WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, 6 November 1918, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

DEFENCE 'ADMINISTRATION. SAVING GRACE OF SUCCESS. WELLINGTON, Nov 4. The.debate on the Address-in-Reply "will be resumed in the House of Representatives to-morrow and probably will conclude before the end of the week. The House, in its present frame of mind, has not nearly so much to say against the Government as the political prophets expected it to have. The cheering war news has taken most of the sting out of the debate. Lobby gossip during the last day or two has dealt less with the sins of the National Government than with the possible and probable developments of the political situation after the declaration of peace. Members who talk of peace before the end of the year and of a general election early in the new year may be over sanguine, but they have been getting a hearing. At any rate, with the war over, neither Mr, Massey nor Sir Joseph Ward will be anxious to prolong the present arrangement unnecessarily. No doubt their closer association has strengthened their personal regard for each other, but it has not bridged their political differences. A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE.

Perhaps the most significant indication of a change of temper on the part of the House is the attitude of members generally towards the Minister for Defence. There is time yet for Sir James Allen’s critics to resume their fire of previous sessions, hut at present the Minister is receiving singularly little of their aggressive attention. It appears from the galleries that members realise more fully than they did a year go the splendid results of New Zealand’s military effort and are less disposed to quibble over details of Defence administration. When the Minister for Defence stated in the House the other day that be had been informed by high military authority that the New Zealanders were “the finest storm troops on the Western front,”, was making an effective reply to a great deal of the angry condemnation that has been beaped upon him in the House and out of it.

THE SCHEME OF FORESTRY. Statements made to Farmers’ Union | delegates by the Prime Minister and j the Minister of Finance show that j ■the Department of Forestry is going ■. to he made an effective industrial and | economic force without delay. A sum of £150,000 is to be placed on the Estimates for'forestry this year, and Mr Massey wishes this vote to be regarded as a pledge of the Government’s sincerity and not as tfie "mit of its financial support to the great scheme of forestry Sir Francis Bell is anxious to launch. It is scarcely too much to say that hitherto forestry has received no practical attention at all from the Government or from the local bodies of the Dominion. Prisoners bave been employed planting trees in locations suitable or otherwise, but quite rightly the authorities have been more concerned for the physical and moral well-being of the men than for the future of the trees. Now tree planting is to become a scientific branch of forestry and the most approved methods are to he adopted in developing and, as far as possible, restoring one of the greatest of the country’s assets. A BIG UNDERTAKING.

New Zealand will have to follow the example of older countries by reserving existing forest acres and making them permanently productive. A large force of trained foresters will be required to trim and maintain an output of timber by felling each year a certain number of trees. A forest handled in this fashion will provide employment for more labour than a similar area of grazing land will do; it will give an annual return far larger than most people imagine to he possible and it will maintain its output of timber for all time. The Minister for Forestry realises that his first step must be the engagement of experienced forestry officers, and it is probable that he will have to lock for them outside New Zealand. The imported experts, however, will b| only imported teachers, who by stimulating local interest and attention will do for the timber industry what the import■ed dairy experts did for the cheese and butter industries.