WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 4 January 1917, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

Imperial Conference. Meeting of Parliament. (Our Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Jan 1 Of course, Mr James Allen’s announcement that Parliament would not be summoned before the return of the party Isadora to the Domiuion surprised no one tore. When Mr Measly and Sir Joseph Ward left for London it -was eemi-cffieially stated that they would bs back by the end of January at the latest and that an early session would be held in April or May in order that one or both oi them might attend the Imperial Conforesee then expected in August cr September. The earlier datenow fixed for the Conference has necessitated a change in tbair arrangements and probably they will not bs here till the end of March or th 3 beginning of Apri l , but ia the altered circumstance there is no urgent reasoi why Parliament should be celled together before the usual time iu June.

It would be simply a waste of time and money to bring members to Wellington to haggle over trivialities while awaiting the arrival of the travellers with more important business for their consideration. EXPORT DUTIES Thete appears to be a very general disposition among the farmers of the North Island, or at any rate among those doing their business with Wellington, to look less favorably upon export duties than they did at the beginning of the war. The butter-fat levy, the requiiitionign of meat and wool and the negotiation! for fixing the price of wheat have compelled them to revise their former attitude. They are beginning to realise that the needs of the Empire may require from them greater sacrifices than would be involved in the payment of 354 or 4% upon suoh of their products as they might send out of the country.

No doubt it was in recognition of this fact that the Minister of Railways, when speaking at the opening of a cheese factory the other day, expressed himself as ready to aeoept an export tax as a means of keeping down the cost of living. Mr Herries is a convinced freetrader, but he sees that circumstances alter cases and that exceptional ills need exceptional treatment. REGULATING PRICES. The absence of the Aoting Minister of Industries and Commerce in Gisborne has not prevented good progress being made with the schemes he has in hand for regulating the prices of wheat, flour and bread, and for placing the supply of meat intended for home aonsumption on a better footing. The members of the Board of Trade were in Auckland dealing with the meat question when they were recalled to Wellington to assist Mr MacDonald in his negotiations with the wheat-growers and millers, but they had practically completed tbeir enquiries in the northern city and probably they will have proposals to submit to the Minister in the course of a few days.

It still seems likely that the priee of wheat, which must form the basis oE the prices of flour and bread, will be fixed somewhere in the neighbourhood of 5/ a bushel and will be re" garded as satisfactory by a sufficient number of farmers to ensure a good trea of land being put under crop this year. PEACE AND GOODWILL. Strike talk has been suspended on both sides during the holiday season and Capital and Labour, each after its way, have been celebrating the time-honoured festivals with rather more than the usual gusto. There still, however, are a few timid souls about who take little trouble to disguise their fear that when harvest comes round something very dreadful will happen.

The same lugubrious prediction, it will be remembered, was made last year and the year before, after the shearers and the waterside workers had failed to justify previous prophecies of a similar kind, and yet nothing occurred. Now there are no visible signs, not even a cloud a 9 large as a man’s hand, to indicate any impending trouble.

The labour leaders themselves say that if trouble comes at all it will come from the West Coast of tbo South Island, but at the moment the miners in this recognised storm-centre seem to ba more bent upon enjoying their holidays in a legitimate way than upon disturbing the industrial peace on which their own well-being depends.