WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 102, 1 May 1916, Page 3

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

DEARTH OF DOCTORS. PENSIONS AND PRESSURE

(Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, April 28. The Minister of Internal Affairs, whose duties are numerous enoug-h and \ onerous enough at any time to keep him fully employed, has additional burdens laid on his shoulders just now by the scarcity of doctors. Of course, the local medical men would resent the suggestion that their dispute with the Friendly Societies turns on the question of supply and demand, but it is not unreasonable to assume that if their. / numbers wore greater t-heir demands 'in the way of fees and charges would be smaller. Competition, after all, is just as much the soul of the professions as it is the soul of business, and if the Wellington doctors were not so dreadfully overworked as they say they are probably they would have been more j inclined to meet the Minister and the Friend!}- Societies half way. As it is. ) Mr. Russell has pleaded with them in vain. The war has decreased the supply, and what the freetraders negard as inevitable has happened—prices have gene up. Then the Minister has another trouble on his hands from the operation of the same law. Doctors are wanted for the - b&ckblocks, for country hospitals and similar institutions, and they cannot be got in the numbers recpiired. Settlers are sending urgent requests to the Minister to make pro- > vision for their needs in some way'or another, and he, poor man, is doing his best, but he does not pretend that his . best is as good as he would like it to be. In one cv.se a scattered community j in the far north is making grave com- ' plaints against the only doctor within I its reach, and in another a highly qualified lady practioner has undertaken rough work that wouM tax the strength of a robust man. Mr. Russell is deluged with correspondence on the subject and is giving it -his sympathetic attention, but simply there are not enough doctors to go round, and till' the supply is increased many districts must be left practically to shift for themselves.

SOLDIERS AND THEIR DEPEND ENTS.

In his speech at the opening of the Soldiers' Hostel the other day. the Prime Minister did not offer a great deal of encouragement to the married men who would readily offer their services for the war if they could be sure of adequate provision being made for their dependents during their absence or in case of their/ death. He gave his audience to understand that the principal amendments in th e War Pensions Act during the approaching session would be to make "pensions by right" —that is, without any deduction for holding property or for having well-to-do relatives in t-h e ease of dependents —and to double the allowance in ■respect to the children of widowers committed to the care of relatives or

friends. As a matter of fact, the first amendment has been in a great mea-

sure anticipated by instructions to the Pensions Board Avhich has, ceased making deductions from the pensions reducing them to the status of charitable doles. It will be well, however, to -have the obnoxious clause expunged. As for the special concession to the children of widowers boarded out with relatives or friends it merely emphasises the inadequacy of the allowance made foil children kept at home. If 10/ a week is a fair and reasonable rate to pay to a relative or friend for looking after a child, it is not too much to pay a mother for performing the same ser.vice. Under the present schedule, which apparently Mr. Massey proposes to leave undisturbed, a mother gets £9 a year for feeding, clothing, housing, and educating a child, while a grandmother or an aunt for doing the same work will get £26 a yean. If this is the National Cobinet's conception of what is rig-at and proper towards a mother and her little ones it is time it called to its assistance som e matronly person in reviewing this question of pensions. SEPARATION ALLOWANCES.

Judging from Mr. Massey's reference to th e subject, the Government has no, intention of making any addition to the separation allbwanee, but if married men are to be urged to go to the front, or even if their services are to be accepted, this item stands more in need of revision than does any other item in the schedule. The Prime Minister has persuaded himself that one shilling a day for the wife and sixpence a day for each child are reasonable recognitions of the difference between the demands made upon marrid men and the single men. He shows that if the married man allots the whole of his pay to his wife, denying himself everyone of the little comforts ion which his unencumbered comrade can spend 35/ a week, his family of five will have £2 16/ a week to spend and declares he heard no one demanding in Parliament that they shouM have any more. He should refresh his memory by a. glance at Hansard. But even if fhere had not been a whole chorus of protest against the inadequacy of the 1 allowances, it w<juld not be fair to quote the silence of members in support of an obvious injustice. When the Pensions Act was passed there was no call for married men, no expectation of their being required, but now they are being accepted as eagerly as sin-

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gle men and their ctoiras must be considered. Canada pays the wife 20/ a -week and South Africa 14/7 a week with a generous allowance for children. The weekly income of a wife with two children in Canada, assuming the husband makes an allowance of 3/ a day from his pay. is 41/ a week, and in South , Africa 46/1 a week, while in New Zealand it is only 35/ a week. Surely this Dominion, with all its wealth and prosperity, having admitted married men ar e needed, is not going to be less concerned for their dependents than are Canada, South Africa, Australia, and even the Mother Country. That would be a sad way of belying its boast of leading the whole Empire.

COMPULSION. The Canterbury Women's Institute has selected this particularly inopportune moment to raise a protest against compulsory military service and has given th e Prime Minister an opportunity to state the case for the other side with eomendable forbearance and dignity. * Mr. Massey does not dispute the contention of the Institute that the maintenance of large armies "for the slaughter of men. and the infliction of suffering on other people" is not calculated to make for an enduring peace, but he challenges the logic of the simple ladies who would allow a nation ( holding the opposite view to subjugate every other nation to its unrighteous will. The effect of his Mcid statement of the position ought to be to silence at least till the end of th e war 'those •helplessly deluded persons who seem to imagine that a short cut to the rnillenium would be found by the British Empire permitting itself to be raided and robbed and humbled to th e dust by a relentless and unscrupulous foe. In any case the Government is not going to be diverted from its course nor delayed iii its purpose by such insufferable nonsense. The text of the Compulsory Service Bill will not be available to th e public till Parliament meets, but the Prime Minister: has given some indication of its provisions. The quota of recruits required from each district will be assessed on the basis of the number of men of milir tary ag e in the district at the present time and there will be no compulsion so long as the district finds its requnfed number of volunteers. If it fails, then the deficiency will be made up by ballot among the available men in the distict, single men without dependents being taken first. If there must be compulsion, no system could be fairer than this, and the fact that Sir Joseph Ward, who all along has been consistently opposed to conscription, has accepted the inevitable ought to satisfy the most ardent anti-militarist that it is needed for the credit of the Dominion and in the interests of the Empire.