WELLINGTON .TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1921, Page 5

WELLINGTON .TOPICS.

THE CHRISTMAS-NEW YEAR HOLIDAY. OLD-TIME WEATHER. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Jan. 5. Wellington is returning to work today, perhaps a little reluctantly and somewhat half-heartedly, after a Christ-mas-New Year holiday that has been marked by the most delightful weather the city and province have experienced at this season of the year for a very long time. People have been enjoying the out-of-door life under conditions which few of the younger generation have tasted before and all the seaside resorte and camping places have been crowded to overflowing. The more fortunate members. pf the community, including most of the Ministers of the Crown, will not return to the drudgery of the daily round till the beginning of next week or later, but the rank and filo of the industrial and commercial armies are back at\heir posts, mostly, if must be hoped, strengthened and inspired by the recollection of a good time.

HOLIDAY-MAKERS’ COMPLAINTS. This ougut not to be the time for making complaints, but during the holidays there have been many loud and fervid protests against thq railway and steamer services. Wellngton, thanks or blame to its geographical position, is a great distributing centre, not only for goods but also for travellers, and some of the scenes at fhe local railway stations during the past fortnight have been a crying reproach to State management The service has been understaffed, much of the rolling stock has been in a dilapidated condition, and the official attitude towards real grievances has been exasperating. Exactly where the blame lies it is difficult to say, but the net result has been an amount of inconvenience and actual suffeting to the public exceeding anything that ever has befallen them before. The steamer service has not been quite so bad, but even here the inadequacy of accommodation and attendance in some cases has been appalling.

A LIBEL ON AMERICA. An American visitor to Wellington, Mr. Arthur Wendall, is indignant at the view of American life and manners and morals that is being presented to New Zealanders through the medium of the picture shows. By means of a certain class of film dramas, he says, the people of this country are being steadily familiarised with a point of view in regard to honesty, honor, fair play and the lilce which is as distnctly un-Ame-rican as it is un-British. “In the finer British and American stories,” Mr. Wendall reiterated to a newspaper representative, “honor is taken for granted, but in the class of films sent out to New Zealand it is something exceptional, a thing which has to be encouraged by loud praise and high reward.” The visitor is concerned for the welfare of New Zealand as well as for the reputation of America, and is convinced that in both respects many imported pictures are doing infinite harm. THE NEW JUDGES. It is understood that when Ministers return to town, as they are expected to do within the next fortnight, the question of filling the three impending vacancies on the Supreme Court Bench will be seriously considered by Cabinet. The growing confidence in youth, rather than a disrespect for age, is creating a demand for younger men on the Bench, but most of the members of the legal profession, not beyond middle age and possessing the necessary qualifications, are reluctant to exchange a lucrative practice for the dignity of a judge’s office. In the end it will probably be found that the Cabinet’s choice is very limited and that the appointments when made will take much the same course as their predecessors.