WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 128, 31 May 1916, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

COMPULSORY SERVICE

LABOUR'S OBJECTIONS

(Special Correspondent). WELLINGTON, May 29

The protest of the Point Elizabeth and State Colleries Union is a typical example of the protests against compulsory miltary service that are being made by disgruntled people belonging to one class or another through out the country. These people may be inspired by the very best motives in the world, but they certainly are not guided by an intelligent understanding of the positon. New Zealand has committed itself to certain obligations in connection with the war which cannot be postponed for a year or a month or even for a single day. The response to the call for volunteers has been magnificent—in its way as magnificent as the response at Heme—and it still is possible that compulsion will not be required. That will depend largely upon people who so far have done nothing by precept or practice to encourage recruiting. If the workers' unions would display officially the splendid patriotism that has taken thousands of their members to the front they very scon would shame the shirkers and slackers into doing their duty. But this is no time to be arguing about the matter in a narrow, carping, controversial spirit. The way to save voluntaryism is to volunteer. If the Government could be sure of getting sufficient recruits to discharge the dominion's obligation to the Mother Country it would have no desire to apply compulsion. Sentiment, tradition, expediency all incline the other way. But- the Government cannot be sure of getting the men required while shirkers and slackers and thoughtless indifferent people hang back. The reinforcements are going linto camp short of their quotas and their numbers have to be made up by special appeals involving delays and anxieties which are good neither for the general organisation nor for the efficiency of the men. The Government is simply seeking to guard against these undesirable contingencies by taking authority to call up under a perfectly equitable system the number of men needed to fill up the vacancies.

Of course, this is compulsion —con- | scription if the critics please—but it ! also is a sane, logical way of distributing the burcien of Empire and achieving eciuaiity of sacrifice. No distinctions will be made between the classes, rich and poor will be equally liable to service and their tasks and rewards will be precisely the same. The official representatives of the West Coast miners cannot even have read the provisions of the Military Service Bill when they framed their protest. There is not a single word in the measure threatening the democratic rights on which they set such store, ncr a single sentence suggesting the substitution of military rule fcr civil authority. The law will be made by civilians and its administration will be entrusted to civilians, while both the civil Parliament and +he civil Government will remain un- ' der the control of the civil people. Ccmpulsory military service may be, p-« r en in these circumstances, a dis"ereeible necessitv. but it certainly will net be tyrannous nor subversive cf any popular liberty.

THE PEOPLE'S EXPENDITURE

WAR AND ECONOMY.' The annual parliamentary return showing the consumption within the dominion of articles of common use is of particular interest this year on account of the light it throws on a number of domestic problems arising out of the war. The figures for 1914 covered only five months of the war period, but the figures for 1915 cover a full year and suggest that there has been no slackening of expenditure upon the articles included in the list which may be fairly classed as luxuries.

The consumption of spirits, for instance, which in 1914 had reached 2.53 gallons per head of the adult population, the largest on record up to that time, ran up to 2.75 gallons last year. The consumption of beer has remained practictally stationary during the last three years, the trifling increase in the use of the New Zealand brewed article just about balancing the decline in imported beer. The total in 1013 was 13.39 gallons per head of th e population over fifteen years of" age. in 1914 13.42 gallons and in 1915 13 41 canons. Ncr has drinking success to the Allies or celebrating their victories materially affected the demand for wine. In 1913 the consumption of this bever-. age wa' u 0.19 gallon per head of the population over fifteen years of age, in 1914 0.20 gallon and in in 1915 0.21 'gallon. The Government Statistician pssumes that only the adult males in the population drink spirits and that the whole of the population over fifteen years of age drink beer and wine, an P.sumption that probably gives a larger consumption per head than actually takes place in the case of spirits and a smaller in the case of beer and v»;ine.

TOBACCO AND TEMPERANCE DRINKS.

The consumption of tobacco lias un- , dergone no very startling change since the commencement of the war. There was actually a decrease of some 7,0001b5. in th e quantity smoked in 1915 compared with the quantity smoked in 1914, but this, no doubt, was due to the number of adult males in the country having fallen by nearly 8,000 during the year, owing to the dispatch of reinforcements to the front, and the quantity per head increased from' 1 6.971b5. to T.lllbs. Cigars and cigarettes, which certainly wer e smoked by others than male adults to whom they are all credited, showed a large increase, the duty >cn these articles amounting to I £ 229,547 Mn 1913, to £247,442 in 1914 and to £255,825 in 1915. Tea drinking, as indicated by the imports, largely increased during 1914, the consumption per head of the population over j fifteen years of age advancing from I 6.231bs to 5.721b5., but last year, owi ing probably to' conditons apart from I the war, it fell to 7.901b5. The use of I coffee and cocoa, on the other hand, calculated on the total population, fell from 0.531 b per head in 1913 to 0.491 b in 1914, the lowest figure for some years, and rose to 0.671 b. last year, the highest since 1899. The consumption of sugar which calculated on the same basis s tood at 1 122.51b5. per head in 1913 declined to 95.11 b in 1914, but rose to 142.8 in : 1915, an increase of no less than 201bs. on the figure of ten years before. The

duty paid on ad valorem goods last year, which is perhaps more significant of the economics practised by the mass of the people than are any of the other figures, amounted to £1,315,611, a decline of £244,036 on the amount paid in 1913 and of £211,162 on the amount paid in 1914. Taking it as a whole and accepting it for what it is worth, the parliamentary return confirms the popular opinion that the community is living during the war much as it lived before and has not yet set itself seriously to the task of cutting down its expenditure upon either the luxuries or the necessaries of life.