WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 201, 30 September 1916, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

CLOSER SETTLEMENT, Special Correspondent. WELLINGTON, Sept. 27. If the fact ever comes too his ears, Mr H. A. Knight, who is well known throughout Canterbury as a very prao tical and capable farmer, and an exceptionally sane and cautious politician, will be surprised and not a little amused to learn that he is being charged with rank socialism by the local evening paper. Till a week or two ago, when death removed an ardent land reformer from its editorial chair, the Post Avas a recognised champion of close settlement, but in noticing Mr night’s scheme for settling, returned on five or ten acre plots, it pronounces the proposal to be communistic and unconvincing. “While the whole plan is still in the stage of' experiment,” it says, referring to closes settlement generally, “a Christchurch gentleman has advanced the still more experimental idea of a collectivist village garden, to be worked by single men, living in hutments, sharing a common dining room, and dividini|faßsults on a profit-sharing basis.” Wof course, what Mr Knight did propose was that the Government should give assistance to returned soldiers to settle on small plots of land as men have done in various parts of the country with marked success. The hutments and common dining room and profit sharing were merely suggestions thrown out for the soldiers themselves, who, being mostly unmarried men, for the present, would be glad to be relieved by co-operative effort from some of the cares of housekeeping. Many returned soldiers here have expressed warm approval of Mr. Knight’s scheme, which, during the next five years or so could be almost indefinitely extended. MILITARY SERVICE BOARDS. The constitution of the Military Service Boards —Boards of Appeal, as they are likely to be known —has not excited much comment so far, except from those disgruntled people who see impropriety of one kind or another in everything the Minister of Defence does. Critics of this type are objecting that an undue number of farmers’ representtives have been appointed l to the Boards, and suggesting, that these gentlemen will be disposed to look more favourably upon a claim for exemption from a farm labourer than upon one from a waterside worker. They admit that the. workers have ai representative ou the Otago and.Wel-\ lington Boards, but they point ouh-that the farmers, while -having equal* % resentation on these boards, have all the lay representation on the Auckland and Canterbury Boards. The general opinion here, however, is that the Minister has done his work very well, and that he has been fortunate in securing the services of a number of gentlemen who cannot have sought office on account of any remuneration or distinc-.., tion it carries. Some of the less serious critics are making fun of Mr Allen’s confession that he has had to pass over certain gentlemen on account of their not being broad-minded and free from prejudice, but on the whole the appointments were they have been considered at all are giving satisfaction. THE NEEDS OF EDUCATION. Making further reference to-day to the requests of a deputation from representative Catholic b,odies which waited upon him recently the Minister of Education said he thought some of -his critics must have misunderstood his attitude towards two or three of the points raised during the interview. He had 'to administer the Education Act as he found it on the Statute BookA and that being the case he could not], accede to the requests of the deputation simply because the Act gave him no authority to do so. He recognised as fully as anyone did the excellent work being done by the Catholic schools, and the self-sacrificing spirit in which they were being supported by the Catholic people—but in the eyes oJ the law these schools wore private schools and he could not do for them what he was unprepared to do for any other private school in the Dominion. Medical inspection and free passes oa the railways stood on a different footing, and personally he would do all he possibly could for the health and comfort of the children —no matter what school they attended. But it had to be remembered that the Avar had produced abnormal conditions so far as public expenditure Avas concerned, and that he could not on this account do many things he AA-culd like to do. Some of the country districts Avere still with.and in a time like the present, Avith out adequate school accommodation, these districts calling out for attention, requests for concessions, eA-en >of a minor kind, had to be carefully considered.