WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 21 May 1926, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

MOTOR-BUS REGULATIONS. PRIME MINISTER DEFENDS. (Special to 11 Guardian.”) WELLINGTON, May 18. The statement issued by the Prime Minister in defence of motor-but regulations, evidently compiled by an officer of the Public Works Department, would not be impressive but for the emphasis it places upon the bus-pro-prietors’ right to compensation. “In most of the criticism so far offered, particularly that coming from the motor-omnibus interests,” Mr Coates is made to say, “ there has been a tendency to ignore the rights of compensation conferred by the regulations. It may reasonably be anticipated that these rights will operate in two directions. They will ensure that a motor-omnibus proprietor whose business on any particular route is taken away will not he allowed to suffer pecuniarily for a step considered necessary in the general interest.. Further, the liability to pay compensation may be expected to exercise a restraining influence upon any tramway authority which might otherwise he inclined to claim an exclusive control of the traffic, which was not fairlv warranted by the circumstances.” All this would he satisfactory enough to the bus proprietors were it not for an earlier statement by the Prime Minister to the effect that compensation would be paid only when a license was refused. An easier way to get rid of competition, and at the same time avoid the payment of compensation. would he to grant the license and allow the penalty of a twopenny extra fare to work its way. LABOUR. AND PRESS. The “ Dominion ” this morning devotes a scathing article to the attacks made upon the newspapers at a gathering of the Labour Party at Christchurch last week end. “ Both Mr Cpoke and Mr Armstrong,” it says, “made it clear that they regard the silencing of the newspapers as essential to the realisation of the aims for which they stand. Their attack is on an open and unfettered Press in which all parties are given "a fair bearing. They are committed to the simple plan of gaining their ends bv silencing all who differ from them. This idea lias already been developed and applied to some extent by Labour-Socialists. It is notorious, for instance, that in unions "dominated by ‘ militant ’ minorities, any member attempting to express independent views is silenced out of band by more or less definite intimiilatiion. At election times, also our local Lab-our-Socialsits have shown over and over again, by mob-disorder and clamour at election gatherings, how far they are prepared to go in denying freedom of speech to their opponents.” Labour leaders here, while casting in bouquets at the daily papers, deprecate the attacks upon the Press at large. They give the local papers credit for “doing the best they know.” as one of them put it. and they hold that Labour itself should enter the journalistic field if it is not satisfied with the means of publicity it already enjoys. DAIRY CONTROL. The institution of Court proceedings in connection with the dairy control controversy seems to have set both parties thinking. While the issue rested with the politicians it was mainlv a matter of bluff, hut now. it is on its way to a legal tribunal it lias assumed a much graver aspect. The Dairy Board has declared that nothing can stay its preparations for the initiation of absolute control on August 1 and j that it will proceed as if there were no possibility of its authority being in any j way impaired. The Court proceedings. | however, will not be delayed beyo ml ; the first week in July and while the | pleadings are sub judiee the board saercely can disregard their existence, j It is known indeed that they already are receiving the very earnest attention of the chairman of the hoard and of those of bis colleagues bent upon the most literaj application of control. Meanwhile the announcement that Australia lias no intention of going to the lengths to which a majority of the ' members of the board stand committed lias served to damp the ardour of other absolute controlists. There is a rumour about to the effect that the ter of Lands, whose opinion on a quesC tion of this kind would count for a good deal with 'his colleagues, does not approve of Mr Grounds’s uncompromising policy .ami holds that no | further steps towards absolute control should be taken iiutil a new board has been elected on a broad I v based

franchise. BACKWARD. NEW ZEALAND

The attention that lately has been directed to the perils associated with the pfomsieuous ' issue of Orders-in-Ceuncil seems to be fairly on the way towards arousin'; public opinion on the subject. People are beginning to realise that New Zealand stands in quite an exceptional position in this respect; that in all other British countries the emergency legislation which was adopted throughout the Empire to meet the circumstances created by the Great War lias been repealed, and that in this Dominion alone the Ministry continues to usurp the responsibilities and the privileges of Parliament. The continuance of this illogical state of affairs is not the fault of any particular party or of any particular individual, it is the result of the widespread political indolence that has over-shadowed the country during the last seven or eight years. The powers, duties, authorities and (unctions vested in the Board of Trade during the course of the war, for instance, instead of being discontinued, as they would have been in any other British country, have been simply transferred to the Minister of Industries and Commerce, which means that they have been vested in the Government which to-dav lias authority to do things which no other Government within the Empire dare venture upon in time of peace. In other worths. New Zealand has fallen a decade behind every other part of the Empire in most oT the things that make for individual independence and national progress.' Here is another of Mr Coates’s opportunities.