WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 April 1922, Page 11

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE POST AND TELEGRAPH CRISIS. EXECUTIVE STILL SITTING. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, April 21. The executive of the Post and Telegraph Officers’ Association has not yet come to a decision with regard to, the Government’s vote of the Association s proposal to join the Alliance of Labor. It sat all day yesterday and aa Sitting again to-day, but no official announcement concerning the progress it has made is available. The length of its deliberations, however, suggests that the members of the Executive are by no means unanimous on the question at stake and that they are now seeking a compromise that will save the face of the Association and at the same time placate the Government. Meanwhile the Labor organisations that would have the Association defy the constituted authorities are not helping the situation by declaring the recent ballot was the result of “steady education aiming at a new society in which the exploiters will be shaken, from the backs of the useful classes.” The secretary of the Association refuses positively to give any information to the newspapers, but it is known this kind of propaganda has frightened many members into resignation. THE WHITE PLAGUE. In a leading article this morning the Dominion, speaking with the authority of local medical men, warmly supports Dr. Blackmore’s sweeping indictment of the present methods of dealing with consumption. “Dr. Blackmore has shown,” it says, “that there is a great and imperative need not only of adequate provision for the treatment of consumption, but of measures to safeguard the health of children and others who may be saved by early attention from contracting the disease. He is supported by other authorities in his contention that the existing position can only be remedied under a national policy by a uniform and universal 'scheme directed to confining the ravages of consumption within the narrowest possible limits.” The writer goes on to urge that it is only by concerted action on the part of the local and national health authorities the ravages of the scourge can be stayed and tj throw the responsibility for the initiati >n cf the campaign upon the Minister and his advisers. THE LIBERAL-LABOR PARTY. Mr. T. M. Wilford, the leader of the Liberal-Labor Opposition, who is now in the Hawke’s Bay district preparing the way for a vigorous assault upon the Government’s citadel at election time, appears to be ploughing a lonely furrow so far as the members of his own party are concerned. A Press Association message from Dannevirke published this morning says it is understood he has been unsuccessful In his search for a candidate to carry the party banner in the Pahiatua constituency, but his friends here are not at all dismayed by this story. They say that Mr. Wilford’s difficulty all through his organising tour has not been to find candidates, but to select from many aspirants for Parliamentary honors those most likely to meet with the approval of the party executive. This is easy to believe. A seat in Parliament is worth holding in these days, with the emolument and the honor attaching to it, and never before have new men had such an opportunity as appears to be theirs at the approaching general election.

EDUCATION’S PERILS. The circular from the New Zealand Educational Institute which, unless debarred by the Government or “turned down” by the chairman, will be read at all the annual meetings of householders for the election of school committees, is a very striking document. It makes an eloquent appeal for the maintenance of the education system of the Dominion upon the very highest standard, and for every possible opportunity being given to the boys and girls of the country to qualify themselves for the great work which lies before them as citizens of a free democracy. “If,” it says in the few lines it devotes to the financial aspect of the question, “the country can afford concessions on income tax and land tax, it surely can afford due consideration to growing humanity.” This is travelling on perilous ground and the Minister of Education, who is ultra sensitive on such matters, may have something to say on the subject. However, the tone of the circular is so admirable in other respects its trifling indiscretions may be well excused. IMMIGRATION AND EMPLOYMENT. Labor is again exercised by the approaching arrival of 934 assisted immigrants. due here by the Waimana on Sunday next, and refuses to be comforted by the Minister’s assurance that the adults among them have all been guaranteed employment. The party, including lf>7 ex-Imperial soldiers coming out under the overseas settlement scheme, consists of 337 men, 234 women and 353 children, and its members are to be distributed over a very wide area, from Auckland to Bluff. Wellington’s quota is 215, and doubtless it will be quickly absorbed by the city and district, but Labor is protesting that every place taken by a new arrival is a place the fewer for the unemployed already here. The Minister is satisfied, however, that there will be employment for every willing worker during the approaching winter. and that this latest addition to the industrial population of the Dominion, so far from proving a burden to the taxpayer. will speedily become his ally in producing the wealth the country needs. MUNICIPAL TRADING AND TAXATION. An entertaining controversy between the Mayor of Wellington’ and Councillor L. McKenzie concerning the disposal of the reserve fund created for the profits obtained from the city’s electric lighting department has provided the critics of municipal trading trith a fresh supply of effective ammunition. A little while ago the Mayor grow indignant over a statement made by a casual newspaper correspondent to the effect, that the city’s electric department paid neither State taxation nor local rates, and retorted by saying hat the department not only paid rates, but also paid them promptly, which was. not, he added, the practice of the average citizen. His Worship’s spirited contradiction was so worded that many people took it to mean that the department, paid all he taxation and al] the rates that would be imposed upon a private undertaking of the same description. But uow it seems from what

has been said by the Mayor and his councillor, that the department made a profit of some £12,000 last year, on which it paid not a penny of State taxation, and that it has accumulated in the same favorable circumstances a reserve of £120,000. Under the present income tax a private undertaking similarly situated would have paid one half of these big sums to the public exchequer and so assisted the country’s finances to that extent. PARTIES AND POLITICS. Wellington takes a somewhat broader interest in general elections than do the other centres, if only from the fact that of necessity it must serve as host to the chosen representatives of all the constituencies during three or four months of the year. Just now it is speculating rather less about parties than it is about politics. Mr. Massey, like the astute campaigner he has become, is not inviting any premature discussion of details, and Mr. Wilford meanwhile is content to follow his very admirable example. The official Labor Party still is clinging to the hope of driving the two old parties into the same camp and waiting to see by what means this end can best be achieved. It is rumored that Sir Joseph Ward has definitely determined to re-enter the lists, blit there is authority for saying that the story is premature and that the old Libera/1 leader remains uncommitted to participation in the fray.