WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 July 1921, Page 3

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

TOT A USA TOR INVESTMENTS

DECLINE AT TRENTHAM

(Our Special Correspondent)

WELLINGTON, July 18

Lest it should be imagined that the decline in the totalisator investments at the Wellington Racing Club’s Meeting last week was due entirely to an accession of moral susceptibility on the part of the general public, it may be as well to explain there were other contributing causes to the falling off in the amount of motley entrusted to the machine. First of all the weather in town was not enticing on either of the two days, and consequently a large number of people who would have gone out to Trenthain had the conditions been favourable preferred to stop at home, q j an no Saturday when the half-holiday makers turned out in great force the "out side” facilities for gambling proved {] uito inadequate to satisfy their demands and many eager punters were si, lit out. Finally the bookmakers did an unusually brisk week’s business and many pounds that otherwise would have passed through the machine went into their pockets. Wellington’s moral return! in this respect has not yet fairly

THE SPRINGBOKS. With crowds estimated at from 10,000 to 15,000 gathering at Wanganui and New Plymouth to witness the football matches between the South Africans and the local teams, there need be no (Vnr for the financial success ol the visitors’ tour through the Dominion. Whether the admirers of cricket 'like j, not, football is essentially New Zealand’s national game, and -the deefficiency to which her piayers have attained is in a large measure due to the appreciation and applause of tile public. But from all accounts, the Springboks are not vet giving the exhibitions (O' skill that were expected from them. Tliev are suffering from the Hicrts of ton much hard travelling and too much hard play, and probably are not showing of their best; hut local ex, peris who are accompanying them on ili, ir travels say the visitors, though brilliant at intervals and always good sportsmen, lack knowledge of the finer points of the'game and wilUbo lucky to os-ape defeat in any of the metropolitan or test matches. NAURU PHOSPHATES.

Farmers in tlm Wellington province are boenming a little restless over the long delay ill placing Nauru phosphates „„ die market in a readily available form and at. a reasonable rate, it reported that many dealers, antielpata Stale monopoly ol this business, ... P offering substitutes of a very questionable value, fn Ui.se circumstances buvers are glad to have an asmmn.ee from the Minister of Agriculture, felb- • .a-a'died from the South, that “in , jji ,'| time the Department he presided over would have its instructions, ami manufacturers who did not sell wh.-it tliev undertook would lie liable to sect it trouble ” This is satisfactory enough so far as it goes, but farmers naturally find some difficulty in understanding why the instructions required to make dishonest dealers mend their ways should he delayed for a Single day. A still more serious question concerns the value of Nauru phosphates. The opinions on this subject expressed in the current mini her of the Journal « ■Wriculturo are not wholly reassuring and the Minister himself sfems unable to speak with authority. * the labour farta. The annual conference oi the New Zealand Labour Party, which was sitting here last week, attracted singularly, little attention from aliv class ot iln- community. Even the local newspapers, hard pressed as they stem to be at times to find subjects for discussion, bad nothing to say about the proceedings of Mr Peter Eraser and his colleagues and naturally these gentlemen fool a little aggrieved. The truth of the matter is, of course, that the extreme section of Labour represented by the Conference is out of favour with the great mass of the workers just how, amlTas one of its critics put it in the familiar phrase the other day, is "cutting no ice.” The times are too serious, and for many people too hard, tor the propagation of merely speculative politics and the spirit of .dissension. The experimental Socialists’ dream of drawing all the progressive forces into their own camp has now proved a delusion. and sane people are settling down to the sober consideration of the plain facts. _______