POLITICAL NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1919, Page 5

POLITICAL NOTES.

, DAIRYMEN'S PETITION. (By Wire.—Own Correspondent.) Wellington* Last Night. When the Bouse of Representatives met to.day there was a flood of petition* from the dairying districts relating to the butter equalisation fund. The peti- , tions, which bore many hundreds of signs* t.ures, pet forth that tho Government, by fixing the maximum local wholesale price of butter at Is 5d per pound when the export price was 181s jkt cwt, had inflicted a loss on tho dairy farmery that, owing to the increased cost of pro- ■ duction, many factories could not sell ■: butter at Is 5d except, at a loss; that * the difference between the two price* • ought to be made good in favor of the / producers from the Consolidated Fund, the arrangement to date from August 1918. THE COAL TROUBLE. The coal trouble was mentioned briefly in tho House by Mr. 11. Holland (Gray) asking what the Prime Minister intended to do regarding the miners, and suggest- . ing a compulsory conference. Mr. Massey made an uncompromising ' reply. The mine-owners, he said, had' made ait olTer to the men, and the men had not accepted it. He understood the ofTer was still open. It proposed Ml important increase in wages. "I hope - the miners will come round to a better way of thinking, and accept tho offer," said Mr. Massey, " and not cause inconvenience to the whole of the people of New Zealand." A LABOR CANDIDATE'S VIEWS. « By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellingfon, Last Night. J. Read, Labor candidate for Wollington North, opened his campaign to-night. He charged the Tory-Liberal combination with having extended their term of office unconstitutionally, passed laws for which they had no mandate from the people, and allowed profiteering on ui * unprecedented scale without hindrance. He said tho Government inflicted conscription on the people without» conisidering their wishes. The Labor Parly stood uncompromisingly against coo. ft scription in any form, 'it was proposed v that New Zealand Bhould have oftl* ' two representatives in the Imperial Parliament, but that Parliament Bhould have - power to declare war and determine tho ; ■■ Empire's policies in regard to citizenship and nationalisation. ' -i