NOTES AND COMMENTS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 306, 21 September 1943, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

It is sometimes a little difficult to follow the charges made by Mr. Semple when he is dealing with his political opponents, but in a broadcast address on Saturday he twice made the assertion that the members of the National Party had fought the Reserve Bank Bill “every inch of the way.” Perhaps at the end of a trying week’s campaigning the Minister of Works was not at his best, for he overlooked the fact that the legislation establishing a Reserve Bank was introduced in 1933, when a coalition Government was in office. The opposition came from the Labour ranks and was very prolonged. They called for numerous divisions during the committee stage, about a dozen in all, and not. content with that they debated the third reading and forced another division on what is a formal motion, a most, unusual proceeding. Mr. Semple seems to have forgotten these things. There was another surprise of a different nature for his listeners, when the Minister said that lie would make the private manufacture of munitions of war “punishable by death.” lie is a member of a Government that abolished the death penalty in cases of murder and it would seem to be a little difficult to reconcile the two things. However, the extravagances of speech of the Minister of Works are so familiar to the majority of the public that they now seldom receive serious attention,

The controversy over the defence works camp at llataitai Park has raised a question of principle that touches deeply-rooted public sentiment in Wellington against any encroachment, upon the Town Belt and other city reserves. It. is freely granted that spaces suitable for military requirements under the stress of urgent necessity in wartime should be made available. But. it is due to the citizens, and to coming generations, that such facilities as may be given should lie subject to conditions for safeguarding their reserves against unnecessary disfigurement and that in all circumstances these areas should be restored to their former condition when normal times return. The general trend of the discussion about this at the City Council meeting, it is satisfactory to note, took this line, though certain speakers were inclined to think that there had been too much ado about very little. These speakers apparently missed the real point at issue. This city has had a very hard struggle against the topographical restrictions of its environment, to provide open spaces and recreation grounds for its people. Several of its parks were once refuse gullies, since filled in from excavated hillsides and by the Bradford system of rubbish disposal. II is a fortunate circumstance that those who laid out. the original plan of Wellington were far-seeing men who recognized that u reserve area should lie mapped out and held saerosanet front eiieroaehineiil. in Hie future expansion of the city. Till- 'Town Helt is it monument Io their provision. In (heir protest against whal happened in connexion with the defence work’s camp at llataitai Park, city conncillors were ,sinn>l.v being loyal to their trusteeship.