WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 14 May 1928, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

MEETING OF PARLIAMENT

END OF NEXT MONTH

(Special to “Guardian”.)

WELLINGTON, May 11

Tin: announcement made by the Prime .Minister yesterday to the effect that Parliament would be convened for the dispatch of business on June 28 lias disposed of the rumours of an early session and a brief one. The time fixed is the usual one for summoning; members to Wellington, and being here they may determine themselves, in a great measure, how long they will remain, it may be that Ministers themselves will bo in no haste to reach the prorogation. They have been electioneering themselves, more or less, throughout the recess and their organisation is now as complete as it was in the early years of Mr Massey’s administration. On the other hand Labour is less active than it was three years ago and the United Party still is.without a leader and without a policy. In the circumstances the Government well may conclude that it can do better in Parliament than it can on the hustings. DOCTORS DISAGREE.

The outspoken statements made by Dr Blackmon? at a luncheon given to the Canterbury members of Parliament at the Christchurch sanatorium on Tuesday have attracted a good deal of attention hero and aroused considerable comment. Dr Til aokmo re lias not only staked his position hut his professional reputation in challenging the administration of Dr Valiutine, the Director-General of .Health, and Irani all accounts he is not the sort of person that would take this step lightly. “ There are 700 or SOO people dying every year of tuberculosis,” be told the Canterbury members of Parliament, “and the Director-General, lias no policy, dealing with this state ol affairs. Dr Valiutine asks for a little more patience. Some of these people have been patient unto death, and 1 think It is time now that something was done for those who are still living.” The Director-General cannot ignore this challenge and liis next step is awaited with much interest.

Til 15 PRESBYTER IAX COXSCIEXCE The Hon. F. J. Rolleston, the Minister of Justice and Minister of Defence, is at once the most courteous and the most courageous of the elected members of the present Ministry. A deputation from the Presbyterian Assembly led by Dr Gibbs and supported bv other clergy, of the Church, waited upon him the other day with a request, amounting almost to a demand that all conscientious objectors to military service should be exempt even from the mild alternatives that had been suggested. “.1 don’t know what we shall do if wc don’t get wluit we want,” Dr Gibhs told the Minister. 'We feel it

is a. case of Christ versus Caesar, or Church versus State. It is an insult to the Church to treat it so. There will be a most serious situation soon.” /The Minister still pleaded for a little common sense, hut all in vain. He could persuade the petitioners to no way out of their dilemma. WO.MEX CANDIDATES. The possibility of two women candidates contesting scats in Canterbury at the forthcoming general election has not;yet drawn forth in Wellington any fair aspirants for parliamentary honours. It has to he confessed that Wellington lias not yet discovered within its sphere any lady quite so well equipped politically as are. Mrs T. E. Taylor, the widow of one of the most effective speakers the House of Representatives yet has known, and Mrs J. McCombs, who, it is said, knows as much about politics as docs her husband, and a great deal more about tart and diplomacy. A recent English visitor to .New Zealand who probably would not care lo have bis name disclosed, stated just prior to his departure for the Home Country that lie had been surprised and disappointed to find so few women in the Dominion who had equipped themselves even in the rudimentary requirements for public service. He was inclined to think that in this rosnoct the women ol England had made much greater progress than those of New Zealand.