WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 March 1921, Page 8

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE SHORT SESSION. ITS BEGINNING. (Special Correspondent) ■Wellington, March 11. The ceremonial part of the opening of Parliament yesterday presented no new feature, with the exception of a Gov-ernor-General, who already has won his way into the hearts of <the people, making his first official appearance within the legislative halls. Lord Jellicoe looked and played his part well. He was punctual in his arrival, cordial in his reception of the plaudits of the crowd, prompt and precise in the performance of his allotted task and selfpossessed and confident in his retirement from the Chamber. He bore himself, in short, just as one would expect the hero of the Battle of Jutland to do, and won his way still further into the esteem of people who have watched the readiness with which he has adapted himself to the requirements of his high office. THE SPEECH. The speech, in addition to having the great virtue of brevity, was singularly free from the platitudinous phrases which two generations of politicians have placed in the mouth of the representative of the Crown on such occasions. It might have been constructed by His Excellency himself and certainly savdred rather, of the quarter-deck than of the Treasury Benches. Its dominant note Was the insistence upon the importance of the Prime Minister of the self-govern-ing Dominions in general, and of Mr. Massey in particular, Being present at the Imperial Conference in London this year. This, of course, is the whole reason for the short session, and it i$ presented much greater force than it could have been in mere words. MR. WILFORD’S PROTEST. Mr. Wilford’s proposed amendment to the Address-in-Reply may or may not be a good tactical move, as such things are counted in party warfare, but its obvious purpose is to provide a peg on which to hang a recital of Mr. Massey’s whole-hearted denunciation of the proposal to postpone the ordinary session of Parliament when Sir Joseph Ward was going Home to the Imperial Conference in 1909. It w-ould be unfair to anticipate the text of Mr. Wilford’s speech by quoting here what the present Prime Minister had to say on that occasion, but there was one paragraph in his ardent protest which may not be unprofitably quoted at the present juncture. “If the Prime Minister went out of Parliament, ami I went out of Parliament, and half a dozen other prominent members went out,” Mr. Massey declared from the Opposition benches, “I venture to sajr that the business of the country would be just as well conducted and the interests of people just as well looked after as has even been the case.” Modesty of this description is a fading flower in the present Parliament. WATERSIDE LABOR. With the waterside dispute fresh in the memories of members and with the conditions of its settlement, as between the employers and the workmen, still undiscovered, the subject could (scarcely escape mention on the first day of the session. The mention came from Mr. George Mitchell, the Independent member for Wellington South, who asked the Prime Minister if, in view of the great national loss suffered by the Dominion through the interruption of work on the waterfront, he would set up a Royal Commission to get at the root of the trouble and to make recommendations for its removal. Mr. Mitchell’s own disposition evidently was towards a change of the method of controlling labor on the wharves, and the Prime Minister very discreetly suggested the member should put his question on the Order Paper, where it may repose the ordinary session in September or October.