WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 April 1920, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE LAND BOOM(Special Correspondent). Wellington, April 4, Though business men In tho city deprecate striking any siote of alarm, many of them agree with the Auckland Star in its comments upon the sensational land sale at Feilding recently. The high prices being paid for dairying land, they point out, hang entirely upon the high price being realised for butterfat. Neither meat nor wool can be produced nt a profit on small areas costing from £l5O to £l9O an acre. But so long as tho price of butter-fat continues to soax it is easy enough for the farmer to see a profit even at these huge figures. The danger is that with all the worm driven to economise, as seems inevitable, a lessened demand for milk-products will bring about an over-supply and a drop in prices which will be immediately reflected in the value of land. But whether this peril is an imminent one or not every disinterested authority joins with the Star ih thinking the elimination of the speculator in dairy land a consummation devoutly to be wished. THE LIBERAL DEFEAT. An old member who will sit on the Reform side of the new House gave it as his opinion this morning that Sir Joseph Ward was quite mistaken in attributing the defeat of his party at the December elections to religious bigotry. "Thank God," he said, "the country is free from that iniquity." But apart from the relative merits of the policies put forward by the party leaders, there were three factors, he contended, which contributed to Mr. Massey'e decisive minority victory. First of all, there was the definite split between the Liberals and Labor. That meant about halving tho strength of Die old Opposition in the country. Then there was a large transfer of Prohibition voters from the | other two parties to the Reform Party. Rightly or wrongly the Prohibitionists thought Sir Joseph Ward the friend of the Liquor Trade, and they knew Mr. Massey as the author of six o'clock. This perhaps, was the most important factor of the three. Finally there was the far better organisation of the Reformers assuring the concentration of their forces. The P.P.A. did not. influence a couple tf thousand eWtare.