WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 June 1916, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

PUSHING BUSINESS. MINISTERIAL TRIP HOME. (From Our Special Correspondent). Wellington, June '2' G. Notwithstanding t'lie Prime Minister's assurance that lie and Sir Joseph Ward are in no hurry to get Home, there are plenty of indications that they are anxious to bring the session to a close as speedily as possible, or, at any rate, as speedily as the legislative needs of the country will permit.. The first definite sign of haste came a week or so ago with the motion for giving Government business precedence for the remainder of the session, and now Mr. Massey lias announced that after to-day the Monday holiday will disappear. To-morrow the Income Tax Bill and the Finance Bill, tlie measures necessary to give effect to the financial proposals contained in the Budget, will be brought down by Governor's message, and the debate on the second reading of one or the other of them will be taken forthwith. Bills of the magnitude and importance of these measures cannot be rushed through in a single sitting, particularly when many me.nibers have not relieved themselves of the speeches they had prepared for the Budget debate, and Sir Joseph Ward, recognising this fact, has promised that ample time will be allowed for their discussion. It is not improbable, however, that there, will be some differences of opinion as to what constitutes ample time, and what may be regarded as reasonable hour/ of sitting.

MUNITIONS AND SUPPLIES. The statement of the operations of the Munitions and Supplies Department published last week will 'have given the country some idea of the iirfmensc amount of responsible and onerous work the Hon. A. M. Myers has taken off the shoulders of the Minister of Defence. It also should help Mr. Allen's critics in finding some excuse for tlie grievous blunders that were made at Trentfliam and in the general administration of the Defence Department during the early days of tho war. Burdened with the affairs of the Finance Department, the Education Department and the Defence Department, it is little wonder that the Minister found himself hopelessly overtaxed and quite incapable of dealing satisfactorily with all the strange and knotty problems crying out for solution quickly and conclusively. But Mr. Myers' admirable work will have done something more than remind the country of the outrageous demands it was making on Mr. Allen a year ago. It represents the result of applying the trained business mind with a special bent towards method and order to a huge business undertaking. Mr. Myers, unlike the average politician, is strangely ignorant of the art of seif-advertising, but he has the knack of doing things quietly and effectively without overlooking a single detail that can make for success. There is no member of the Cabinet doing better work for the Dominion in the present crisis than he is doing, and yet the statement issued the other day was the first adequate intimation the public had had of the fact.

WAS PRICES. / Members of the House who are disappointed by the allusions to the cost of living problem in the Budget have announced their intention to return to the subject when t'lie Finance Bill is under discussion. Their answer to the Minister's assertion that it "seems almost impossible" to deal with the problem "till £lve war is over," is that New South Wales attacked it at the very beginning of the war and achieved a very considerable measure of success. When the Necessary Commodities Control Commission commenced its operations in 19U it took 10 per cent, more to buy the same quantity of food in New South Wales than it did in Victoria, but by the end of 1915 food and groceries were cheaper in Sydney than they were in any other State capital in t)he Commonwealth, with the single exception of Brisbane. Brisbane's happy position was mainly due to the fact that the Queensland (iovernment had assumed control of the meat industry, so that the exception really "proves the rule" that it is possible to regulate prices independently of the sacred law of supply and demand. Of course, prices have advanced during the war in New South Wales'as they have advanced everywhere else, but while the rise in Sydney between 1013 and Mllo-was only 22.7 per cent., in Melbourne it was in Brisbane 31.0, and in Adelaide' 30.7. If these figures, compiled by the Commonwealth Statistician sre correct, they show that the "almost impossible"' lias been actually achieved in the State that has dared to face the problem.-

CENSUS AND -REPRESENTATION. The determination of the Government to take the census, which in the ordinary course would have been taken last April, in October, instead of postponing it to that indefinite period of "after the war," is generally approved, but already there are complaints of certain economies the Minister of Internal AlVairs proposes to practice in the collection of the figures. Numbering the people is a costly business, at normal times running into £60,00& or £71),000, and it is easy to sympathise with Mr. Russell in his very proper desire to save money, but it is pointed out that if the additional work is saddled on to the police and to the postal officials it cannot be so thoroghly done as its importance demands. Mr. F. M. B. Fisher was severely rated for making a somewhat similar arrangement in connection with the compilation of the electoral rolls a couple of years ago, and it is known that most of the defects in the National Register were due to the postal officials being unable to do all that was required of them. The census will be a far bigger and more I exacting undertaking than tilling tlhe I ro)U or completing the National Register, and 30 much depends upon its accuracy that no make-shift arrangement should be adopted by th,e .Minister.

SOLDIER SETTLEMENTS. The speech delivered by Mr. W. T. Jennings, member for Taumarunui, in the debate on the second reading of tilic Discharged Soldiers Settlement Bill deserves wider publicity than it is likely to obtain through the pages of Hansard. Mr. .'Jennings paid a very high tribute to Mr. John Williamson, one of the early Superintendents of the Auckland , province, "that good old student of the land question," as he described him, the. author of the military settlements in the western district under the 40-acre system and the fiO-acre system. From these settlements several of New Zealand's most prominent public men and many of its most useful and successful citizens have come, and Mr, Jennings urge'd that under a similar generous system hun-

dreds of returned soldiers could be placed 011 the land to their own great benefit and to tlie lasting advantage of the country. He would have 110 apprehension whatevri regarding the success of returned soldiers as settlers after the success of the Auckland and Taranaki settlements, provided they were given t'iie encouragement and the opportunity they so well (IcKej-vei? One of ]iis remarks had a locai s.j>,»lieation which probably the readers of the News will appreciate. "Tikorangi," lie said, "was settled in 18(35 by a band of worthy men who had given military service; but I regret to say t ! hey have not at present sufficient perspicacity to vote for me. though I do say without hesitation that these men arc good citwens." Evidently the member for Tamarunui is not blind t.o the virtues of his political opponents.