WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 January 1921, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

MINISTERS RETURN TO TOWN. PREPARATORY TO EXTENDED TOURS (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Jan. 7. The Prime Minister and the Minister for Public Works were the first members of the Cabinet to return to town after the holidays, mainly, it would seem, to make preparations for extensive tours of the ' Dominion during the next five or six weeks. Mr. Massey will be detained here for some days by departmental business and by several public functions claiming his attendance, but Mr. Coates left this morniing for the Waitomo and Taranaki electorates,” as the newspapers put it, to look into a number of matters requiring his attention there. The Prime Minister’s programme includes an early return visit to Auckland to welcome the officers and men of the warship Chatham, and a trip to Otago, and the West Coast of the South Island which may occupy him till well on to the end of next month.

PUBLIC WORKS.

At the end of the present month, Mr. Coates will commence a comprehensive tour of the South Island, beginning at Marlborough and including an inspection of the various sites proposed for hydro-electric and irrigation works in Central Otago. The routes for the completion of the South Island Trunk Railway will receive his special attention and in coming to a decision on this matter he will be proffered the assistance of the Marlborough Progressive League, a body which has succeeded in directing a good deal of Wellington attention to the needs of the districts it serves. When Cheviot was the objective of the Trunk line Wellington displayed little concern in the work, but since the spanning of the gap between Parnassus and Ward became the question at issue its interest in the undertaking has considerably quickened. THE TEACHER’S PARLIAMENT. The conference of the New Zealand Educational Institute which is being held in Wellington just now has discussed a number of matters of vital importance to the community at large, but, as on former occasions, it has devoted a large part of its time and attention to the reiteration of teachers’ grievances. That members of the teaching profession have grievances of a more or less serious character every one admits, but some of the critics in noticing the proceedings of the present conference declare that the quality of the teaching in the primary schools, speaking generally and admitting many exceptions, does not justify an all round increase in salaries. They argue, in effect, that nine-tenths of the teachers are paid as much as they are worth, and that the real reform required is the raising of the whole profession to the standard of. the remaining one-tenth.

CITY TRAMS.

The raising of the fares on the city trams continues to be a matter of animated discussion. Critics of the City Council’s management are insisting that while Wellington, of the four big cities, has the largest tram-riding public in proportion to its population, it obtains the poorest return (from its service. Whether this is a fact or not is a point on which the authorities disagree, quoting many factors which, they say, govern the different cases; but it appears to be fairly certain that access to the suburbs is more costly in Wellington than in any of the other centres. In any ease there is very wide-spread dissatisfaction with the management, and if it is made a test question at the next municipal election many new faces may appear at the Council table.