WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 26 September 1917, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

SECOND . .DIVISION. THE MINISTERIAL ATTITUDE. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Sept 24. “Unless tie proposals of the Government are framed on just and liberal lines the Government must face the prospect of a severe rebuff.” This is what the “ Dominion” had to say on Saturday concerning the demands of the members of the Second Division for adequate pensions for themselves and sufficient allowances for their dependants, and it expresses the opinion of most people who are in a position to judge of the temper of t-he House of Representatives. A majority of the members of the House are pledged, more or less dito support the underlying principles of the Second Division’s demands, and if the Government attempts to put them off with any cheese-paring scheme it will meet with a good deal more determined opposition than it has yet encountered It is being deducted from the Prime Minister’s allusion in the House last week to an increase of some £700,000 in the Estimates that an additionof 12s or 15s a week to the wife’s separation allowance is all the Government has in contemplation and this 1 certainly would satisfy neither the members of the Second Division nor their representatives in Parliament. IN AN HEROIC MOOD. The House has accepted with such grace as it could muster the dictum of the Government in regard to other financial matters. It has consented 1 to expenditure it has not understood and it has confirmed taxation it ha.' not approved. But it is going to have a mind of its own on the provision that should be made for soldiers’ dependants. “If we can find £400,000 or £500,000 a year to provide bonuses for civil servants on account of the increased cost of living”

one member puts it, “surely we can find three or four times that amouir if needs be, : to lessen the sacrifices we are demanding from the wives and children of the men we are send ing away to discharge the obligations of our country.” This expresses the new spirit that is pervading Jie House, not ; it is only fair to sa:, as the result of any pressure that may have been brought to bear upon members by the Second Division League, but rather as the result of a better understanding of the position.

THE HIGH COMMISSIONER’S OFFICE.

Mr C. J. Parr, tie member for Eden, who returned from his trip Home with the Parliamentary party in a somewhat disgruntled frame of mind, initiated a discussion in the House on Friday afternoon on the High Commissioner’s Office which took a turn he scarcely can have ex.pected. His objections to the Office was that it had become “Anglicised,” that there were too many elderly gentlemen engaged there and that it was not sufficiently in touch with New Zealand. The Hon. D. Buddo agreed with Mr Parr as to the advisability of appointing young New Zealanders to the office whenever feasible and Dr. Thacker suggested that preference should be given to wounded soldiers, but the half-dozen speakers! that followed j including the Hon. G. W. Russell, bore high testimony to the excellent work done by Sir Thomas Mackenzie and his staff, Mr C. H. Poole paying a specially appreciative tribute to Mr Donne. The High -Commissioner himself would have listened to the discussion with very considerable personal gratification. PUBLIC SERVICE CONTROL. . It is not so very long ago that the control of the public service was a bone of very serious contention between the political parties, the Liberals standing for ministerial responsibility and the Reformers for commissioner supremacy, and members of the House were reminded of the forI mer strife on Friday night by Mr Witty asking the Minister of Internal Affairs when the commissioners’ term of office would expire. Mr Russell, who before the party truce was one of the foremost champions of ministerial responsibility, in the course of his reply referred in such commendatory terms to the good work done by the commissioners that Mr McCallum was moved to object to the Minister “attacking the Liberal Party.” Mr Russell retorted in kind but it appeared when his remarks were summed up that his appreciation of the commissioners rested mainly on the fact that they had relieved Ministers of a vast, amount of disagreeable work and left them free to attend to their more important duties. He wished to make no reflections

upon the methods that had preceded their appointment. RESTRICTION OF HOTEL HOURS. It was expected that the Bill . restricting hotel hours, which passed through the House last week with such sensational developments, would make its reappearance in the Legislative Council to-morrow, assured of a favourable reception from a majority of the members of the revising chamber; but the Prime Minister’s promise to a deputation of licensees that waited upon him on Friday that the measure would be referred to the Statutes Revision Committee may delay its further progress 'for a day or two. There is no probability of the essential provision of the Bill being modified, hut it is possible in view of the facts placed before Mr Massey by the deputation that an effort may be made to grant licensees who happen to be owners of the houses they occupy'some measure of relief. It is difficult to see how this is to be done without introducing the element of compensation, blit it is certain that without some provision of the kind individual owner s will find th'”selves in very sore financial straits.