POETICAL TOPICS.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15113, 23 December 1921, Page 5

POETICAL TOPICS.

THIfMEAt POOL. DISCUSSION. IN THE HOUSE. - -.'■■- (From. Our Correspondent.) ; ' WELLINGTON, December 21. 3 The discussion on the Government's L meat pool scheme in .the House, last . night, showed members to be practi- ■ cally unanimous in approval of the principle of the proposal. Mr Geo» Witty, the member for Riecarton, took some exception to the manner in which the scheme had been hatched, but his criticism was directed against the Prime Minister's methods, not against the policy he had propounded. Incidentally, it gave Mr Massey an opportunity to . explain how the" scheme had been evolved. At one of the regular meetings pi the Reform caucus, some of the members of the party, anxious for a return to the commandeer conditions, had submitted proposals along the lines of the scheme now being discussed, and the proposals had seemed of so much consequence that they had been taken in hand by the Government. There had been no intention to make the scheme a party affair in any way; but it had 4jeen necessary for the Government *to"assume responsibility for whatever might be done, and only to that v extent need it belong more to one side of the House than to the other. THE MIDDLEMAN. The note of unanimity which pervaded the House last night was strangely varied by conflicting opinions concerning the position the "middlemen" would occupy in the scheme. Mr Massey did not contemplate any difficulty in this direction. s . He 3 the adoption of the pool .would lelp the various firms and-v companies interested in the handling, of the farmers' produce. So far as I the Government was concerned, it '-;? would be, very glad to have their assistance, as it knew there were in r. these, firms and; companies some oif - the mpist capable businessmen to be found; in the country. The freezing companies, in particular, and the- - sfcO.ck and station also /fpuhi. be required. ''; ■;•'-".:-; v . *•■'.>. -v" :' - ; •••-. i Mr W. D.; Lysjiar, the otherv '■ X hand, who is popularly regarded as ? - something, pi. a middleman himself, solemnly warned the Government i against the 'intrusion.o'f. "vested in-' terests." The'producers and the Go-; verhment,.he said,,must dominate the board, and the ' mercantile element • f must be kept "out. Between these two conflicting >;ews were (many differ- : ing opinions, the generaldisposition being to ballast popular management .f with a certain measure of business

experience. " * ; -. OUTSIDE THE HOUSE._ ." " _/ Business men who have studied the * Government's proposals, as far as they may be studied from tho>re-. ports appearing in the ' newspapers, • are not yet greatly concerned for the fate of private enterprise; They %r« glad to see that Mr Massey and most of his supporters are conscious of> ' the perils that would beset the Do- • minion in any attempt to over-ride hastily "the conditions that have grown up in the Home market. New Zealand cannot get rid of the customs and "traditions that exist in London . by the stroke of pen or even by an Act of Parliament. But business men recognise,frankly that there are improvements to be made in the handling of frozen meat and other New Zealand products at both ends. They are amused, rather than alarmed by the suggestion that the middleman should be'knocked on the head forthwith, and -they are . quite ~, 'ready to consider the Government's proposals in a friendly; co-operating spirit. But they require a good deal more information concerning them than they have at present,' before they can express any definiteopinion upon their merit. TOWARDS SOCIALISM. Of course, the Government's - ten- - tative proposals appealed to the leader of the Labour Party, in quite a different, way that-in which they "appealed to the farmers' representatives in the House. The position, Mr Holland proclaimed-with the air of the only political economist in the Chamber, meant the utter breakdown o£ private capitalism. The State was being asked to come to the rescue of the long-.deluded farmers, and, though that did not necessarily lead to Socialism, it might be the prelude to a very long step in that direction. 1 The hit was a perfectly legitimate one, and out of the country's, difficulties Mr Holland r and his friends may make such party capi* tal, but the Labour leadervhas an un- ; happy knack of "cruelling" his own opportunities. Having claimed the Government's proposals as a step towards Socialism, he proceeded to paint Socialism in the crude colours of his own distorted conception of the creed. v