BOUQUETS FOR MINISTERS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 119, 16 April 1930, Page 8

BOUQUETS FOR MINISTERS.

The member for Raglan, who is also a member of the Labour Party, has been admonished by the New Zealand Worker for saying kind things about the Minister of Public W or ks, Hon. E. A. Ransom, who had been visiting his electorate. Mr Lee Martin, among other things, expressed the opinion that Mr Ransom had, by his able administration of the department he has in charge, showed himself, capable of much greater things and, by implication, suggested that the Minister might yet be ! found leading the party and Government of which, he is a member. But Mr Ransom has been taken severely to task by other members of the Labour Party, and by its official journal also, for having (allegedly) employed men on public works at relief rates of pay, discharged employees of the department having, according to their statements, been put back on the relief rates. Under all the circumstances the Worker evidently came to the opinion that Mr Ransom was more worthy of censure than of praise, and Mr Lee Martin was taken to task accordingly. Mr Ransom has travelled and .seen a lot since he assumed the Works portfolio, and may probably be all that Mr Lee Martin believes him to be. It has, too, been more than once hinted in other quarters' that he is in the running for the leadership of the United Party in the event of a change becoming necessary. But there are other members of the Ministry who possibly consider themselves better qualified to lead the party than Mr Ransom —the Acting-Premier (Hon. G. W. Forbes) and the Minister of Railways (Hon. W. B. Tavefner) for instance, to say nothing of the Minister of Education (Hon. H. Atmore). The latter is the most recent of Ministerial visitors to the Raglan electorate, atfd, with an evident eye to the future and the possible benefits that may come to his constituents, Mr Lee Martin, unmindful of the censures passed upon him for praising Mr Ransom, declares that Mr Atmore is “one of the best Ministers of Education New Zealand has ever had.” Mr Atmore’s chief claim to that distinction would seem to be founded on his peripatetic wanderings throughout the Dominion in search of a policy during the sixteen months that he has held the Education portfolio. According to a promise the Minister made in February, 1929, he was to have declared his policy in regard to the junior high school system within a few weeks, but the declaration is still lacking and no one knows where he stands, although it is possible that, with the assistance of the House education committee that has been touring the country taking evidence, he. may now be evolving his long delayed policy. But there is a* touch of humour in the credit accorded by Mr Lee Martin to the Minister for the investigations that are being made by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research into “the problem df cattle sickness which is so prevalent in many districts of the Auckland province.” Mr Atmore is certainly the Ministerial head of the Department in which Dr Marsden and; his officers are and have been doing such good work, since the department' was established by the Reform Government in 1926, but the department has, acted more in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture than with that of Education, -and the Minister of Agriculture. (Hon. G. W. I orbes) is more entitled to any credit which may come from the investigations made by the officers of his department, in co-operation with Dr Marsdfen and his officers, than Mr Atmore. Mr Lee Martin should know that.