WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 19 February 1917, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

RELIGION AND WAR. CONSCIENTIOUS CONVICTIONS. WELLINGTON, Feb 16. In dealing with a deputation from the Seventh Day Adventists which waited upon him yesterday to urge that the members of the sect it represented should not be required to bear arms the Minister of Defence displayed a measure of tact and patience with which no one would have credited him a couple cf years ago. The Adventists, good earnest people who live up to their conscientious convictions, object to working on Saturday, which they regard’as the Sabbatu Day, as well as to fighting oil any day of the week; but they are ready to undertake ambulance work, provided their views concerning the Sabbath are respected, and they do not wish to lean on other people for protection from the German peril. This frank attitude evidently appealed to Sir James Allen and though he could not promise the members of the deputation that no ambulance work would be required on Saturdays, unless they could persuade the Kaiser 10 cease shooting on the seventh day of the week, or that the Military Board would exempt their pasters from service, he managed to send them away feeling they had pourea the troubles of their principals lido tolerant if not very sympathetic ear.

MS. '.VEjb‘3’3 CHALLENGE. Mr. P. C. Webb's offer to submit himself to the judgment of his constituents forthwith if he can be Licwi; thousand of them arc dissatisfied .. .tii I;is attitude towards the ;var. is n..,t attracting a great deal of Mention ho re. Whether the member for Grey attends send-offs to soldiers with or without invitations, is not regarded by the local people as a matter of much consequence. But there is a feeling even among tue more aggressive members of the Labour Party that some of their representatives in Parliament are disposed to make a little too much of the assistance they gave in obtaining betor conditions for the men sent to the rent and for their dependents. Mr. .Cobb and Mr. McCcmbs strongly denounced the first proposals, but the credit for leading the attack belongs :o Mr. Poland, the member for Ohine muri, who was warmly supported by a score, of Liberal members, and it was .Sir Joseph Ward, then silting on the Opposition benches, who finally induced the Government to reconsidor its scale of pensions and allowances. This does not detract from he good work actually done by Mr. Webb and his colleague, but the facts on record in “Hansard” ought to be remembered, and the concessions made since by the National Government on its own motion should not ne forgotten.

POLITICAL UNITY. This morning the “New Zealand Times” takes the prohibitionists of Invercargill severely to task for having suggested the discontinuance of the sale of liquor during the course of the war. “In the midst of war,” it says, “when the energies of the. nation and its whole attention should be concentrated against the enemy, these people have raised the most acute cause of dissension known in the whole political field.” The contention of the writer is that anyone who introduces a controversial issue into the political arena at the present juncture is a traitor to his country. But many people who are neither prohibitionists nor politicians are expressing strong dissent from this view. They maintain that the party truce offers an unexampled opportunity for the discussion of many controversial questions which ought to be settled by the judgment of individual members of Parliament and not by the mandate of the party leaders. They insist that in no other British country are great domestic questions being so utterly neglected as they are in New Zealand, and they predict that when the war is over the Dominion, which once led the van of progress, will find itself hopelessly behind the rest of the Empire.

DR. McNAB’S SUCCESSOR. The fact that Sir John Findlay left town this me rung f or Hastings where a meeting of Liberal delegates will be held on Monday to select a candidate for the Hawke’s Bay seat suggests that he has not been discouraged in his political ambitions bv the reports that have come from the constituency during the last day or two. Many of the local people were strongly m favour of Mr. Jull, who did so well in 'Waipawa at the last general election, receiving the nomination, and everyone agrees that his foice ol character and business abil-

ity would make him a great acquisi- ) tion to Parliament, but no local candidate could expect to secure the seat without a contest, and Mr. .lull, though ready to step into the breach if necessary, was nov particularly bent on lighting his battles over again just now. At the moment it looks tolerably certain that 3ir John ►■Findlay, with the full approval of a majority ot the Hawke's Bay Liber als, will bo the official candidate and quite possible that lie will be allowed a walk over, as much in recognition of the exceptional circumstances of his appeal to the electorate as in appreciation of his own outstanding ability. . r rr