WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3495, 25 May 1920, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS

PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION. CONFERENCE” Ti'P PARANAKI MEMBERS. (Special Correspondent). WELLINGTON, May 24. There is some interested comment in political circles to-day upon the fact that the first united conference for fourteen years between the Taranaki members of Parliament was held at Stratford on Saturday. Fourteen years mark the period during which the four Taranaki seats have been held by the representatives of one party and the friends of electoral reform are arguing from the Stratford conference that proportional representation so far from making for discord and division makes for unity and pub-lie-spirited effort. Here, they say, is proof that a Parliament in which all the parties were represented according to their strength in the constituencies would be much more likely to give faithful service than one in which the strength of the contending forces was largely determined by the chances of the ballot. REPATRIATION. The statement made by the Hon. D. H Guthrie, the Minister of Lands, on Saturday, showing that the Government had been able to assist 13,684 returned soldiers towards re-establish-ing themselves in civil life at an expenditure -of slightly 'oveff nineteen : millions is generally regarded as satisfactory. There is criticism -of the repatriation efforts of the Government, of course, chiefly directed against the Mgh prices paid for private land and the compartively small area of Crown Land brought into profitable occupation by the soldeir settier. The answer to this is that the Government could not acquire private land at less than its market value and that the available Crown land, with rare exceptions, cannot be made productive within a year or tw r o of its Occupation. DECLINING PRICES. The cables from London and New York are encouraging a hope among consumers here that a number of the necessaries of life will be less dear in the near future than they have been since the first or second year of the war. But so far there is no indication of “ necessaries,” as they were defined a decade ago, becoming cheap. Meat inevitably must but bread, sugar and many other articles of food remain at famine prices, while butter is bound to rise in spite of all Mr. Massey’s efforts to keep the price down for a month or two. Drapery of the common everyday kind, if the buyer knows where to look for if, is cheaper than it was a year ago, but fuel remains at an exorbitant price and house rent is rather soaring than declining. Altogether folk with limited incomes are facing the winter with anything but a rosy outlook. THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTS. The Prime Minister, who was scarcely less hard worked than the Prince of Wales himself during the Royal visit, returned to Wellington on Sunday morning and at once was pounced upon by the reporters for a statement concerning the public accounts. The best he could do for them was to promise they would be available in a day or two. It is being taken for granted that the accounts will show" a fairly substantial surplus, but that whether large or small the whole of the balance carried over will be absorbed by commitments. which are expected to be unusually heavy. In these circumstances there will bo no alternative to a large loan and with the price o¥ money in London prohibitive the Dominion will have to dip deeply into its own pockets.