WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 May 1921, Page 8

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE POST OFFICE. INADEQUATE SERVICE. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, May 18. The Wellington Chamber of Commerce has been provoked into protesting in vigorous terms against the irregularity and uncertainty of the mails provided by the Post Office Department. Its chief grievance is in confnection vith the inadequacy of the oversea mails' which one of its prominent members stigmatises as “a crying shame and a disgrace to the community.” Australia has a regular weekly mail to London, but New Zealand has no regular mail at all, and for some inscrutable reason does not connect with those leaving Sydney and Melbourne. As a result there frequently are intervals of three weeks between the Dominion’s opportunities to send letters to the Old Country. Among the Chamber’s other grievances is the length of time between the closing of mails and their actual dispatch. Letters for the Vancouver mail from Auckland, for instance, must be posted at the General Post office at 9.30 a.m., though the train that carries them North does not leave Thorndon station till 12.45 p.m. Even the daily mails North and South close an hour and three-quarters before the boat or train conveying them leaves.

POLITICAL PARTIES. Mr. T. M. Wilford and Mr. Peter Fraser are continuing their exchange of pleasantries and personalities in the correspondence columus of the evening paper, but they do not appear to be drawing any nearer to a satisfying definition of the difference Between the Liberal Party and the Labor Party than they were when they started out on their controversy. Mr. Wilford pins Mr. Fraser down to his assertion that Lenin and Trotsky are two of the world’s greatest statesmen, and Mr. Fraser retorts by saying that when Mr. Wilford and he are sleeping the long sleep of oblivion these two men will be outstanding figures in history. Stuff of this sort may serve the purpose of the extremists well enough, giving them the publicity for which they thirst, but it cannot be particularly edifying to the rank and file of either of the parties concerned. THE BUTTER SUBSIDY.

Though the Hon. Mr. Nosworthy committed an amazing breach pf Cabinet etiquette in telling a Christchurch deputation that he had opposed the butter subsidy, he may be forging jhis indiscretion for the sake of the attention it has drawn to a matter of very considerable importance to the public. There was not much fault to find with the subsidy of three-pence a pound upon butter when the Imperial purchase at 280 s per cwt. had raised the London parity to an unexampled rate. Then it was a question of keeping the commodity within the reach of the ordinary consumer. But the subsidy of twopence a pound now being paid rests on quite a different basis. This is not for the benefit of the consumer, but for the additional profit of the producer. No blame, of course, is attachable to the producer, who. was looking after his own interests, but it is quite probable that when Parliament meets someone will be asking who was looking after the interests of the public, THE FINANCIAL POSITION.

People who would cheer themselves with the reflection that the improvement in the prices of Government stocks means the approaching end of the financial depression are receiving no encouragement from the banking authorities. These gentlemen explain that the better prices available’ for these stocks to-day merely represent a recovery from the extremely low prices of a month ago when .£lOO bonds, paying 44 per cent, interest free of income tax were selling at £77. They are back now to £B2, but if any large quantity came into the market they quickly would recede to the lower price. Money for the ordinary purposes of trade and investment- is no easier and is not likely to be easier till the prices for the primary products of the Dominion improve The loan Mr. Massey is authorised to raise in London will relieve the tension to some extent, but. it will fall very short of removing the financial stringency altogether,