NEWS FROM THE CAPITAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 May 1916, Page 8

NEWS FROM THE CAPITAL.

.t, * *■—: -■• V r HEART TO HEART TALKS. A MEMBER'S INDISCRETION. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, May io. The hope that the debate on the Ad-diess-in-Rcply would be confined to the speeches of the mover and seconder has been rudely, if not altogether unacetpt.ably, dissipated. Just whether Mr. Massey and his colleagues are disappointed or pleased by the readmits of the members of the House to talk at this stage of the session it is hard to say. The brevity of the Speech and W : hat some people are pleased to call its poverty may be quoted in support of either view. Ministers may have wished to restrict discussion.by saying nothing themselves, or they may have desired to encourage irresponsible speculation merely to fill up time. One set of critics holds one view and one set the other. Whichever may be right, it is plain Mr. Massey was not particularly anxious to close the debate last week. This could have been.done by a very little pressure on Friday night, but the Prime Minister preferred to allow the-debate to be carried over the week-end. and now it may gc on for some days longer. -Probably the finishing touches have still to be given to the Government's war measures, wdiieh have provided material for a good deal of discussion in the Cabinet room, and mav not be readv for submission to I the House lib Thursday or Friday. The taxation proposals, of course, will net bs available till some time later, anil, judging from the present temper of members, the cost of living and soldiers' pay and pensions, which are incidental to'these proposals and to compulsory service, will be more eagerly canvassed than even the main measures themselves will be. PLAIN TALK. -

After his preliminary canter, as sporting folk would express' it, in commenting upon one of Mr. Payne's little Bills early in the week, the House .vas prepared for a vigorous contribution from tlie mem-l nei "for Hntt to the Address-in-Reply debate. It was scarcely necessary for Mr. Wilfnrd to preface his remarks with, the observation that lie believed some plain talking to be necessary. Plain talking is one of the chief merits of his speeches, which are not lacking in other qualities that appeal to the House and the galleries. On this occasion he was not in a carping mood. He did not question the good intentions of the National Cabinet. He believed it would "tackle the big man" and give what relief it could to those who needed relief. But ho wanted to make quite sure that its good intentions would not end with fair professions. He wanted to see war profits taxed, not merely touched with a hesitating, apologetic hand, and turned to the advantage of the country and of the men who were fighting its battles. He: would nationalise the woollen factories, which really were munition factories, 'and he would establish a State Rank—a genuine State Bank that would he an assistance and not a hindrance to the Dominion in the present crisis. Passing from these matters, without pretending to have exhausted the tale of their possibilities, he turned to military affairs, and deplored in a good-humored, bantering way the calamity that had given New Zealand a colonel of volunteers as Minister of AA r ar, and paid a high tribute to the permanent officers .who had obtained such excellent results in spite of this unfortunate arrangement. The speech was one of Mr. Wilf.ird's happiest efforts and was warmly appreciated by the House.

FAILURE.OF THE CABINET. Mr. Vigor Brown does not aspire to Mr. Wilford's incisive, compelling style, of oratory, and his range of criticism is scarcely so wide as that of the member for Hu'tt; but he also is given to plain speaking, and his contribution to the debate was in no way lacking in this respect. After complaining of the Government's failure to take any adequate portion of the war profits made by the privileged few, he emphasised his point by mentioning some of the methods of the liquor trade, an organisation with which lie is not wholly unconnected himself. It seemed to him that hi war time everybody was allowed to plunder everybody else. Mr. Veitch, speaking from the Labor point of view .vith his usual thoughtful deliberation, took a somewhat broader view of the situation. Bo had been forced to the conclusion that "the National Cabinet had failed," not in honesty or in good intentions or in capacity, but in its efforts to adapt itself to the conditions created by the war. That was all-important, of course, it overshadowed everything else, but the war would be won all the sooner and all the better by every part of the Empire looking carefully and closely after-its domestic affairs. It was here the National Cabinet had signally and hopelessly failed.

LAND. The member for Waitaki, who has been keeping bis eyes very widely open during the recess, has come up to Wellington with a great stock of information regarding land settlement as it concerns both the soldiers and the civilians. Already he has put on record in Hansard his indictment of the Land Department in connection with the disposal of the lieninorc run and other estates in tlie South Island, and to the layman it looks a-: if he had made out a very strong case indeed. Mr. Anstcy casts no personalreflection upon the Minister, as a less wary critic would be tempted to do, but he insists that if Mr. Masscy cannot give more attention to the administration of the department he should hand it over to one of his less heavily burdened colleagues. That there are Ministers even in these times with leisure to attend to the domestic affairs of Hie country was sliown by Mr. Vcitch the other day, when he pointed out that Sir Francis Bell had only to look after the Immigration Department, and thut this department had shut down for the period of the war. Mr. Masscy\s retort that Sir Francis was "an honorary Min-

isler," to say nothing of the very poor compliment it implied to his very able ally, lost its point from the fact that Mr. Hanan is in .precisely the same position ai regards pay and still thinks it his duty to bear his full siiare of Cabinet work. WANT OF CONFIDENCE. ■His ability, resource, and good humor have won for the member for Grey Lynn both genuine admirers and real friends, but the most ardent of these, will find it difficult to excuse his latest indiscretion in moving a vote of no-confidence in the National Government at the present juncture. Apparently Mr. Payne had not mentioned to anyone his intention to take this extraordinary step, and, of course, he cannot have had the slightest expectation of his motion being seriously discussed. The whole ridiculous business was another of those pranks into which his capricious temperament often leads him. At the same time there is no harm in frankly recognising the fact that on both sides of the House there are more than a few members who share Mr. Witch's sober estimate of the "Compromise Cabinet." When the Cabinet was first formed, many advocates of the Elective Executive—among whom, by the way, Mr. Massey was numbered only a few years ago —welcomed it ns a step towards the realisation of their ideal, but in practice it has proved so helplessly impotent on the legislative side that any delusion of that sort has been effectually abandoned. It is endured by Parliament for the very good and sufficient reason that the needs of the Empire demand the suspension of party hostilities, but once the war is over there will be an insistent cry throughout the country for a return to the old conditions, and if ever a National Cabinet should be required again it'will be constructed on very different lines from those that were followed when the present experiment was initiated.