WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 November 1920, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

;■■ THE EXPIRING SESSION. HOMESICK LEGISLATORS. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Nor. 1» A sixty-seven per cent increase t» their salaries and material additions to their perquisites have not made the members of the House of Representatives any moro anxious to prolong the session, than they, and their predeces* sors were in the days when they received only a beggarly £3OO a year and enjoyed a free railway pass, reduced steamer fares, cheap telegraph rates, exemption from postage, and a number of other insignificant privileges. Just now, indeed, Wellington is witnessing the most unseemly scramble for home among the country's legislators fflw oldest habitue of Parliament can recollect. The House, practically, has given the Prime Minister carte blanche to put through what measures he pleases, ami new laws are being turned out as rapidly as the handle of the parlia-. mentary machine can be moved round. The blame for any untoward happeniuga from this indecent haste of course will be laid at the door of Mr. Massey, but. it will be fair to remember that without the connivance of members this method of doing business would be impossible.

RAILWAYS AND CONCENTRATION.

While tlin Public Works Statement and Estimates were under discussion in the House of Representatives on Friday night and Saturday morning, the Minister of Railways was eluded unmercifully by u number of members upon his j renunciation of the policy of concentration in construction he had annouriced when he first assumed office. He was not going to fritter money away on scraps of railway all over the country, he had declared, reiterating a pious resolution practically every one of hiß predecessors had uttered in the day 9 of his official youth. He, in spite of all temptation to the contrary, was going to concentrate expenditure upon the more important and urgent lines, and so sweep away all the waste and inefficiency of the past. It was an admirable scheme and it received the praise it deserved. But, alack and alas, the Public Works Statement came out and there was no provision for concentration at all.

BY-AND-BY. But Air. Coat.es indignantly denied that he had renounced his good resolutions. He was as determined as he ever had been to put a stop to a practice which added enormously to the cost of the railways and seriously delayed the systematic development of the country. He could not, however, step into office and by a single stroke of the pen revolutionise a system that liad been going on for years. The circumstances of every line had to be considered. But honourable members might rest asßured he would put the polby into operation at the earliest possible moment, and he hoped he wonld have their assistance |in carrying it out. This explanation seemed plausible and reasonable enough, and Mr. Coates's next Public Works Statement will be awaited with nvncl» curiosity and interest. Meanwhile the remaining critioisni centres chiefly around the Minister's apparent preference for lines serving the Auckland province.