WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 January 1922, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

PARLIAMENT RESUMES. j A LENGTHY ORDER PAPER. j SPECIAL TO GUARDIAN. WELLINGTON, Jan 11. The general opinion in the reoccupied lobbies is that the Session will be much longer and more controversal than it would have been but for the Christmas adjournment. While the Government was pushing business through the House at the middle of last month in the hope of reaching the end before the holidays the great majority of the members were entirely compliant and ready to give Mr Massey and his colleagues every possible assistance in doing so. But most of them have returned to work with an informal mandate from their constituents to do this, that or some other thing and to see Parliament complete its job before it prorogues. In these circumstances it is not at all likely the completion of the business of the Session will occupy a month or even more. The Estimates are not yet half through, the Public Works Statement still lias to be presented, the Government’s retrenchment scheme has to he considered, the machinery of the meat pool lias to he provided, and in addition, there are a number Bills that must ho put through before members are released. RETRENCHMENT.

Pitobably no other item on this formidable programme is attracting so much attention as is the Government’s retrenchment scheme. On the one hand there is a. public insisting that the Government shall do something effective and on the other an army of civil servants and its friends protesting that .si substantial reduction in the cost of living must precede any interference with wages and salaries. The Government is in an extremely difficult dilemma. The pay of the Civil Servants, speaking generally, is by no means extravagant and before the financial position became! as acute as it is at the present time Mr Massey implied very broadly that it would not be reviewed till the cost oil living had fallen and than only in proportion to the fall. Whether or not there has been any fall at? all is a question upon which the Government Statistician and the representatives of (the Eivil Service arc not agreed, but it

is certain that prices are not down to a level at which the average clerk or railway worker could spare a largo slice off his income without serious inconvenience. INTANGIBLE RESULTS. Aliotber feature of the scheme that is bound to provoke a good deal of comment from a House refreshed by its holiday and instigated by its impatient constituents, is the intangibility of many of the savings Me Massey claims to have effected already. A very considerable part of the two or three millions the Prime Minister has mentioned appears to be merely paper savings. The butter subsidy for instance, expired by the effluxion of time and part of the wheat guarantee became unnecessary, and yet these inevitable happenings were forthwith numbered among the economies effected by the Government in discharge of its undertaking to live within its income. Of course they were nothing of tho kind. The butter subsidy would have ceased even had the country been rolling in wealth and the reduction of-the wheat guarantee had; been arranged a year before. It is true that many actual savings have been made, but comparatively few of them will come to hand during the present year, and meanwhile the Estimates have been substantially increased. These are points upon which the House ought to have much to say. THE MEAT POOL.

The representative gathering of producers held here yesterday took the first formal step towards the establishment of the much discussed meat pool by setting up a committee, consisting nf seven representatives from each island, to lay the foundations of the scheme. The lengthy discussion which preceded this step did not throw much additional light upon the proposal's of the Parliamentary Committee. Mr Massey, made it clear, however, that the pool would he made compulsory, in order to ensure its efficiency, and that the assistance of the freezing companies, exporters and buyers would he sought in carrying it to a satisfactory conclusion. The Prime Minister was very sanguine in regard to the success of the scheme. He claimed, indeed, that the bare mention of the steps the Dominion producers were asking in the protection of their own interests I

already brought about an improvement in the market at Home. What was even more encouraging was the prospect he was able to hold: out of the opening of new markets for New Zealand meat. Altogether the picture he drew of the outlook was a distinctly cheery one.