WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 June 1921, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

UNEMPLOYMENT,

LABOUR' PARTY’S ALLEGATIONS.

(Our Special Correspondent;

WELLINGTON, June 1

Mr J. McCombs, in addition to persisting in his assertion that tho Government is “engineering the unemployment trouble” for the purpose of permanently reducing wages, is now joining with the.other Christchurch Ltvboitr members of the House of Representatives, Air E. J. Howard and Mr D. G. Sullivan, in implying that Ministers are juggling with the public accounts with the same end in view. “We do not believe the statement about the “Empty Treasury,” these gentlemen saY in. chorus, “because according to the Auditor General there was on March 31st £1,603,977 in the Public Works Account with authority for a “transfer” from the Consolidated Fund of £500,000.” This amount of money, they contend, would he sufficient to keep every available man in the country employed at full wages in catching up the work deferred during the war. If this were not so, they go on to say, in the alternative there would be the simple expedient of calling Parliament together and appropriating for public works such money as might he required from the six million surplus. MANIFESTLY ABSURD.

In his reply to the indignant and protesting Labour members the Acting Prime Minister is not so tactful as he usually is in such circumstances. He overlooks the fact that others than Mr McCombs and his colleagu.es are in ignorance of the financial position of the country. “Your assertions are incorrect as to the public finances,” he writes, “and your statement that the Government is deliberately creating an unemployment problem for the purpose of forcing down wages is so manifestly absurd that I am forced to the conclusion that you have some political object in promulgating such a charge.” Of course, the Minister might not have found it convenient, or eveii practicable at this stage, to analyse the Dominion’s finances in any great detail, but he could have explained to Mr McCombs and his colleagues, and through them to the world at large, just why the most rigid economy in all public expenditure is necessary at the present time. It was tempting to make the tu quoque retort to such a charge, hut it was not judicious. TELEPHONE OPERATORS.

Mr T. M. Wilford, the leader of the Liberal Opposition, just before his departure upon another visit to America yesterday, addressed a letter to the Postmaster-General in which he emphatically protested against the increased hours of working imposed upon telephone operators. “1 woiider,” he \\ j(*t c to tile Minister, “if you have ever entered the Exchange and seen the monotonous and tiring work required of operators. I wonder if you have had the experience, even as an experiment, of wearing the receiver for a short time to your head. If you have, you will understand how nerve racking it must become.” Mr Wilford drew a very distressing picture of the hardships and discomforts endured by the telephone rirls and left upon his holiday, with a fervent hope that his letter at least would open the eyes of the Minister “to the wrong which is being done.” In justice to Mr Coates it must be said lie has given some personal attention to this matter, but probably it is the toll of the permanent head of the department that has prevailed. THE BUTTER PARADOX.

The unhappy Minister of Agriculture is being allowed no rest in connection with what the “Evening Post” styles, not inappropriately, the butter paradox. Mr Nosworthy lias admitted that he personally was opposed to the subsidy to the producers, and that the local price of butter is now far above the London parity, but in Christchurch the other day he protested that the contract between the Government and the producers was made “when there was not the slightest whisper of any collapse in the outside market.” But standing in cold print is a statement made by Mr Massey before the contract was concluded which entirely refutes his colleague’s assertion. “The price of butter has fallen at Home,” it runs, “and the producers realise that the price will be lower than it has been for the last twelve or eighteen months, hut when the conference meets next week I think satisfactory arrangements will be made for butter.” The effect of the arrangement made is that the local consumers are paying to-day from 7d to 8d a pound above the London parity.