WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, 11 July 1922, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS

THE SECOND CUT. HOBSON’S CHOICE. = n j’X. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, July 7. Mr. Massey’s excuse for insisting on the second cut from the bonus salaries of the State employees was the excuse of necessity. “I have got to keep the Treasury in a position where it will be able to pay twenty shillings in the pound,” the Prime Minister said in announcing tbe unpleasant news to the House on Wednesday afternoon. “There is only one way to cut down the cost of Government, and that is to cut down wages and salaries.” In making the latter statement the Minister, of course, was speaking scarcely by the book. He himself had mentioned the alternatives to reducing bonus-salaries. They were drastic retrenchment by wholesale dismissals from the Public Service, and increased taxation by way of Customs duties. But the adoption of both or either of these would, have seriously aggravated the “unemployed” trouble, already assuming grave dimensions, and increased Customs duties, even had they not defeated the’.r own purpose, would have intensified the difficulties of the struggling wage earners.

COMPUTING COST OF LIVING. That Mr. Massey’s task was an extremely unpleasant one, even his political opponents will not doubt. That he went through with it, in spite of the disapproval of a number of his political friends, says much for his tenacity and courage. But without taking sides in the matter at all, it is easy to question the abstract justice of the basis on which the cost of living was calculated. The President of the Arbitration Court evidently had some misgivings at the back of his mind on this point. His ready command of lucid English had not deserted him when he framed a report which Mr. Massey could not understand. But the Prime Minister held confidently that for the purpose of the agreement between himself and the representatives of the public servants it stood as the only admissible basis of calculation. The fact that the basis was obviously incomplete made it extremely regretable that the point had not been more clearly defined in the legislation of last session.

A LARGE AMENDMENT. The length of the amendment to the Address-in-Reply, moved by Mr. Wilford, is probably due to the anxiety of the leader of the Opposition to keep before his supporters in. the House the multiplicity and variety of the subjects on which they may belabor the Government. But really a reminder of this kind was not required on the present occasion. There is not a member of the Opposition without sufficient ammunition to maintain a lively fusillade against the Government’s policy and administration for his full hour without any prompting from his chief. However, Mr. Wilford’s spech was better than his amendment. Beginning with electoral reform he confessed himself as a recent convert to proportional representation, and then proceeded to discuss the system with very considerable facility. He found a congenial task in showing how Mr. Masey had “wabbled on the question, and inevitably drew from the' Minister the obvious retort that he had as much right to change his mind as his critic had. Mr. Nosworthy followed, and amused himself by drawing attention to the suspicious resemblance between the policies of the Liberal and Labor parties. Then Mr. Veitch talked interestingly and instructively of railways before Sir John Luke prepared the House for its night’s retirement. THIN ICE. The debate was resumed the following afternon, and continued throughout the evening sitting. None of tine speeches reached a very high level, even that of the Minister of Justice being devoted mainly to a labored attempt to show that there was no material difference between the policies and intentions of the Liberal-Labor Party and the Social Democrats, and that the two leaders were conspiring together for the overthrow of the Government. Mr. Lee’s illustrations were drawn from the Dunedin North by-election, and here he ventured on very thin ice, inviting the very gibes that came from Mr. Atmore later on. Whether or not the Wilfordites and the Hollandites joined forces for the purpose of discomfiting the Government in Dunedin North was not made very clear, but it remained notorious that at the election of 1919, which is still recent history, the Reform newspapers and the Reform electors contributed largely to the success of the Labor candidates.