WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 16 January 1933, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS

THE WHEAT PROBLEM

P R OTESTING DE ALER S

(Special to “Guardian.”)

WELLINGTON, January 13

Needless to say the Wellington dealers and consumers have not yet reconciled themselves to the Government’s new method of wheat distribution. The morning paper, under tlio title “Muddle of State Regulation” returns to its criticism with scathing emphasis, “the present one-sided arrangement,” jt says, “has lasted too long. Those who benefit by it at the expense of all the rest have been made bold by continued immunity. Rut the latest methods of eommun.-.v exploitation are unconscionable. They carry their own condemnation, and public opinion should see that they yjrej in fact condemned and swept away.” The newspaper correspondents, of whom there are many, emphasise these views. On© protests that the Government “is controverting the Board of Trade Act” ; another denounces the “crass stupidity of the Department of ‘ Industries and Commerce, and its Minister, and., for that matter, the whole Cabinet, and a third deplores that the people of New Zealand should be deprived of the wheat harvest Providence has sent them. And so on and so on.

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. News from Canterbury during the week concerning the constitution of the Legislative Council and the length of its members’ forms of ornce do not .throw much light upon the early future of the nominated Chamfer. By the retirement of the Hon. Sir Robert Heaton Rhodes, the, Hon George Witty and the Hon Leonard Isitt, and by tlie reappointment of Sir Waller Cavncrors and the appointment of Sir James Parr the numerical strength of the Council has been reduced to twenty-two members. There are three members to retire duiing the present year, the Right Hon. Sh Francis 1 Bell on May. 21, the Hon C. J Carrington on June 17 and the Hon J. A. Hanan also on June 17. This trio is likely to ho reappointed without delay, since Sir Francis Bell, though eightv-two years of age, is indispensable,, and Mr Carrington and Air Hansui in these days are comparatively yi.ung. It h being (suggested again that Mr Harold Johnston’s name will be on the next list of Councillors and the appointment would notbe unsuoportecL ITS RECONSTRUCTION. An authority in the South states there is reason to believe that the Government contemplates limiting the Council in future to thirty memheis. “If this is so,” he says, “eight appointments will Lave to be made yvhen ultimately the Cabinet has sufficient time and' money to consider them. There are already about thirty candidates in the field, including those who retired]' from the Council last vear, as well as many former members or Parliament. Although the retired Councillors will, no doubt, receive special consideration, Sii Heaton Rhodes, for instance, it is antici-' pated that several appointments will be made of. candidates outside .both Houses of Parliament.” This authority has overlooked the fact that a | hard and fast regulation in regard to the numerical strength oil. the Council might hold up the other branch of the Legislature for three years, or even for a longer period, if a triumphant House of Representatives had no power to fortify itself in th© nominated chamber.