WELLINGION TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 6 August 1928, Page 4

WELLINGION TOPICS

GOVERNMENT IN .BUSINESS. A STATE BREWERY. (Special to “Guardian”.) WELLINGTON, August 2. While the Nineteen Twenty-Eight Committee lias been protesting against the interference of the State with private business, the Public Trustee lias taken upon himself to widely advertise the merit of a lieer turned out from a brewery entrusted to him in his official capacity as executor and trustee to a very wealthy and generous testator. Questions on the subject were asked in. both branches of the Legislature yesterday, but neither the Prime Minister, in the House, nor Sir Francis Bell, in the Council, could hold out to the protesting enquirers any hope of the Public Trustee’s enterprise being restrained. It was the duty of the Trustee, the Ministers both said, to make the brewery as profitable as possible to the beneficiaries under the testator’s will and towards this end judicious advertising, in the opinion of all; authorities, was the most certain means.. Many good prohibitionists are protesting strongly against the state of affairs that has arisen, but so far they have discovered no way out of their difficulty. CONTROL OF DEPARTMENTS. The well-meaning Minister of Education, who lately has had one or two minor departments attached to his office, is not always happy in his retorts to critics. On Tuesday when the affairs of the Government Life Insurance Office were under discussion one of the speakers asked if Minister’s ever interfered with tlieir Departments. Mildly enough Mr Wright protested that Ministers did not interfere with their departments so long as they Were conducted on right lines. Mr G. W. Forbes at once seized the opportunity and thanked' the guileless Minister for liis candour. There was a wide-spread feeling throughout the country, he said, that Ministers took little interest in their Departments and left them to run themselves. He believed Mr Wright when he said this was the case. In days gone by it was regarded as one of the functions of a Minister to see that his department was adequately equipped, but now-a-days, apparently, the department ran the Minister as well as itself and efficiency was bound to suffer. BIBLE-IN-SCH OOLS. Thanks mainly to the feeble presentation of its merits, the Bible in Schools Bill, posing under its unhappy modern title of Religious Exercises in Schools Bill, was rejected by a majority of three in the House of Representatives last night. Mr J. G. Coates, Mr F. J. Rolleston, and Sir Maui Pomare were the only Ministers who recorded their votes against the Bill, while Mr 0. J. Hawken, Mr A. D. McLeod, Mr K. S.' Williams, Mr R. A. Wright, Air J. A. Young, Air W. D. Stewart, and Mr AV. Nosworthy supported the measure. The overwhelming favour the Bill found in the Cabinet is significant, and, if the story that the Prime .Minister detached himself from a majority of liis colleagues only on account of a pledge he had given to his constituents at election time be true, the system of national secular education still is in a parlous position. Air Sykes, the member for Masterton, claims that his vote should have been recorded with the “ Ayes If this is so, only two votes, at most, stand between the schools and religious exercises. CONTROL BOARDS. Air A. Bell, the member for the Bay of Islands, is dissatisfied with the presence of representatives of merchants and of the Government oil control boards entrusted with the handling of farmers’ produce. .Yesterday he received a reply to a question lie had put to the Minister of Agriculture on the subject which should satisfy him of the propriety of the present arrangement. “In view of the fact,” Air Hawken said. “ that control boards are vested with wide powers of control over the produce owned by all interests, proprietary as well as co-operative, and having regard to the influence which the exercise of these powers can exert upon the welfare of the producers and the consumers of the Dominion, the Government are of opinion that it is only equitable that all interests immediately concerned and also the Government should have due representation bn the boards.” The general opinion among producers themselves is that they obtain substantial advantage from the presence of commercial representatives" and Government nominees on the control hoards.