WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11755, 20 July 1916, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

PDBLIC WORKS. EARLY CLOSING. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, July 19. No one outside the immediate confidence of the Minister was expecting the Public Works Statement last night, and no ono, apparently, was greatly concerned about its contents when Mr Fraser laid it on the table of the House in the most casual mannor possiblo and suggested that the Estimates might be taken on Friday next. Even to-day no vast amount of interest in the document is being displayed, perhaps because it provides for no now expenditure upon roads and bridges and post office clocks, but the humorists around the lobbies are pointing afresh their old jests about the Minister's promised economics by allusions to the fact that of tho £1,838,201 ho has at his disposal for the current year only the odd £2Ol is to be saved from the maw of the clamorous elector. ■ With party warfare suspended this sort of thing is the legitimate sport of Sir Fraser's many friends and their banter is always accompanied by a wliole-hearted recognition gf the (harm of his personal qualities. Coming into office with many protestations of their determination to keep the expenditure down the Reformers lifted it up in their first year from £2,340,380 to £2,548,918. In their second year they increased it to £2,760,798 and in their third, in spite of tho war, maintained it at £2,737,364. Last year, with tho war still making its enormous demands upon the public purse, they thought £2,344,944 —an odd or two more than the amount spent in 1912 a reasonable compromise, and now Mr Fraser is practising the enforecd virtue of spending no more than he has got. The situation certainly lends j itself to the.gentle art of the humorist. RAILWAY EXPENDITURE. Tho only really big figures in the public works estimates have to do with railway construction and additions to open lines, and even these are not of their former dimensions, simply because the exigencies of the times 'have compelled the Minister to cut his coat according to his reduced supply of cloth. There will be grumbling, of course, over tho allocation of the money available for this class of work, and in normal times there might be room for some imputations of party favours; but people acquainted with the needs of the North Auckland district and the East Coast district will not cavil over the comparatively generous treatment they have received. North Auckland got all its vote expended last year, a total of £141,000 odd, and this year "it is given £92,000, while the Midland Railway was £IO,OOO or £II,OOO short in its expenditure of £93,000, and this year is allotted only £69,000. Tha East Coast Mam Irunk absorbed some £123,000 last year, certainly not a penny more than was its due, and for the current year is given £lo2,uvu, which ought to be fully spent. Outsiders freely admi>. this is the most important railway work in progress in the North Island at the present time, and if its prosecution had been accompanied by a comprehensive land acquisition and settlement policy money spent upon its completion would have been a splendid investment for the country. Most of the criticism levelled against the Government's 'proposals is along these lines. Land acquisition should have preceded railway construction and settlement would have_ followed so speedily that the expenditure would have been handsomely remunerative from the first. Unhappily the war has intervened to give the Reformers an excuse for continuing their traditional policy and to prevent the Liberals making any effective protest against its perpetuation. THE ENIGMA OF THE HOUSE. The ways of Mr John Payne are inexplicable. One of the best informed men in the House, one of the widest read and one of the most kindly disposed, he -seems at times to havo no sense of responsibility, no idea of proportion, no regard for his own dignity or for tho susceptibilities of other people. He has not oven tho_ excuse of a hasty temper. When, he is saying his hardest things, when he is making the most outrageous charges against politicians, when he is impugning their motives or even their personal honesty, lie imparts~"no more bitterness 'to his words than he would be_ if he were upbraiding a friend for failing to keep a social engagement. His outbreak last night was particularly deplorable. He had worked himself up as best he could to a semblance of indignation against the exemption of war debentures from income tax. He had discussed the question before in a perfectly sane and orderly fashion when supporting Mr Wilford's protest against an arrangement which quite a number of members regarded with disfavour. But apparently he imagined lie would not have done justice to his reputation as a daiing student of finance unless he did something spectacular. He wanted to be sure of having done what he thought to be his whole duty. " Any Ministei who would bring forward such a proposition as this,"-he shouted during the courso of his speech, "is one of the biggest traitors to the British Empire " The inevitable demand from the Speaker for the withdrawal expression brought only the retort, " I never saw anything so damnable in all my life," and a prompt refusal After this, oulv one course was open to Sir Joseph Ward, who has been leading the House during Mr Massey's illness, and Mr Payne was excluded from the remainder of the sitting. It is a thousand pities that a member capable of doing so much excellent work should persist in methods which can appeal no more to his own better sense than thoy do to the sympathy of his fellow-mem-bers. SANER CRITICISM. One of the worst results of such extravagant language as Mr Payno and one or two other members of the Labour group occasionally employ is that it makes less impetuous members of the House disinclined to voice their own criticism of the Government's proposals. Old hands like Mr Wilford, Mr Isitt, Mr Witty, Mr Sidey, Mr Smith and others arc not deterred from oppressing Choir opinions by any fejf of identifying'themselvcs with tho firebrands sitting on the back benches, but younger members, whose views might help the House, very well may think it dcs.rable to move vrurily in such company. Tho very point which Mr Payno attacked with such inexcusable warmth is quite an arguable one. There are very high authorities both here and iu the Mother Country who strongly deprecate the exemption of war loans irom tiie payment of income tax. But they do not imply that the people who hold a different view from themselves are in league with the capitalists and traitors to their own country. They do not even denounce tin* payment of income tax as '' damnable." j They consider it unnecessary and inex- | pedient. The young politician who expressed this opinion in the House would run the risk of being dubbed as a disciple of the member for Grey Lynn, and this i? a distinction which would not at the moment help hiih in obtaining a hearing from tho people he wished to influence or perhaps in securing a renewal of the confidence of his constituents. It must be said for Sir Joseph Ward iu this connection, by the way, that be treated Mr Payne with tho very greatest forbearance through- j out last night's incident, and took the extreme step only when nothing else could save the dignity of the House.