WELLINGTON TOPICS

Waikato Times, Volume 92, Issue 14257, 7 January 1920, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS

THE HOLIDAYS. •A GAY SEASON. (Special Correspondent.) WELINGTON, Tuesday. -Though the weather for the holidays was very mixed, wind and rain alternating with calm and sunshine, Wellington never has spent a gayer ChristmasNew Year time. Tradesmen report record business and the trains, trams and ferry steamers have been crowded day after day with glad throngs of Children and grown-ups on pleasure bent. The race meetings within reasonable reach, those at Manawatu, Wairarapa and Marton, drew large crowds of visitors from the city, find doubtless these crowds were responsible for the phenomenal increases in the totalisator investments everywhere. There evidently is plenty of spare cash in Wellington, as there appears to be in all the other centres of population,.,and during the last fortnight little of it has been employed in making preparations for the rainy day the joyless pessimists always are predicting. VPanis and Motor Cars. The shocking accident to an inward bound Lvall Bay car on Saturday evening has set nervy people talking afresh of the perils of the Wellington tram and motor car traffic. The deplorable catastrophe, which is giving point to their protests to-day, seems to have been due to no sinfi of commission or omission on the part of those in authority, and, in any case, will not be open for discussion, from this point of view, till an official inquiry into the facts has been held. For a long time, however, there has been a growing feeling that the motor car traffic in the city and suburbs is allowed far too much latitude in the matter of speed and in the interpretation of the rules of the road. Minor accidents that escape publicity in the papers are of frequent occurrence, and major ones are mounting up at an alarming rate. The Liberal Leaders. The meeting of the Hon. W. D. S. MacDonald, the Hon. A. M. Myers and Mr T. M. Wilford at Rotorua to prepare'the way for a caucus of the Liberal Party in Wellington later on has been the subject of much interested discussion during the holidays. Sir Joseph Ward's late colleagues naturally are expected to suggest a line of action to the other members of the party, and their advice doubtless will be received with much respect. But it is not to be assumed that they or the other members of the party are contemplating the institution of a vigorous campaign against the Reform Government. Favoured by a defective electoral svstem, and by the turn of Fortune's wheel. Mr Massey has firmly established himself on "the Treasury benches, and the present temper of the Liberals is to accept the circumstances as they are, and to make the best of them.

A Vigorous Opposition. \t the same time it is certain that the Opposition, though neither factious nor particularly well disciplined, will be an alert and vigorous one. The Liberal Party will sadly miss Sir Joseph Ward, whose personality, experience and knowledge were dominant factors in the daily life of the House; but it still comprises strong men who will-not allow their ideals to go by default. There still is talk among Mr Massey's friends of another coalition in which' both Liberalism and unofficial Labour would be represented on a proportional basis, but the idea is not finding favour with the rank and file of any of the parlies, and the probabilities are that the reconstructed Cabinet will be entirely Reform. Official Labour is hoping to be the recognised Opposition in the new Parliament, and would like nothing better than another "truce" between the two old parties.