WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 142, 19 June 1916, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT

COST OF LIVING. (Special Correspondent). (WELLINGTON, June 16. The references to the cost of living and to the Board of Trade in the Financial Statement were both timely and significant. There has been a disposition even among people who ought to have specially welcomed Sir Joseph Ward’s efforts to deal effectively with the prices question to scoff at the Board and_to encourage the idea that it had been set up merely to act as a buffer between the Government and its critics. The Minister of Finance himself has been unable to deal with the .matter because the Cost of Living Act which he placed on the Statute Bock last session is being administei*ed by Mr. Massey in his capacity of Minister of Industries and Commerce and the amenities of Cabinet rule, rather emphasised than otherwise by the existence of a National Government, do not allow one Minister to interfere with the prerogatives of another. What has happened in the Cabinet Room in regard to the cost of living problem the outsider is not permitted to know, but it is shrewdly suspected that something very like a “crisis” was threatened there just before the appointment of the Board of Trade. The Prime Minister is frankly sceptical over the possibility of regulating prices and only the other day he told a deputation that waited upon him in connection with an. altogether different subject that “no power on God’s earth” could do anything that would be really useful in this direction.

THE BOARD OF TRADE. The allusion to the subject in the Financial Statement has opened the way to freer discussion than has been permissable hitherto and probably the debate on the Statement, which is to open on Tuesday evening, will throw additional light on the problem. In the meantime it has been gathered from unofficial sources that the Board of Trade has come to a very satisfactory arrangement with the Colonial Sugar Company by which the price of sugar in New Zealand will be kept down to £2l a ton for another year. This in itself is a notable achievement, considering that the price in Australia . is £29 a ton and in London £4l a I ton. and whether the main part of the credit for what has been done is duo to the Government or to the Board it is certain the members of the Board have conducted the negotiations with a great deal of tact and ability. Then it is fair to assume from the enquiry conducted by the Board in Canterbury nearly a couple of months ago that it has made a recommendation to the Minister in regard to the prices of hour and bread which would save the community a very substantial sum if it were put into operation. It is fairly obvious, indeed, that the B’oard has been doing very excellent work since it was appointed and that the critics would be better employed in insistingupon the production of its reports than in sneering at its constitution. AGGREGATION AND ADMINISTRATION. The debate on the second reading of the Soldiers' Land Settlement Bill wandered over the whole face of the land question, but was marked by an I earnest desire on the part of all the speakers to make generous provision for the men who had offered their lives to the Empire. There was a gratifying absence of parochialism from the speeches, the South Island member s cheerfully conceding there wore wider opportunities for settlement in the North Island than there were in (heir own part of the Dominion. but Mr. George Witty called the attention of the Minister to the aggregation tliat was going on even in Canterbury, the very home of close settlement, and Mr. Massey promised to see if any of the aggregated estates could be made available to soldiers. Strangely enough it -wag Mr. Guthrie, the senior Reform Whip, who first voiced the suggestion that a new department should be created to take over the work contemplated by the Bill and that its administration should be entrusted to a Minister with more leisure than Mr. Massey can expect to have during the continuance of the war. The suggetsion was warmly taken up by Mr. Forbes and Mr. Craigie and other members with practical knowledge cf the needs of the position. and as Mr. MacDonald, the Minister of Agriculture, has exceptional qualifications for this special work it is not unlikely it will be handed over to him in the near future. No one doubts Mr. Masseys zeal on behalf of the icturned soldiers, but with growing responsibilities it is highly desirable he should obtain relief some- ■ where.