WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 February 1922, Page 3

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

SOLDIER SETTLEMENT. - 'Of'" . MEN IN HARD PLACES. ■ ?/. , _... (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Feb. 24. Though the executive of the Returned Soldiers’ Association has expressed itself as satisfied from the evidence it has collected that the returned men placed on the land are doing “as well as can be expected in circumstances,” there is plenty of evidence to show that many of them are in extremely hard, if not whoHy hopeless positions. The published abstracts of the reports furnished to the executive, indeed, make it plain that a latge proportion of the settlers will be unable to “pull through” without further substantial assistance from the State. Fully half of them are so deeply involved that northing less than a return to the prices of two years ago can save them from disaster. The worst cases are those of men who took up secondclass dairy land at first-class prices, and now find themselves saddled with obligations it is quite impossible for them to discharge with butter-fat at its present price. But these are by no means the only cases calling for immediate relief. Certainly not more than 10 per cent, of the settlers are doing really well, and probably not mare tfraai 50 per cent, are holding their own. WHERE THE BLAME LIES. The responsibility for what has happened is pretty widely distributed. Of course a great deal will be heard at election time about the indiscretions of the Government and the inefficiency of its officers, but as a matter of fact the whole country ran mad on the question of soldier settlement when the men began to return from the front in their thousands. It is true that Sir Joseph Ward, after he had retired from the National Cabinet, urged in Parliament that the surpluses he had accumulated during the war years should not be expended in the purchase of land. His idea was that the money required for settlement purposes should be borrowed at the moderate rate of interest then prevailing, and that the little nest egg of some fifteen or sixteen millions he had laid aside should be retained in London to assist the Government’s financing. As things have turned out, the suggestion was a very happy one, but the adoption of the idea would not have stayed the land boom, nor averted its deplorable effects. It is easy enough to see now that the money might have been much more advantageously employed than it was, but three or four years ago the country’s appreciation of the soldiers’ services had. outrun its sober judgment.

HIS MAJESTY’S OPPOSITION. From all accounts the reorganisation of His Majesty’s Opposition, in view of the approaching general election, is progressing apace. Though there are three or four members of the old Liberal Party still disinclined to accept the leadership of Mr. Wilford, they are not,- perhaps with the exception of Mr. Vigor Brown, definitely irreconcilable. Mr. Brown, it is said, will listen to no overtures from the new Liberal-Labor combination, and will fight it at the polls rather than surrender any part of his personal independence. Mr. Wilford and Mr. Statham, on their part, express their readiness to face the inevitable without the countenance of the present member for Napier. The adhesion of Mr. Veith and Mr. Kellett, the independent Labor members, to the reorganised party is whole-hearted, and must assist materially in the consolidation of the “progressive” forces. Three or four restless members of other sections are expected to throw in their lot with, the Opposition when released from their existing pledges by the dissolution of the present Parliament, and no doubt there will be a large crop of “Independents” among the new aspirants for representative hono»s. OFFICIAL LABOR. x Notwithstanding the fact that both Mr. Wilford and Mr. Statham have stated emphatically that they will have neither part nor lot with extreme Labor, some of their followers, outside Parliament, are talking of an arrangement, either complete or in course of negotiation, by which no Reform candidate will be assisted by vote-splitting when the parties join issue at the end of the year. Any arrangement of that kind, however, would imply a compact between Mr. H. E. Holland and the leader of the new party which would be entirely inconsistent with the latter’s professions. But the attitude of the members of the official Labor Party during the recent session suggested to many observers that Mr. Holland and his friends were a little weary of their isolation and half inclined to modify their doctrine that no bread is better than half a loaf. It is possible that, without in any way allying themselves to the new party, or refraining from opposing it, they may not make it a part of their tactics, as they did at the last general election, to assist the “no breaders” against the halfloafers.” A policy of that kind might work great changes in the complexion of Parliament.