WELLINGTON NOTES

Hokitika Guardian, 19 December 1923, Page 1

WELLINGTON NOTES

PRICES OF WHEAT. PR< IDL’CFRS THREATEN. [Special To The Guardian.] WELLINGTON, Dec. 17. The efforts of the Canterbury wheat growers to extract something in the shape of a subsidy from the Government is being watched wit.li considerable interest here, not only by the politic-nus and others who are anxious tn see Air Massey's promises of reductions in public expenditure fully discharged. The question was raised be.torc the Prime Minister’s departure lor London. several Canterbury branches of the Farmers’ Union seeking to obtain from the Government an undertaking that a “payable price” would he paid for this season's crop; hut representations made to the .Minister of Agriculture on the subject brought from that gentleman an assurance. on behalf of himself ami his colleagues, that the system of sulrsidios had been delinitelv discontinued, and under no circumstances at all

likely to arise would be revived. Now, however, the president of the Wheat Board, is urging that something more than the Australian parity should be paid for this season’s crop, and suggesting that in the event of the Government failing to give the producers wliai- they want they should still further curtail their sowings for next season. THE CONSUMERS’ POINT OF VIEW. Both the Prime -Minister and the Minister of Agriculture had so emphatically renounced the principle of subsidies, and had taken so much credit for the “economies” their discontinuance represented, that the public was not prepared for a revival of the discussion. Even now people acquainted with the position maintain that the Government could not accedeto the demands of the Farmers’ Union without abandoning all pretence of consistency and finality. But the speakers at the meeting of the Farmers’ Union in Christchurch last week

seemed bent upon applying the utmost pressure to the Government, and upon making a price guarantee in some shape or form a permanent feature of i heir industry. The president of the Union declared that the Australian parity, bolstered up by a stiff duly, was utterly inadequate, and that the growers would he perfectly warranted in curtailing their wheat meas by of) per cent. Tile angry farmers present, (i they said, would go still further. Tliev would totally abandon wheat

growing in favour of some other product ion. The threat probably will have little terror for the local consumers, since Australia this year ex-

pects to have a wheat surplus of some eighty million bushels, hut it will bring home to the New Zealand public that the wheat grower is no more in business for purely patriotic purposes than is anv other producer. IMPERIAL PREFERENCE.

The absent. Prime Minister continues to receive hal'd knocks for Ids too zealous participation m the “preference” campaign tit Home. “Both Mr Bruce and Mr Alasscy,” the “Post” says, are endeavouring to make the l>est- of the set-hack which the cause of Imperial preference has received from the British electors, and in an enterprise where success was impossible Atr Bruce lias perhaps failed the less signally of the two. Tie points out that this issue was not before the electors, and that the GovcrnHK'ii appealed to the country on the purely local issue of protecting homo industries. If there is not much solid comfort in this point, there is at least formal correctness, hut the argument is not open to Air Alassay. The Dominion Alinister. who in violation ol Imperial comity, good latte. and discretion. persistently and defiantly urged the protection ~f their home industries upon the British electors on the eve of the poll, can hardly be heard to say that- it was a purely local issue with which the Dominions are not concerned. From our point of view, even the kind of protection which is the essential condition of preference is really a local issue with which the Dominions should not intcr-meddle fill the British people have adopted it on their own view of its merits and are free to bargain.". As a parting thrust the “Post” expresses the opinion that the prospects ol ‘‘preference would have been less gloomy than they are had the representatives of the Dominions minded their own business. KEEP TO THE LEFT.

The new city bv-lav of the footpath.—“ Keep to the left and pass, to the right” worked quite as s.alislaclorilv as eotild he expected on Saturday. The authorities had not advertised the change so strikingly as they might, have done, and tlu-ir extemporized directions wore not so compelling as t-hev should have been ; hut the public, speaking generally, entered into the spirit of the reform from the earliest hour and kept its memory alert throughout the day. It was made unite plain that the new ruD when fullv understood ami observed, would materially relieve the congestion a! busy hours on Wellington's narrow footpaths, hut the attractions of shop windows si ill will call for constant reminders of Hu' necessity ol “moving on.” Wellington's street li'aMie is a .problem of increasing complexity which one of these days will have to be solved by rcemistrucling half its thoroughfares.