WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 117, 18 May 1916, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

HEART TO HEART TALKS

A MEMBER'S INDISCRETION

(Special Correspondent)

WELLINGTON, May 15

The hope that the debate on the Address-in-Reply would be confined to the speeches of the mover and seconder ha s been rudely if not altogether unacceptably dissipated. Just whether Mr Massey and his colleagues are disappointed or pleased by the readiness of members of the House to talk at this stage of the session it is hard to say. The brevity of the speech and what some people are pleased to call its poverty may be quoted in support of either view. Ministers may have wished to restrict discussion by saying nothing themselves or they may have desired to encourage irresponsible speculation merely to fill up time. One set of critics holds one view and one set the other. Whichever may be right it is plain Mr. Massey was not particularly anxious to close the debate last week. This could have been done by very little pressure on Friday night, but the Prime Minister prefered to allow the debate to be carried over the week-end and now it may go on for some days longer. Probably the finishing touches still have to be given to the Government's war measures which have provided material for a good deal of discussion in the Cabinet room and may not be 'ready for submission to the House till Thursday or Friday. The taxation proposals, of course, will not be available till some time later, and judging from the present temper of members the cost of living and soldiers' pay and pensions, which are incidental to these proposals and to compulsory service, will be more eagerly canvassed than even the main measures themselves will be.

PLAIN TALK. After his preliminary canter, as sporting folk would express it, in commenting upon one of Mr. Payne's little bills early in the week, the House was prepared for a vigorous contribution from the member for Hutt to the Address-in-Reply debate. It was scarcely necesary for Mr. Wilfcrd to preface his remarks with the observation that he believed some plain talking to be necessary. Plain talking is one of the chief merits of his speeches, which are not lacking in other qualities that appeal to the House and the galleries. On this occasion he was net in a carping mood. He did not question the good intentions of the National Cabinet. He believed it would "tackle the big man" and give what relief it could to those who needed relief. But he wanted to make quite sure that its good intentions would not end with fair professions. He wanted to see war profits taxed, not merely touched with a hesitating apologetic hand, and turned to the advantage of the country and of the men who were fighting its battles. He would nationalise the avoollen factories, which really were munition factories, and he would establish a State bank —a genuine State bank that would be an assistance and not a hindrance to the dominion in the pre sent crisis. Passing from these matters without pretending to have exhausted the tale of their possibilities, ,h--> turned to military affairs and de- [ plored in a good-humoured, bantering j way the calamity that had given New Zealand a colonel of volunteers as MiI nister of War, and paid a high tribute \ to the permanent officers who had obtained such excellent results in spite of this unfortunate arrangement. The speech was one of Mr. Wilford's happiest efforts and was warmly appre- ■ ciated by the House.

FAILURE OF THE CABINET. Mr. Vigor Brown does not aspire to Mr Wilford's incisive, compelling style of oratory and his range of criticism is scarcely so wide as that of the member for Hutt, but he also is given to plain speaking and his contribution to the debate was in no way lacking in this respect. After complaining of the Government's failure to take any ade-' quate portion of the war profits made by a privileged few, he emphasised his point by mentioning some of the methods of the liquor trade, an organisation with which he is not wholly unconnected himself. It seemed to him that in war time everybody was allowed to plunder everybody else. Mr. Veitch speaking from the Labour point of view with his usual thoughtful deliberation, took a somewhat broader view of the situation. He had been forced to the conclusion that "the National Cabinet had failed," not | in honest or in good intentions or in

capacity, but in its efforts to adapt itself to the conditions created by the war. It was obsessed by the idea that nothing mattered but the war. That was all important, of course, it overshadowed everything else, but the war would be won all the sooner and all the better by every part of the Empire looking carefully and closely after its domestic affairs. It was here the National Cabinet had signally and hopelessly failed. LAND. The member for Waitaki, who has been keeping his eyes very widely open during the recess, has come up to Wellington with a great stock of information regarding land settlement as it concerns both soldier and civilian. Already he has put on record in "Hansard" his indictment of the Land Department in connection with the Benmore run and other estates in the South Island and to the layman it looks as if he had made out a very strong case indeed. Mr. Anstey casts no personal reflection upon the Minister, as a less wary critic would be tempted to do, but he insists that if Mr. Massey cannot give mere attention to the administration of the department he should hand it over to one of his less heavliy burdened colleagues. That there are Ministers even in these times with leisure to attend to the domestic affairs of the country was shewn by Mr. Veitch the other day when he pointed out that Sir Francis Bell had only to look after the Immigration Department and that thi s department had shut down for the period of the war. Mr. Massey's retort that Sir Francis was "an honorary Minister," to say nothing of the poor compliment it implied to his very able ally, lost its point from the fact that Mr. Hanan is in precisely the same position as regards pay and still thinks it his duty to bear his full share of Cabinet work.

WANT OF CONFIDENCE. His ability, resource and unfailing good humour have won for the member for Grey Lynn both genuine admirers and real friends, but the most ardent of these will find it difficult to excuse his latest indiscretion in moving a vote of no-confidence in the National Government at the present juncture. Apparently Mr. Payne had not mentioned his intention to take this extraordinary step to anyone and, of course, he cannot have had the slightest expectation of his motion being seriously discussed. The whole ridiculous business was another of those pranks into which his capricious temperament too often leads him. At the same time there is no harm in frankly recognising the fact that on both sides of the House there are more than a few members who share Mr. Veitch's sober estimate of the "Compromised Cabinet." When the Cabinet was first formed many advocates of the Elective Executive, among whom, by the way, Mr. Massey was numbered only a few years ago,

welcomed it as a step towards the realisation of their ideal, but in practice it has proved so helplessly impotent on the legislative side that any delusion of that sort has been effectually abandoned. It is endured by Parliament for the very good and sufficient reason that the needs of the Empire demand the suspension of party hostilities, but. once the war is over these will be an insistent cry through - cut the country for a return to the old conditions and if ever a National Cabinet should be required again it will be constructed on very different lines from those that were followed when the present experiment was initiated.