of the Department to that date. Au official memorandum of the period records that in the two years to June 30, 1914 (the first two years of the Reform Government), the profits of the Department amounted to £34,000. of a. total of .£50.700 made over the whole period of nine and a half years for which it had then been in existence. In light of such facts it seems possible that the principal outcome of the refusal of commissions to oificers in the Departments mentioned might be a loss of profitable business.