WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1921, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

PARLIAMENT.

POLITICS AND POLITICIANS.

(Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Sept. 21. Among the members of Parliament who have been in Wellington during the last day or two in readiness for the opening of the session finance is tne most frequent and most absorbing subject of discussion. Few of them profess to have any intimate acquaintance with the subject in its application to public affairs, but they all have observed in their own districts the blighting effects of the tangle of prices and the scarcity of money. They want relief for for their constituents, in particular, and for the public, in general, from the perplexing conditions created by these untoward influences and they are looking to Mr. Massey to provide it. Now Sir Francis Bell has handed over the Treasury to the Hon. W, Downie Stewart it is not expected, of course, that there will be any notable ministerial pronouncement in regard to the Dominion’s financial position till the Prime Minister’s return, but many members hold strongly to the belief that Mr. Massey will have a more cheery tile to tell than the one with which Sir Francis has stilled many a clamorous deputation during the recess.

ECONOMY. But while a certain number of members on both sides of the House have persuaded themselves that the financial position is not so bad as it has b»en represented to be, the general feeling about the lobbies is that drastic econjmies in every branch of the public torvice are urgently required. There are protests here and there against the retirement of public offices still capable of giving of their best to the State, but, there practically are no suggestions of impropriety on the part of those entrusted with the disagreeable task of retrenchment. It still is thought in some quarters that when Mr. Massey has examined the position for himself he will propose a reduction in Ministers’ and members’ salaries as a prelude to demanding a similar sacrifice from the higher paid civil servants. The Labor members would be prefectly consistent in opposing a proposal of this kind, their contention being that the people’s representatives should be placed beyond all sordid anxiety concerning money, and it is doubtful if it would find much favor with any o-f the other groups. The appointment of a commission, including three or four capable business men, to overhaul the public service from top to bottom would be much more acceptable to a majority of the House. PARTIES. To the old Parliamentary hands it may seem strange that on the very eve of the opening of the session there is scarcely any of the party talk in the lobbies of the kind to which they were accustomed in former days. But this is the case. Whatever may have been the shortcomings of the National Government —and everyone admits it had shortcomings—it remains to its credit that it removed much of the traditional asperity from party politics and went far towards establishing an improved code of political manners. One present indication of this happy development is the regret that is being expressed by politicians on all sides at the prospect of the Hon. A. H. Myers retiring from Parliament. Mr. Myers has been a tower of strength not merely to his own party, but to the whole House in the handling of financial problems, and at the present time few men would be more missed from the counsels of the nation. The fact that he is not a strong party man, as the phrase goes, has made his expert advice as easily available to his political opponents as it has been to his political friends. SAMOA. Speaking at a Rotary Club luncheon yesterday, in the presence of His Excellency the Governor, the Hon. E. P. Lee, the Minister of External Affairs, had some frank things to say about certain criticism that had been directed against the Government’s administration of atfairs in Samoa. Ho did not object to fair criticism, ho said. That was the very salt of political'life. But lie did object' to constant, uninformed and unreasoning faults finding. The exclusion of liquor from the island had dissatisfied one set of critics and the employment of Chinese labor another. These were very proper subjects for discussion, but they should not be made the medium for heaping abuse upon those in authority.

“The Samoan question is coming up in the House,” Mr. Lee said in conclusion, fc and it is going to be debated a* gieat length. I know you don’t read Hansard as a rule—l am speaking to an intelligent audience —but I will ask you to read the portions dealing with Samoa. ' And so a Samoan debate is to be added to the tribulations of the approaching session.