WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 September 1922, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

AGRICULTURAL BANKS. NO STATE GUARANTEE. ' (Special Correspondant.) Wellington, September 1. In his speech in the Budget debate the Hon. W. D. Stewart made it fairly plain that the Government had no intention of either subsidising or guaranteeing the agricultural banks for which it lias promised legislation during the present session. He thought the extreme length to which the Government could go would be to provide the necessary machinery to enable the farmers to do their own financing. If this should prove to be the case, it will be a sad disappointment to Mr. W. J. Polson, the Dominion President of the Farmers’ Union, who wag mainly instrumental in getting the subject mentioned in tho Governor-General’s speech and discussed in the newspapers. On the other hand, it will set at rest the minds of many business men who have been gravely alarmed at the prospect of the State standing surety for an experiment that might land the country into a loss of a million or two in its first year. It is not likely that the mere statutory authority to establish a bank will tempt the farmers to rush precipitately into a "business which requires much technical knowledge and wide experience for its successful management.

THE REu FLAG. Mr. E. J. Howard, the Labour member for Christchurch South, in his contribution to the debate, strongly deprecated the efforts that were being made by certain flag-waving individuals to stamp the workers in general and their representatives in Parliament in particular with the brand of disloyalty. The members of the Labour Party in the House, be said, had taken the oath of allegiance to the Constitution and the Crown with as much sincerity as had the members of any other party, and perhaps with a better conception of its significance. With them it was not simply a matter of form nor the acceptance of an inevitable obligation. But if every person who voted Labour at the polls was disloyal, then there were 126,000 disloyalists at the last general election, and probably there would be 20,000 more at the impending election. He looked upon the politican who loudly professed his loyalty very much as he did upon the business man who proclaimed constantly his honesty. They both were men that required to be watched. The really loyal politician and the really honest business man took their loyalty and their honesty for granted. MR. V. H. POTTER EXCUSES HIMSELF. Mr. -V. H. Potter, the member for Roskill, who is gravely concerned for the loyalty of university students, and apparently would deny them all liberty of thought and speech, has declined an invitation from the Victoria College Debating Society to discuss these questions on the platform. The Society assured him a fair field and a courteous hearing, but he refused positively to have anything to do with its proposition. “I have already expressed very stronglv my opinion,” he wrote in reply to the invitation, “that your Debating Club is merely a nursery for the propagation of ultra-Socialistic and Communistic views, and I must decline to have any intercourse with men who welcome as their guests to the University halls convicted seditionists, and adopt the views of gentlemen whose general loyalty and attitude to the British Empire and our social conditions are so well known as to need no comment. I am not to be drawn into an unseemly wrangle over this matter, and should prefer to have no further correspondence with you.’The Society’s invitation was frank and cordial and considering all the circumstances the member’s reply appears a little curt. PROHIBITION AND REVENUE. L. M. Isitt confined his contribution to the Budget debate in the House last night practically to the subject of prohibition and so was able to deal with it in a comprehensive manner. The member for Christchurch Nortn still remains the most eloquent of the few capable speakers in the House and dealing with his favourite topic he compels attention as much by the arts of the orator as he does by the zeal of the apostle. He scouted the idea that the abolition of the drink traffic would plunge the country into financial difficulties and even embarrassment. Ar. argument of that kind, he said, disregarded the basic principles of political economy. The expenditure of nine millions a year on a harmful luxury could not be justified by any such consideration as the collection of a comparatively small amount of taxation or the maintenance of the liquor industry. But his arguments along these lines need no repetition here. It fell to the lot of Mr. H. M. Campbell to present the case for the other side. A rather better speaker than is the average member of the House and obviously in earnest, the member for Hawkes Bay did fairly well, but as an advocate inevitably suffered by comparison with his silver-tongued opponent.