The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND MONDAY, MAY 19, 1930 WHO WILL SUCCEED ?

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 975, 19 May 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND MONDAY, MAY 19, 1930 WHO WILL SUCCEED ?

OTILiL another aspirant for the position of Prime Minister has O been named with circumstantial evidence only in support of tlie_ claim. A newspaper this morning used some space in which to introduce Mr. R. Masters, a former Liberal-Nationalist member of Parliament for Stratford, and chairman of the United 1 arty during' the General Election campaign, as “the new figure m the field of speculation regarding a successor to Sir Joseph Ward as Prime Minister.” This gossip from Taranaki is the latest of many rumours about the prospective selection of a new leader for the United Party, and it also is the least. There might have been more piquancy in the conjecture if it had not been merely the backwash of a wave of similar rumour last March when there was talk of Sir Joseph Ward retiring from politics altogether. And _® n . Lien there was sufficient optimism in Taranaki to caus'e the admirers of Mr. Masters to believe that he could go far south to Invercargill and win a vacant seat for the United Party. There is nothing else quite like political optimism even when it is silly. As things are today, however, the invalid Prime Minister is not retiring from the political arena in which for a long lifetime he lias been an indomitable fighter with many conquests to his outstanding credit. He intends to retain a representative place in 1 arliament and the sympathetic people of Invercargill, like everybody else, will hope that their distinguished statesman may soon be restored to active health, and also that they will not he called upon for many a day to send Mr. Masters, a possible successor, back to Taranaki with his nose out of joint—Southland, in any circumstances, does not differ much from any other district in the Dominion, and would not welcome with high political favour a complete stranger from Stratford with no exceptional merit as a claimant of favourable suffrage. Still, the speculative mention of Mr. Masters as another Richmond in the field serves at least to keep burning the fire of gossip. So far, it has been predicted with no guarantee of accuracy in prophecy, that four members of the United Ministry are at present decidedly in the mood of Barkis. They are the Hon. G. W. Forbes, Acting-Prime Minister, the Hon. E. A. Ransom, Minister of Public Works, the Hon. H. Atm ore, Minister of Education, and the Hon. W. A. Veiteh, Minister of Labour, in that loose order of preference. It may be assumed that a majority of the Cabinet members and the most sycophantic newspaper supporters of the Government are in favour of the appointment of Mr. Forbes as Prime Minister and party Leader. If temperamental pleasantness and loyal service to the party that lias adopted two aliases within three or four years in order to disguise its former honoured name and high purpose, were to be the only test of selection the genial member for Hurunui would he elected on the voices. But many members of the party as a whole, which wholly is not large, foresee extraordinary difficulties ahead and, because of that vision, doubt the political ability of Mr. Forbes to lead and hold a more querulous House of rival parties, all avid for power. Thus, it is possible that the party caucus on Wednesday may clamour for either Mr. Ransom or Mr. Atmore in preference to Mr. Forbes. If decision were with the people their answer almost certainly would he: “Let George have it. He has been a faithful fellow.” Although there has been the usual crop of speculation about a fusion of the United and Reform parties for the purpose of establishing a numerically strong Government with a competent Minister of Finance in Mr. W. Downie Stewart, it now looks as if that political corn will wither before its reaping. The basis of such a fusion has been outlined—a fifty-fifty Ministerial bargain—with all the cocksureness of inside knowledge, but the confident prophets appear to-be losing their faith. Fusion might be easy enough if the two parties could agree as to the selection of the Prime Minister. In the meantime Fusion may be looked upon as a horse that will not run for some time yet. As for the Labour Party, its opinions, not authoritative, disclose the fact that it is willing to maintain the United Government in office under any leader, so long as its legislative programme suits and satisfies Labour. The country may prepare to accept an additional eighteen months of compromise, bad legislation, extravagance, and unexampled political mediocrity. AID FOR AFFLICTED CHILDREN THOUGH New Zealanders are accustomed to speak with pride of their country’s achievements in the fields of child-welfare and education, departmental facilities are by no means complete or even adequate to meet the present needs of an increasing population. There is little cause for complacency, for example, in the fact that among the special schools provided for children afflicted mentally and physically, there exists only one institution for the full and proper training of deaf-mutes and sufferers from serious speech defects. Further, this is situated at Sumner and, for parents of limited means, it is a far cry from Auckland to the outskirts of Christchurch. An attempt has been made by the Education Department to overcome the disadvantages of centralisation as they apply to the training of deaf and dumb children by establishing special classes in the main centres. These have achieved a certain degree of success in mild cases of deafness, speech-defects, and the like, but whole-time, specialised training such as that provided at Sumner is not available in outside centres. Thus the assertion that there is a “pitiful lack of accommodation in Auckland for afflicted children ’ is by no means an extravagant one. The parents of deaf-mutes must find the means of sending their little ones to the South Island or face the almost hopeless task of home training. If money is unavailable the children remain completely and cruelly handicapped for life. An endeavour to convince the Minister of Education of the need for immediate action to remedy this position will be made at a public meeting on Thursday evening when figures relating to the number of afflicted children in Auckland will be submitted. It may be taken for granted that the total will not he surprisingly large, for New Zealand is fortunate in the absence of a serious proportion of deaf-mutes—but there is every reason to suppose that it will compare most unfavourably with the Dominion total of 117 deaf children tinder treatment by the Education Department in 1928. In other words, it is highly likely that the number of deaf-mutes in the care of the department, and housed at the Sumner school, by no means represents New Zealand’s full total of afflicted juveniles. When representations are made to the Minister he may defend the exclusive existence and possible future extension of the Sumner school by citing the case of the national school for the blind situated in Auckland. This argument is neither new nor sound, for its adherents forget the steadily-accruing effect of the northward drift in New Zealand's population; also the presence in the Auckland Province of one-third of the population of the country today. On national as well as on provincial grounds, therefore, there is every justification for an appeal to the Government to extend the excellent work of the Sumner School for the Deaf and Dumb by providing a second institution situated in Auckland,