WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 January 1919, Page 3

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE ABSENT MINISTERS. CANDID CRITICISM, (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Jan. 3, 'ln discussing this morning the representation of New Zealand in the Imperial Cabinet, the Dominion, with the friendly candor it has maintained all along towards the National Government, insists that the repeated and prolonged visits of the Prime Minister to London cannot be indefinitely tolerated In the later stages of tlhe war, it points out, where there were many matters here urgently demanding their attention, the two principal members of the Cabinet, on whom the gravest responsibilities rest, have given only what time they could spare from their Imperial missions to the internal affairs of the country they are supposed to rule. "They have spent little more than enough time in New Zealand," this candid friend goes on to say, "to enable them to attend two brief sessioif of Parliament, remarkable chiefly for the hasty and perfunctory treatment of questions which on their merits and importance demanded very different treatment." And this is not all, OVERWORKED MINISTERS. This, of course, is what the more violent critics of the National Government have been saying, less euphemistically, ever since the first visit of the party leaders to London. And the Dominion goes still further with the gentlemen who tell us all ahout the matter from the "soapbox" in Post Oflice Square, It declares "it would not have made much difference if one Minister instead of two had gone to London," and "deplores "the tendency to drift and stagnation in the management of certain of our domestin affairs which the dual representation involves. All this obtains point and emphasis from the fact that fty: Ministers administering the departments of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance during their absence are gTeatly overworked at the time when they should be devoting undivided attention to their own Departments. The practical conclusion of the war may have Telieved Sir James Allen, for instance, of certain responsibilities, hut it has rather increased his administrative work, and the Hon. A. M. Myers and the Hon. W. D, S. MacDonald are in the same position.

THE FORTIETH REINFORCEMENT.

The story of the terrible experience of the Fortieth Reinforcement on its way Home has been made ghastly enough by the admissions of the official reports, but soldiers' letters now reaching Wellington are adding something to its horrors "The trip was hard, but bearable till after Sierra Leone," a man just crawling out of hospital writes. "After that it was a lingering hell for which some person or persons unknown should hang. A plague ship is a horrible enough tiling at any time, but when the boat is overcrowded, the food insufficient and often bad, the supply of medicine inadequate, and there is no disinfectant at all, it becomes awful past belief. Leaving men out of the ease altogether for fighting, even eventually, and the expense and delay of resting and slow training has made it already a doubtful asset. The English and New Zealand authorities did their best for us when we landed." Thig is from a man who knows the hardships of campaigning and who is not given to complaining or exaggerating.

THE LICENSING POLL 1 .

Political controversy, happily, has been resting during the Christmas and New Year holidays and still is quiescent, but moving about the country one hears many opinions of the prospects of the licensing poll which is to determine whether or not New Zealand is to "go dry' this year- It would seeem there is a growing feeling that the conclusion of the war is going to weigh heavily against tho Prohibitionist, many people who would have voted for the closing of licensed houses a year ago now seeing no urgent reason for this drastic step. On the other hand, 6 o'clock closing appears to be growing in popularity' and the inclination towards further restrictive legislation increasing. In official circles there is a doubt if the poll can be taken as early as April and probably delay, putting the war impulses further away, will operate in favor of continuance.