WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 April 1921, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE CABINET. DISTRIBUTION OF PORTFOLIOS. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, April 6. At the time of writing no official announcement has been made as to the distribution of Mr. Massey’s portfolios during his impending absence from the Dominion, but it is understood that Sir Francis Bell will take Fiaquce, the Hon. D. H. Guthrie Railways, the Hon. G. J. Anderson Mines, and the Hon. W. Nosworthy Imperial Supplies In the circumstances, probably no better arrangement than this could be made, though' it is obvious that with the exception of. Finance, where Sir Francis may be trusted to assert himself, the direction of these departments will revert for the time being to their permanent heads. The policy of the Treasury during tile next .few months must be to exercise the most rigid economy and no one would be more likely than the At-torney-General is to discharge this task with thoroughness and discretion. As for the rest, Railways, Mines, and Imperial Supplies will be run by competent Under-Secretaries and with norm<l conditions will suffer little from the absence of their political chief. LAND AGGREGATION. The Minister of Lands has not yet succeeded in demolishing Mr. G. Mitchell’s contention that land aggregation has been going on to an alarming extent during the last few years. The member for Wellington South based his indictment uf)on the Goverment’s own statistics, which, for what they are worth, show that the number of large holdings has - been on the increase and the number of small holdings on the decrease. But the Miister attempts tQ brush this aside by declaring that the statistics do not represent the true posiThe retort to this is. of course, that if the statistics are inaccurate £hey never should have been issued. But. the member for Wellington South and his friends go further and quote-num-bers of specific instances of aggregation that are not merely paper offences against the spirit of the Dominion’s land laws. But still the Minister seeks refuge behind the inaccuracy of the statistics, claiming that when the facts are ascertained the beneficence of the Government’s administration will be revealed. A CANDID FRIEND. The Evening Post, which cannot be numbered among the 'unfriendly critics of the present Government, joins in the controversy with its accustomed candour. “In order to answer the prima facie case stated by Mr. G. Mitchell, M.P., in the matter of land aggregation,” it says, “the Government is placed in the unenviable position of throwing doubt upon its own statistics, and even when it has done this it still fails to repel more than a fractional part of the aggregation indictment.” From this It proceeds to examine the Hon. D. H. Guthrie’s amended figures pn its own account. “The Minister admits,” it pqirits out, “that during the four years 1916-20 the county of Kaikoura made a net loss of 29 holdings. In other words, after crediting the county with all new holdings, the net debit admitted by the Minister is 29. Is this aggregation or ts it not?” The Minister may have in reserve some explanation of the figures marshalled against him, but if this is the case the time for producing them certainly has arrived. THE NEW POLICY.

The new Progressive Liberal and Moderate Labor Party seems, so far as Wellington is to be in grave peril of collapsing through sheer lack of publicity and opposition. agrees that a coalition between Progressive Liberalism and Moderate Labor would be a very real and effective force in the political affairs of the country at the present, buu no one outside the confidence of the promoters of the mew movement appears to know anything about its constitution or its platform. So far it has been damned much more by f{iint praise than by serious hostility, and this, of course is the most unhappy position in which a political party can find itself. Mr. Massey, though he claims to be the .leader of Progressive Liberalism and Moderate Labor himself, professes nothing but goodwill towards the new movement. There is no need to question his sincerity. Mr. Holland, the leader of Extreme Labor, is scarcely so complacent, but he evidently contem plates with satisfaction a third division in the rafnks of Liberalism. And so the new party stands still.