WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 12 March 1917, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

National Efficiency. How it is to be Achieved. (Our Special Correspondent.) Wellington, March 9 The Acting Prime Minister has returned from his Auckland tour well satisfied with the spirit in which tbe Government’s national efficiency scheme has been received by tbe people of tbe northern province. Farmers, business men and even representatives of Labour have assured him of their hearty good-will and co-opera-tion. The first business of the Efficiency Board will be to make provision for carrying on the affairs of farmers called to military service, and this, Sir James Allen, says, is already well in hand. Then the Board will undertake the classification of industries into essential and non-essential and the organisation of labour with a view to its most profitable distribution. It may be necessary to enroll womeD in certain industries in which the members ot their sex have not yet been employed and here the Minister is confident of a ready and enthusiastic response. Sir James thinks that the good effects of tbe scheme will be ap. parent almost at once and that its ultimate achievements will be of great national value.

DISCRIMINATE CONSCRIPTION The publication of the Government’s scheme for promoting national efficiency is not saving the Ministers from the iteration and reiteration of the criticism to which they have been subjected in this respect since the beginning of the war. Mr H. D. Vavasour, writing from Blenheim to the "Dominion,” protests that the Government, while urging the farmers to increase their production by every means in their power, is com* polling them to reduce it by conscripting a large part of their available labour.

Apparently be would have farm workers excused from military service altogether. The labor O'ganisationß, on the other hand, are urging that the Government in exacting too much from the workers and too little from the capitalists, is, as they like to put it, conscripting bone and sinew and exempting wealth. The Government’s object, of course, is to get the most it can from both Bouroea and Ministers claim they are working towards this eud.

THE TEOPLE’S SPEECH. The Minister of Education is finding the activities of his Department sadly hampered by the financial de-

mands of the war, but he is doing his best with the means at his disposal and with the assistance of his responsible officers he is laying the foundations of many reforms be hopes to institute when this mad world is again clothed and in its right mind. One of

the matters to which he is giving consideration is the teaching of reading in the primary and secondary schools. In many of the primary schools this subject is taught in the most perfunctory fashion and in most of the secondary schools scarcely at all. The result is that thousands of children are leaving the schools every year kaowing little oFthe pronunciation and emphasis. Mr Hanau’s wish is to correct this tendency by having reading raised to its proper place of importance in tbe syllabus of every sohool. the clekgt and the war.

The Minister of Defence is still being bombarded with reeolufcions of protest against olergymen and theological students being conscripted for the war. One of the curious features of the controversy is that. Sir Janus Allen is as often aocussd of extending favours to one particular church as he is of selecting this church for special persecution.

As a matter of fact no sort of distinction is made between the clergy of the different churohes. They all fare just, the same in the ballot and those drawn for service all have tbe option of undertaking non-combatant work if they prefer this to going into the filing line.

It may seem almost a too personal matter to mention here, but tho e churches that are sensitive on the question of military aetvice have reason to be thankful that the Minister has a punctilious regard for religious beliefs and. for Christian ideals and aspirations