WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 September 1921, Page 3

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE PASTORAI. INDUSTRY.

DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Sept. 2, The representatives of the freezing companies, while resenting Mr. W. J. Polson’s suggestion that they are contemplating a new arrangement with the slaughtermen which would be inimical to the interests of the producers, are by no means averse to the idea of the president of the Farmers’ Union that the pastoralists should be heard when the dispute between the parties comes before the Arbitration Court. A conference between the parties has been going, on here during the last few days and one of the representatives of the companies stated this afternoon that he and his colleagues would be very glad to have the assistance of the farmers in reaching an equitable agreement. It was scarcely fair of Mr. Polson, he thought, to twit the companies with meeting the men behind closed doors. Experience had shown that the public discussion of such differences as now lay between the two parties was utterly futile. The purpose of the present conference was to find a basis of agreement from which all the interests concerned could be fairly served. This might not be wholly achieved, but the effort was worth making.

INSEPARABLE INTERESTS. This authority, speaking, as he said, without shy conscious bias, strongly deprecated the attempts that were being made in certain quarters to persuade the farmers that their interests wore not the interests of the freezing companies. He did not suspect Mr. Polson of deliberately seeking to breed distrust between the producers and the companies, but it seemed to him he had been a little unfortunate in his choice of words. He had said that the freezing companies’ first interest was to provide dividends for their shareholders end that therefore they were likely to take the line of least resistance in any dispute with their workers. This ‘ implied that in their eagerness to pay dividends they would bo careless of the interests of their clients. But everyone knew that would be the road to ruin in any commercial enterprise. The farmers, of , course, were the mainstay of the meat industry and if they found themselves being exploited in that fashion they speedily would look about for a remedy. As a matter of plain fact, however, the interests of the farmers and of the freezing companies remained inseparable and equally concerned in the maintenance of a good understanding with labor, i

IMPERIAL STATESMANSHIP.

The Evening Post, after reading the mail accounts of the meeting of the Royal Colonial Institute a few weeks <igo, at which Sir John Findlay made one of his charming literary excursions into the fascinating realm of Imperial speculation, assumes the role of the Philistine and roundly denounces the whole expedition. “A discussion in which Sir John Findlay, Mr. Massev, and Sir Robert Stout took part,” it says, “contributed nothing whatever of a constructive character and on its destructive side was mainly devoted to slaying the slain, while it had not so much as half a brick, or even half a word, to throw at a live and active antagonist really worth hitting.” Then having done justice- to Sir John Findlay’s scholarly qualities and described him as a master of polished and glittering rhetoric, the Post drops down easily and, it would seem, naturally to the commonplace and unimaginative. “The ultimate test of our statesmanship,” it concludes, “is not fine sentiment or five phrases, but the getting of enough money into the Imperial hat for the safety of us all.” If this is true Mr. Massey need not feel affronted by the assertion of his Wanganui critics that abroad he is a statesman and at home only a politician.

BOARD OF TRADE. ( The Government is being flooded just now with gratuitous advice as to what it should do with the Board of Trade in its attempt to bring the public expenditure within the capacity of the public revenue. Probably the weight of popular opinion is on the side of abolition —the final dispatch, of a body whoso fate has been hanging in the* balance for some time past—but the Government has found various uses for the Board, which have not been advertised in the occasional summaries of its achievements, and it is probable that on his return, Mr. Massey will prolong its life in some amended shape. The Dominion this morning in discussing the position says that, “if it is to remain in existence,” the Board might be profitably employed in a comprehensive investigation of the possibilities of establishing new secondary industries in this country. This is a work for which the chairman of the Board by reason of his training and experience is admirably qualified, and ho certainly would do it much better than would the parliamentary commission that has been threatened.