WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, 30 September 1918, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

' THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK. * , : J 'WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Sept 27. The whole political outlook has "been brought up for discussion by the contest now going on in Wellington Central. According to the official Labour candidate and the various unofficial Labour and Radical candid dates the very destiny of the country hangs upon the result of this appeal to the electors. If Wellington Central returns the National Cabinet’s sandidate, so they say, the cost of living will jump up another 40 per cent., the general election will be further postponed, the constitutional rights of the people will be trampled under foot and poverty and injustice will stalk abroad in the land. If, on the other hand, Mr. Hildreth is emphatically rejected at the poll, the Government will tremble in its shoes - and hasten to concede the righteous demands of the people that have brought about his defeat. DISGRUNTLED ELECTORS.

’All this, of course, is the sort of stuff that is heard ar every by-elec-tion. When the eyes of the whole country are concentrated on a single constituency the volume of wild talk Is invariably out of all pFppprficm to the . importance of the issue. As a jgatter of fact the return or the rejection of the National Cabinets nominee for Wellington Central is not likely to make the least difference" to the course of the country’s politics. In either case Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward, with a certain measure of deference to their colleagues, will remain supreme in Parliament and will continue to shape their legislation and administration as may seem to them best. But the discussions and the frank expressions of opinion the by-election has produced are of much more significance and may be more-far-reaching in their results. THE COST OP LIVING.

During the first two years "of the war the large increase in the cost of living was a subject for more - or less academic discussion. The people were feeling the pinch of prices, but they were disposed to regard it merely as a temporary trouble that would disappear in the course of a few months. But at the end of four years of war with the cost of living increased 40 per cent., with worse things in prospect, and the average wage advanced only 20 per cent., they began to cal! aloud for relief. The Labour and Radical candidates in the Wellington Central contest —in some cases, it must he confessed, without any very punctilious regard for the facts—are basing their main appeal to the electors on the neglect of the Government to take what they consider the necessary steps to reduce prices and they are winning applause from people who have little sympathy with their political aspirations. THE APPROACHING SESSION.

One of the stoutest planks in the iLahour and Radical platform is that as soon as Parliament has dealt with the cost of living problem, settled the licensing issue, provided for a large increase in land taxation, effected broad-based, electoral reforms and attended to a score or two of ottier matters of the kind, it should dissolve in preparation for a general election to he held at the “earliest possible moment.” The programme sketched out In this airy fashion would be sufficient to occupy the two branches of the Legislature for a year on end, and, of course, nothing so ambitious is likely to be attempted, but. strangely enough with the demand of the zealous reformers comes a story that Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward are returning to New Zealand with a determination tc follow the example of the Imperial Government and go to the country immediately after the approaching session.