WELLINGTON NOTES.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 March 1920, Page 4

WELLINGTON NOTES.

(Our Special Correspondent)

THE LIBERAL LEADER.

NO FACTIOUS OPPOSITION

WELLINGTON, March 19

The Hon W. D. S. MacDonald returned to Wellington on Wednesday night after an absence of five or six weeks during which he has been resting and receiving treatment for his injured arm. He is greatly improved in health, but his arm still is giving him some trouble, and he is not yet out of the hands of the doctors. The immediate purpose of his return to town was to join in the farewell to his old colleague, tlie Hon A. M. Myers, and he is not inclined to discuss politics in any detail while the Prime Minister is lying on a sick bed. In a chat this morning, however,'lie indicated very plainly he had no intention of offering any factious opposition to the Government. “We want to help the Ministry in, dealing with the big problems by which it is confronted,” he said, “and I hope Mr Massey will accept our assistance in the spirit it will be offered.” That is the Liberal policy for the moment. BON VOYAGE. It was a very cordial gathering inaugurated by the Commercial Travellers’ Association yesterday to bid farewell to the Hon A. M. Myers who is leaving today with his family on a visit to England. After the commercial men had paid warm tributes to their guests’ personal and business qualities, the politicians out-did them in their eulogistic references to Mr Myers’s loyalty as a col_ league, chivalry as an opponent and industry, ability and integrity as a public servant. Mr W. D. S. MacDonald said New Zealand could never know the full measure of its indebtedness to Mr Myers, but for years to come it would he benefiting from his foresight, sound administration and untiring devotion to duty. No man had done more for the Dominion in the days of its greatest trial and none deserved better of its people. His absence even for a single session would be a great loss to Parliament and to the country. THE STRATFORD SEAT.

The unseating of Mr Robert Masters, the chosen representative of a majority of the electors of Stratford, has come as a surprise to political circles here. Of coursse the interpretation of the law by the learned judges is not questioned for a single moment. Their finding is clearly expressed and is incontrovertibly supported by the statute. But the law itself is being widely denounced as the proverbial “Hass.” It seems to have created a purely technical offence of which the most punctilious candidate for Parliament might be guilty, and to have provided a penalty that could fall justly only on corruption. That the judges recognised its flagrant inconsistency may be gathered from the fact that tjiey have held Mr Masters to be innocent of any intentional impropriety and given him leave to contest the seat again. It is cold comfort, hut apparently all they could offer. Whether Mr Masters will re-contest the seat is not yet known, but already a movement is on foot to ensure his doing so. THE MINISTER OF LANDS. The Hon D. H. Guthrie, the Minister of Lands, has been alarming some of his timid friends lately by talking at. large of a Land Amendment Bill he lias in pre. paration for the approaching session of Parliament. Possibly the newspaper reports of his remarks have not given a very clear indication of his intentions, but many people have read them to mean that the is contemplating granting the freehold of endowment lands and employing compulsion in the sub-division of Native estates. If these are planks in the Minister’s new land policy they will revive many of the old controversies and give mortal offence to the Native members sitting on his own side of the House. No doubt Mr Guthrie will disclose the main features of his Bill before the House meets, but at. the moment speculation is running riot round the subject and the Minister's critics are not seeking to make his way easy.