WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160796, 2 November 1920, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE EXPIRING SESSION HOMESICK LEGISLATORS.. (Special Correspondent). Wellington, November i. A sixty-seven per cent. . increase to their salaries and material additions to their perquisites "'have not made the members of the House of Representatives any more anxious to prolong tie session than they and their predecessors were. in the days when they re-, ceived only a beggarly ififlOO a year -and enjoyed a free railway pass, reduced steamer fares,; cheap .telegraph rates, exemption' from postage and : a‘ number of otner insignilicaut privileges. ' Just now, indeed, Wellington is witnessing the most unseemly scramble’for home among (he country’s legislators the oldest habitue of Parliament can recollect. The House, practically, has given the Prime Minister carle blanche to put tJirough what measures he pleases, and new daws are being turned opt as rapidly as the, handle of the Parliamentary machine can 'be moved round.' The blame for any untoward happenings from this indecent haste of course tfrill.be laid at the door of Mr Massey, biit it will be fair to remember that without the connivance of members this method of doing- business would impossible; RAILWAYS AND CONCENTRATION. While the Public Works Statement and Estimates were under discussion in the House -of Representatives on, Friday night and Saturday morning, the Minister of Railways was chided unmercifully, by a number of members upon his renunciation of. the' policy of concentration "in construction he had announced) when he hrsitTassumed office. He was not going to fritter money away on scraps of railway all over the country, he had declared, reiterating a pious resolution practically every one of his predecessors had uttered in- the days of his official youth. He, in spite of all temptation to the contrary, was going to concentrate. expenditure upon the more important and urgent lines, and. so sweep away all the waste and inefficiency of the past. It was an admirable scheme and it received the praise it deserved. But, alack and alas, the Public Works Statement came out and tnere was no provirion for concentration at all. ”