The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, January 30, 1912. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1000, 30 January 1912, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, January 30, 1912. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

There are very few of the pioneers of the forties in the laud of the living to-day. Our Palmerston evening contemporary suggested recently that it would be a good thing if a re-union of the pioneers were held on the anniversary day of the Wellington province at Palmerston. The idea of an annual reunion is a good one and the most fitting locality for such a gathering would be at the Hutt or Petone, as it was in that locality that our pilgrim fathers first touched terra firma in the land of their adoption, at a time when Palmerston North was unthought 01. We feel sure that the Government would assist in the bringing about of such a gathering. How interesting and instructive it would be for the younger generations in this province to listen to a few words from their forebears touching the stirring times of the past. Perhaps the suggestion will be taken up by some able and enthusiastic person before the ranks ot the pioneers are too depleted by the Grim Messenger.

Commenting on the speeches ol Messrs McLaren and Veitch, delivered at Masterton last week, the Wairarapa News delivers itself as follows: “There was not an original or wise thought, or anything to make anyone else think in anything that either of them said. The only practical suggestion thrown out, and that was only a reiteration of an oft-re-peated truism, was the necessity for Labour to continue organising it it wishes to dominate the politics of New Zealand. As a matter of simple tact, Labour dominates the politics of New Zealand now, and has done so lor some years ; but, so far, it has not deemed it wise to combine to send a majority of working men members into Parliament. Possibly this has been the case because Labour, up to the present, has accepted Mr McLareu’s definition of the Labour Party—that it embraces workers of all kinds, and all Parliamentary candidates are workers of some kind. In speaking of the organisation ot Labour, however, Mr McLaren does not mean anything so broad as his declaration implied. Both he and Mr Veitch, and all other Labour advocates, undoubtedly mean unionist workers, not workers generally, and it is organised unionists who are to dominate New Zealand politics, and provide New Zealand members of Parliament of the future, when the organisation is as complete as desired by Mr McLaren.”

‘‘l notick by the papers that the Hon. Mr McKenzie has been stating that the tourist traffic does not pay,” said Mr A. W. Hogg to a reporter recently, in the course ol au interview, ‘‘and I don’t wonder at it nut paying. Why, the whole of the traffic in the Rotorua district is being carried on by an Auckland syudicate. Rotorua is entirely in their hands—they have control of all the stores, places of resort, etc. Hven the most popular bath at the Wonderland, Whakarewarewa, has been leased to this syndicate. From Rotorua to the Taupo Rake —the latter, by the way, being twenty miles long and being equally broad —the distance is fifty miles. The'journey is broken by an accommodation house at Waiotapu, which is also in the hands of the same syndicate. If tourist traffic is going to fall into the hands oi syndicates, I don’t wonder at it not paying the Government, and this is not the sort ol thing that should be allowed.” Had Mr Hogg been elected it was his intention to open the eyes of the House and country as to what is taking place at the northern tourist resorts. The Maoris have been exploited and the Tourist Department unwittingly or otherwise has been playing into the hands of a grasping Auckland syndicate.