Politricks

NZ Truth, Issue 1141, 13 October 1927, Page 1

Politricks

TALKING about salary increases, there are a lot of politicians who are very keen io fake a rise out oj Parliament. • # « THE Railways Statement presented to A the House struck at least one hopeful note. Improved locomotive types calculated to reduce operating costs, are to be tried. If nothing else, road competition has tended to bring Railway Administration down to tintacks. The travelling public •will not cavil much at the "trial of improved types" for so laudable an objective. •* • • OO many political cats have been let out of the bag m the past that it is not surprising that the Government has ■ taken extraordinary care to keep its little "State" secrets. However, ■where there is nothing to hide, secrecy — especially m regard to the business on the order paper, can be overdone. A Reform member the other day twitted his Party on account of the excessive secrecy preserved by the Whip on a question of sequence of the House's business. « • * PARLIAMENT cannot seem to Jo anything | with ita hills. • # * TN fourteen weeks of Parliament,, a A mere handful of bills has been put through. The House Is endeavoring to rise early m November, of course, there is farm work to be done and — the big race meeting. Everything points to a slap-dash finish. • # * COMB by-elections are said to be like a red Raglan to a bull, so far as the Prime Minister is concerned. • * * TF it is true that there are some 1 members of Parliament who have mortgaged their homes m order to carry on the good work of democracy, then a lot of people will withdraw all the nasty things they thought about politicians. However, the promised and fully expected increase m members' salaries might more than cover their rash expenditure for democratic principles. IHERE are. some things Labor Member McComhs cannot see through. One of them is the yet io be electrified Lsttelton tunnel. • . * * OPPOSITION members complain that they are treated like children by the Government. At the same time Prime Minister Coates doesn't believe m children going to bed early. • # * PRESERVING of consideration is the U petition to Parliament of Robert Bennett Brickwell, an old Maori war veteran who, at eighty years of age, finds himself m humble circumstances. He was m a good deal of th& real, primitive, he-man stuff, but purely m the interests of his wife and child, he broke camp to protect them after being refused his discharge for the purpose. Actually branded a deserter, petitioner points put that all so-called deserters were pardoned m 1913. This is one of the echoes from the pioneering past tfaat should not be allowed to fall on unsympathetic ears. J.