WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 April 1921, Page 10

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

BUTTER. A TEMPORARY ARRANGEMENT. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, April 4. Housewives who have been perturbed during the last week or two by the prospect of the retail price of . butter soaring to 2s 6d or 2s 7d or even 2s 9d per lb, are relieved this morning by the official announcement that at present the price will remain 'at Is ll|d per lb at the factory door, and at 2s 3d per lb over the counter for cash. But they had expected a reduction in the price after the expiration of the contract with the Imperial Government at the end of last month, and they will refuse to see why the “iLondon parity” which operated against them at the beginning of the season should not operate in their favor now, when according to the same standard the local price should be about Is 10d or Is lid per lb. Mr. Massey himself evidently recognises the logic of the consumers’ representations and it is generally expected that the outcome of the negotiations between the Government and the producers will leave the old price undisturbed without a continuance of the subsidy. THE COAL DISPUTE. There is general satisfaction here at the prospect of an early meeting of the representatives of the Coal Mine Owners’ Association and of the Miners’ Federation to discuss the various questions that have been in dispute between the parties during the last four or five months. The position. the owners had taken up that they would not meet the men till the latter had withdrawn some of their more extreme demands was quite untenable in the light of public opinion. It really was prejudicing a good case. But this does not mean that the public is yet ready for a six-hour day, a five-day week and the other revolutionary conditions included in the men’s proposals. At the present time, however, the public wants industrial peace probably more ardently than it ever has wanted it before, and the first step towards this in the mining industry must be a heart-to-heart talk between the employers and the employees. DEPARTMENTAL BLUNDERS. Mr. G. Mitchell, the very live member for Wellington South, has launched an indictment Of land aggregation against the responsible authorities and has been met by the assertion that the statistics he has quoted from official publications are all wrong. This is not an answer Mr. Mitchell is disposed to accept without further inquiry and he is finding unexpected allies in his insistence. “An inspection of the figures in these tables certainly shows much that needs explanation,” the Dominion says this morning. "In numbers of counties one discovers that, irrespective altogether of aggregation or sub-division, the totjil area in occupation in the country has decreased by some strange means.” The Minister of Lands is called upon to supply the facts so as to allay the concern that has been created by the blunders of his own department.

FINANCE AND PROHIBITION. There has been a good deal of casual discussion lately as to how the financial stringency, which scarcely can have disappeared before the next licensing poll, is going to a fleet the prohibition movement. The Moderates profess to believe that “hard times” are bound to operate in their favor, since the great army of voters who do not feel strongly on the question in ordinary circumstances will not care to risk any costly experiments while the finances of the State and of the individual are sorely strained. A big figure in the prohibition movement seen to-day, however, declared that he was expecting an exactly opposite effect from the hard times. People would realise as they never had done before that the hotel bar was one of the greatest obstacles to national and private recuperation, and would insist in larger numbers than ever upon its abolition. ; And there apparently the two parties must be left in the enjoyment of their .respective opinions. A year hence everyone will be able to speak with more authority.