WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 April 1922, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

A FATEFUL MEETING. i UNDER WHICH KING. SPECIAL TO GUARDIAN. j WELLINGTON, April 18. The Executive of the Post and Telegraph Association is meeting here today to determine that steps shall he taken in view of the veto the Government has placed upon the Association’s affiliation with the Alliance of Labour. The result of the Executive’s deliberations will not be made public till it has hooii communicated to the PostmasterGeneral and even then it may not finally decide the question of peace or war. It looks as if complete capitulation on the part of the Association is the only thing that would satisfy the Government, hut it is possible the Executive will seek to postpone the decision by suggesting that the whole question, with its altered aspects, should he submitted to a second ballot of the members. The ballot already taken fixed ro time for the actual affiliation, and no interests, except, perhaps, those of the Alliance of Labour, would he seriously prejudiced by the delay. An objection to this course lies in the fact that a considerable number of dissenting members have resigned from the Association since the majority decided in favour of affiliation, but this could he overcome by holding the second ballot on the original roll. IMMIGRATION AND EMPLOYMENT Labour is again exercised by the approaching arrival of 934 assisted immigrants. diie here by the Waimana on Sunday next, and refuses to he com-

forted bv the .Minister’s assurance

that the adults among them all have been guaranteed employment. The party, including 1(57 ex-lmperial soldiers coming out under the Overseas Settlement Scheme, consists of 337 men, 23 f women and 353 children, and its members are to he distributed over a very wide area, from Auckland to Bluff. Wellington’s quota is 215 and doubtless it will he quickly absorbed by the city and district, hut Labour is pro-

testing that every place taken by a new arrival is a place the fewer for the unemployed here. The Minister is satisfied, however, that there will he employment for every willing worker during the approaching winter and that this latest addition to the industrial population of the Dominion, so far from proving a burden to the taxpayer, will speedily become his ally in producing the wealth the country needs. MUNICIPAL TRADING AND TAXATION.

An entertaining controversy between

| Hie Mayor of Wellington and Councillor I L. McKenzie concerning the disposal of the reserve fund created from the proj fils obtained from the city’s electric i lighting department lias provided the critics of niuniicpal trading with a 1 fresh supply of effective ammunition. A little while ago the Mayor grow indigj mint over a statement made by a casual

newspaper correspondent to the effect

that the city’s electric department paid j neither State taxation nor local rates, ' and retorted hv saying that the department not only paid rates, hut also ' paid them promptly, which was not, he ! added, the. practice of the average eiti- | zen. His Worship’s spirited contradic- ! tion was so worded that many people | took it to mean that the department paid all the taxation and all the rates

that would he imposed upon a private undertaking of the same description, but now it seems from wiiat has been ;- iid by the Mayor and his councillor, that the department made a profit of some £12.090 last year, on which it paid not a penny of State taxation, and that it has accumulated in the same favourable circumstances a reserve of

1120,000. Under the present income

fax a private undertaking similarly situated would have paid one half of these big sums to the public exchequer and so assisted the country’s finances to that extent. PARTIES AND POLICIES.

Wellington takes a somewhat broader interest in general elections than do the other centres, if only from the fact that of necessity it must serve as host to the chosen representatives of all the constituencies during three or font months of the year. Just now it is speculating rather less about parties than it is about policies. Air Mils soy. like the atute campaigner he lias Leconte, is not inviting any premature discussion of details and Air \A ilfovd meanwhile is content to follow his very admirable example. The official Labour Party still is clinging to the hope of driving the two old patties into the same camp and waiting to see oy what means this end can best he achieved. It is rumoured that Sir Joseph Ward lias definitely determined to re-enter the lists, but there is authority for saying that the story is premature and that the old Liberal leader remains uncommitted to participation in the fray.