WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1921, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

MR. MASSEY. HIS TENTH YEAR OF OFFICE. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, July 11. Yesterday Mr. Massey entered upon {the tenth year of his occupancy of the office of Prime Minister and received l cabled congratulations from his colleagues in the Cabinet and from a numiber of his personal and political friends. I When the. Reform leader mounted the • Treasury Benches on July 10, 1912, by the grace of four or five recruits from the other side of the House, even his most sanguine admirer never expected him to retain possession of them so long. Ha had gained office through the schism in the ranks of the Liberal Labor Party, and he held it by the will of a minority of the electors. But he quickly developed unsuspected qualities of leadership, including a nice appreciation of the drift of public opinion, and at the election of 1914, assisted by the war’s extinction, of many party issues, he returned from the constitu- ■ encies, still without a majority of the electors at his back, but with the narrow margin of two votes in the House. Then came the National Government, in which, apart from finance, he was the dominant figure, the spread of dissensions among his opponents and his triumph at the polls in 1919. Though his term of office still is four years and some months short of that of Mr. Seddon, so practised a tactician and so versatile a politician, blessed with good health, yet may reach the record of the great Liberal leader. A FINANCIAL STATEMENT. The Acting Minister of Finance is find ing the honors and responsibilities thrust upon him by the absence of the Prime Minister no sinecure. During the last three or four weeks this most courteous and tolerant of administrators has been pestered by the representatives of the newspapers and by still more insistent people -for an explicit statement of the Dominion’s financial position. With the fate of the five million loan uncertain and the commitments of the various departments of the Public Service unascertained it was impossible to furnish a statement that would have thrown any useful light upon the figures already made public. But sufficient information concerning the loan and other matters involved is now available to enable the position to be placed before the public in a concise and definite form. This will be done in the course of a day or two, probably on Wednesday, and all that need be said about the matter in the meantime is that the figures will confirm the view repeatedly expressed by the Minister that while the financial I position of the country is perfectly ■sound there is need for strict economy and prudent administration. i THE GOVERNMENT AND THE TRUSTS. The American Government is making it perfectly clear that it is not disposed to leave the Armour issue just where it stands at present. However sincere it may be in its efforts to restrain the Trusts in its own country it is not .inclined to submit quietly to any undue interference with the traders abroad. Not altogether unnaturally it is contending that Armour having been allowed to buy meat in the Dominion should be allowed to export it to the best possible advantage. This is the view of a great many people here and, of course, of a vast majority of the economists and traders at Home. The question so far ' as New Zealand is concerned seems likely to become a very grave one, involving problems of great international import- ; ance, and at the moment the Acting Prime Minister is not prepared to discuss them for publication.