WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 8 June 1931, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS

WAGES CUT.

TEN PER CENT REDUCTION. (Special Correspondent). WELLINGTON, June 4. in financial and business circles the general opinion here is favourable to wards the ten per cent reduction in wages prescribed by the Arbitration Court after a close and searching examination of the circumstances. On the first,announcement of the Court’s decision it was generally understood that a large majority of the workers were disposed to fall in with the view of the Court, but to-day there are reports of dissatisfaction and protests among others than the inevitable malcontents. The Prime Minister, who returned from the South this morning makes light of the threats of obstruction from disgruntled workers, and is satisfied the Court has pointed the way towards very materially lessening the lane of unemployment. “I am sure,” he saicl, reiterating his statement at Christchurch, “that we now shall be able to meet the conditions and oven come the difficulties that confront us.” It is a devolpment earnestly to be desired.

THE PARTY LEADERS. The “Evening Post” still finds some difficulty in reconciling the criticism of the Prime Minister by the Leader of the Opposition with the suavity with which the Right Hon. .1. G. Coates offers to the Right Hon. G. W. Forbes bis assistance in putting the affairs of the Dominion in order. ‘‘The fact that Mr Forbes has a past in the shape of his previous dependence upon Labour,” the “Post” says, “is still made by the Opposition a ground for attack, even after they have agreed to co-op-erate, but to the disinterested critic it enhances the merit of bis performance by increasing the handicap. A. little more generosity in their attitude to the Prime Minister would do the Opposition no harm. It is indeed neither generous nor just to suggest that New Zealand is suffering from a Forbes depression which, if the same kind of logic on the other side has been able to call-it a Coates depresson would have been far less severe.” The mild reproach is very adroitly put.

LABOUR IN OFFICE. Tho announcement that the Christchurch City Council is rniisng a loan of £39,500 for the relief of unemployment. tilul is expecting it contribution Of a further £42,500 from tho Unemployment Board has aroused a good deal of interest and comment here. The announcement that the “Wages Cut” is to be cancelled, and the reparation made retrospective has occasioned still more discussion, however, and Christchurch is being mentioned as a happy hunting ground tor the unemployed. Probably the picture has been made more alluring at a distance than it really is in fact, and the ferry boats arc not yet being crowded by eager unemployed anxious to improve their conditions and enlarge their pay. Unless Clir stchurch is insisting upon more adequate service than Wellington is obtaining it will find its €39,000 a vci> fleeting investment, and its Labour councillors will need many excuses for the parsity of the fruit of their good intentions.

ELECTORAL REFORM. When Mr Winston Churchill takes 'hold of a proposal for good or lor evil he is sure to treat it with emphasize from one side to the other. In the House of Commons this week he declared that proportional representation was incomparably tho fa rest and most .scientific way of assertaining the public will. The Second Ballot lie went on to declare, was far superior to the alternative vote, a system which determined elections by the most worthless votes of the most worthies candidates giv ng a new value to the phrase “T he devil takes the hindmost” and opening the way for wire-pullers to secure the right kind of hindmost candidate. Mr Churchill wound up with an appeal to the Conservatives to throw cut the Government's measure —a lame sort of compromise between the parties—but a mixed major'ty carried the Third reading by 278 votes to 228, figures that make it appear the Labour Party is bent upon a compromise.