WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 July 1917, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

AX IXOPPOBTUXE MOVE. -MR. MtCOMP.S AGAIN. (From Our Special Correspondent.) AVellington. duly 13. The strangely perverted kind of egotism which possets the meia!,er for Lvttoiton lias again averted itself at a singularly inopportune moment. Just as the more members of tlie old liberal Party, reinforced by a number of restless spirits from the other side «>') politics, were framing an amendment to the Address-in-Rcply based on broad democratic principles, ilr. McC'omhs has rushed in with a challenge to the Government on the one unassailable feature' of its defence policy. Had lie wished to fortify Sir .lames Allen and his colleagues against the attack of the other conspirators he scarcely could have served them better. There are plenty of people complaining of the administration of the Defence Department, of its extravagance, waste, inefficiency, and the rest, 'but there is only an individual here and there finding fault with the determination of the Minister to discharge to the full the Dominion's obligation to the Empire. Yet this is the issue on which Mr. McCombs lias chosen to throw down the gage of battle to the National Cabinet. Of course, his little demonstration will lie ignored by the public, just as it is being ignored by the Government, and the pity of it all is that a man of his ability should be wasting his talents on sucli futile displays. THE MAN SUPPLY. It must not be assumed, however, that Mr. McCombs is the only member of Parliament who looks with disfavor upon the continual drafts upon the man supply of the country. Even in the Legislative Council, where one does not look for any departure from the accepted creeds and traditions, there are occasional imirmurings against the exacting demands of Imperialism. The Hon. J. D. Ormond, who took his seat in the Council for the first time this session yesterday, seized the earliest opportunity to express 'his dissent from the policy of the Government. He thought New Zealand should not keep up its present large reinforcements, and he predicted there would be an expression of opinion in the country entirely averse to the administration of the Defence Department. In the House are a score of ■men talking in the same strain, and perhaps hall' as many again leaving their thoughts unspoken. But the Minister of Defence will not budge one jot from his original programme, and apparently he has the full support of his colleagues in his determination. The statement he made in the House on Tuesday night, though it supplied Mr. McCombs with most of the material for his attack, was really a very stirring appeal to the patriotism of the'country, and it was made to neither deaf nor unappreciative ears.

SMOULDERING DISCONTENT. If there should bo a serious attack upon the Government before the conelusion of the debate on the Address-in-Replv, it will .be based not upon Sir James Allen's refusal to listen to the little New Zealanders. as he would cull them, who would have him stay his hand in regard to the dispatch of reinforcements, but upon a score of minor delinquencies which liave grown into grave crimes as the ape of tlie Ministry lias progressed. First of all there is the administration of the Defchce Department, which in some respects has been deplorably slack an.-l ineffective. Probably the Minister is less to blame for what has happened than arc his responsible officers, but he has shouldered the full responsibility for the defects and the failures, and will be judged accordingly. Then there is the timidity of the Government in regard to the cost of living. It may have been impossible for Ministers to keep prices down, but it is urged to their disadvantage that they have made no sustained effort to do so. In this connection it is pointed out that the Prime Minister, by extracting the last fartln'ng from the Imperial authorities for meat and butter and cheese, has added substantially to the prices of these romrr.odities in New Zealand. The?e are the domestic affairs which make and unmake Governments much more frequently than do big questions of foreign policy.