WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 26 August 1925, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

FAREWELL TO AMERICAN FLEET. THE CITY’S TRIBUTE. (Boeciftl to “Guardi'n”.) WELLINGTON, August 21. The American Fleet lett Wellington this morning with the warm good wishes of the city expressed in the hundred ways permissible on such occasions. it has been positively wonderful the way in which the more lads that Hocked from the warships every day, in foul weather as well as in tine, won their way into the esteem of people who had looked askance at their youth and at their dissimilarity from the popular conception of the sailorman ashore. During the three or four wet winter days following upon their arrival, when their lot seemed miserable indeed, and organised hospitality appeared failing to reach them, the spirit and the purpose of the visit both v.i'ie missing expression. I’m all the V, eile the lads were making their way with the community by their cheery luaiing. their ready • •■nirte.-.y. their respect lor local observances, their fresh boyish speech, and perhaps most of all. I, v their eager search for information. Before the end of the week they were among the city's most welcome guests and tlie hospitality id private houses wits thrown wide open to them. all. Whatever may have happened in other iciitres. the men of the American fleet in Wellington have done very much to draw the peoples of the two great Anglo-Saxon nations closer together in -pirntion and amity. It is a result north while. AMERICA LEADS. A punnet of American sailors travelling hack to town on Saturday Iroin Trentham, where, they confessed, they i ad found the racing a little dull because. as they hastened to explain, they " know absolutely nothing of the sport,” were easily induced to talk about some of the minor institutions of their own country. One id the partv, who evidently had heard samclliing of the political history nl the Dominion, expressed astonishment at bis discovery that New Zealand had neither women magistrates nor women police. He had asked about stub ollieials after his first evening in Willington, he said, when lie had seen hundreds of children, apparently without escort of any kind, parading the streets "on'their own” and some ol them behaving in a way that would have led In their being summarily packed o!F to their homes had they been in any well-equipped American citv. This young man, who cannot have been more than till or I years of age, had been astounded to learn that New Zealand, which Americans regarded as the most progressive country in the world, at any rate on the women's side of polities, was actually lagging behind the States in this rospet. His three companions listened in what appeared to lie delerontial silence and displayed no surprise on hearing New Zealand's social negligence condemned out of the mouth of a plain sailor. COST OF EDUCATION. Sir dames Barr, the Minister of Education, hurried hack from Auckland on Thursday to lend a hand to Mr L. M. Isilt’s Religious Exercises in Schools Bill and to nut through the Estimates of his Department. Mr Isitt’s Bill occupied the House during the whole of Thursday night until nearly seven o’clock on Friday morning, and -•ir James’s speech, though touching but lightly on the train points at issue, was perhaps the most erudite of the many contributions to the debate. Naturally the lion so. after its all night .sitting, was not in a humour to quibble i:\er S incll tilings when the Ed-, teat nr Estimates were thrust upon il on Friday evening, but several memiiers protested mildly against the increase o! (Is. exoenditlire bv some LMflhl'tUt upon t r of last year, bringing the total up to a colossal semi which only a few years ago would have made the wlnde community gasp. The Minister's hand however, was strengthened by still furHicr reonosls for expenditure and in the end he got what he wanted without •uiv serious oviposit ion. luhu-ation is the one vote which members fear to touch and even a suggestion ol extravagance is regarded more or less as a I'e!I design upon I lie nation’s status and its children's welfare. In the lobbies complaints are frequent and tree, but on lltt l floe,! of the House t hey find no expression. THE SESSION AND THE ELECTION The general impression about th“ lobbies to-day is that the session will be brought to a conclusion during the last week of September and that the, general election will take place four or live weeks later, perhaps in the last week o| October. If these predictions should lie realised the prorogation will l.c the earliest lor a last session of I lie House since IHpti. when Sir Harry Atkinson. bereft of bis slender majority, rent members about their business on September IJ.1 J . The excuse lor the early prorogation this year is the desirability of getting the election over 1 tele, re the opening of the Royal Show af ( liii delmrch ami the Exhibition nl Dunedin, and a sound reason is found in the now Government's desire to obtain a mandate lor itsolt from the constituencies. The Estimates so far have been pushed through with a haste which suggests that the lobby predictions are well founded, but the Estimates for the Labour ami Railway Departments still have to come and they are not always the least contentious. Then there are the Taxing Bill and the Repayment of Public Debt threatening prolonged discussions. The Labour Party has announced its intention to oppose the former on the ground that a reduction of income tax to the trifling extent of Id in the pound is not justified, and the financial experts of the Liberal Party suspect the latter is intended to facilitate designs the Minister of Finance has on the accumulated Sinking Funds. All predictions must be subject- to the possibilities of these facts.