NEWS FROM THE CAPITAL

Taranaki Daily News, 9 October 1928, Page 3

NEWS FROM THE CAPITAL

RAGGED POLITICAL TACTICS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) That both the friends of the Reform Party and the friends of the Labour Party are considerably perturbed by the recent consolidation of the United Partymay be judged from the derisive anonymous letters that are appearing in their respective newspapers. “When I got along there,” a writer says in describing a visit to the United headquarters, “I naturally asked for my bld Liberal friends;' but the youth in charge did not seem to know what I wanted—appeared never to have seen or heard of a true Liberal in his short span of life. I asked for information, but all I could gather was that all the Liberals seemed to have left the show. First the chairman of the executive and the Wellington organiser, both Liberal, had retired some time, ago, so he said; the secretary, (another Liberal) had resigned.” And so on and so on. Such effusions are not very edifying, but they appear to be passing for humour in many quarters just now. OPTICIANS AND OCULISTS. . The Hon. J. A. Young, the Minister of Health, is to be congratulated upon having piloted through the House of Representatives a Bill which discriminates between opticians and oculists. New Zealanders are among the most bespectacled people in the world, and this probably is due largely to the fact that comparatively few of them take adequate care of their eyes. In moving the second reading of his Bill Mr. Young said that some members of the medical professions seemed to have misgivings concerning the recognition extended to opticians. They were under a misapprehension, however, as to the nature of the measure. The opticians admitted frankly that they were not qualified to deal with diseases of the eye, and the purpose of the new legislation was to make a distinction between the two professions. It made it an offence for any person other than a medical practitioner to describe himself ae an oculist. The Bill is before the Legislative Council, and in due course will confirm the contentions of its author. “SNOBS.” Wellington is taking some little interest in the controversy that is going on in Christchurch in regard to the desecration of Cathedral Square by the erection of what a section of citizens regards as undesirable buildings. The controversy has provoked the Mayor into referring to the protestante as “snobs” and the Post has taken the reverend gentleman to task. “The private individuals may be right,” it says. “They have at least the right to submit their views and to use -whatever legal remedies they can. It is always open to the council to test public opinion by a poll. The Labour majority of the Christchurch council, however, has deelined to do this, though the refusal appears at variance with Labour professions. In view of these facts it is not wise for the Mayor to designate the opponents as ‘snobs,’ obsessed with their own superiority.” Occasional visitors from the north, who in many cases have a warmer appreciation of the beauties of the Cathedral City than have its own people, are unanimously with the “snobs.”