WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 September 1919, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

COST OF LIVING. FRESH LEGISLATION. (Special Correspondent) Wellington, September 15. The debate on the Board of Trade Bill, which ivas adjourned on Friday night after the Prime Minister, Sir John Findlay and several lesser lights had indicated the complexity of the problems with which the measure deals, will be resumed in the House of fiepresentatives to-morrow. The purpose of the Bill, of .course, is to make effective legislation already on the Statute Book dealing with the cost of living. This legislation has failed to stay the advance in prices simply Because it is too slow and cumbersome in its operation and because it hedges the Board around with restrictions which make that body powerless to deal with abuses. The present Bill was prepared by the Hon. W. D. S. Mac Donald, while acting as president of the Board during the ab- . sence of Mr Massey, and the Prime Minister recognising that need for its speedy enactment has taken it up as an urgent measure to be passed this session. WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT. It is in fulfilment of the promise he made to the House last session when Mr McCombs sprung his proposal to the same effect upon an astonished House that the Prime Minister has prepared his Women's Parliamentary Bights Extension Bill. The measure has not yet been circulated and it is understood there is some difference of opinion in the Cabinet as to the age at which wymen should be admitted to Parliament, but Mr Massey is too old a tactician to offer the women less than the House, by carrying Mr McCombs' proposal, showed its readiness to give them. Nor can the House very well go back on the vote it recorded last se96ion. It is being whispered about, however,, that the Legislative Council is not over-pleased at the prospect of the admission of women within its august walU and that a very substantial minority, at any rate, of the members will steadfastly resist the feminine invasion. PUBLIC SERVICE CONTROL. A good deal of surprise and some amusement were occasioned last year when the Public Trustee protested against the great Department he controls being hampered by the operation of the Public Service Act. Mr Triggs, as everyone knows by this time, was largely responsible, as the Government's chief adviser on the subject, for many of the provisions of the measure which placed the Public Service under the control of commissioners and which he is now criticising. In his report this year he emphasises what he said twelve months ago. "The Board has had further experience of the working of the Act,'' a paragraph of 1 the report, runs, "and has seen nothing which would modify its previous opinion. The Board regards the machinery of the Act as wholly unsuitable in its application to a business office, tending, as it does, to constant and vexatious delay in the settling of appointments, which seriously impairs the efficiency of control." There is much f,o the same effect in the report, and there is great curiosity among members as to what the Government is going to do about the matter. THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT. It is semi-officially announced that the Financial Statement will not be presented this week. The mere accounts are not the occasion of the delay. These were prepared by the Hon. A. M. Myers in readiness for Sir Joseph Ward's return to the Dominion and Sir Joseph had given the finishing touches to them before he left office. But Mr Massey is putting forward his "policy" in the statement, and on the eve of an election with a recently reconstructed Minitsry and a number of conflicting interests to be reconciled this is not a task that can be hurried through in a spare half-hour. Forecasts of the policy may be had anywhere, but none of them bear the imprint of authority and most of the criticism that is flying about is much beside the mark. That the Reform leader will make a spirited retort to Sir Joseph Ward's challenge, however, may be taken for granted, and in this J respect political progress is not likely to j be the loser by the disruption of the coalition. I