WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 138, 14 June 1916, Page 3

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

COST OF LIVING. A deputation from the .Women's Anti-Conscription League which waited on Mr. Massey on Saturday had no cause to complain of any lack of candour on the part of the Prime Minister. He was patient and courteous, as he always is on such occasions, but he refused absolutely to modify in the slightest particular any opinion he had previously expressed in regard to military service. But when a member cf the deputation, apparently as a sort of parting shot at the policy and administration of the Government, invited him to "look at the cost of living" he was betrayed into a startlingstatement that scarcely can be accepted as the last ministerial word on

war prices. "I can't deal with that new," he said, but unfortunately he did attempt tc deal with it. "During the war period the cost of living must go up," he added, "no power on God's earth could keep it down. We have increased the wages of men in our employment by several hundreds cf thousands of pounds per annum. Most of the large employers have clone the same and the Arbitration Court has granted increases. There is no use in suggesting to the Government that it can keep down the price cf commodities.. It cannot go below the cost of production. What we can do is to prevent a man making undue profit and we have done it." If this is to be the attitude cf the Government towards this all-important question it ought to lose no time in producing the reports of the Beard of Trade on which it may be supposed to have framed its judgment. Here is one little set of figures now being handed about which seems to require some explanation. The quantity of wheat required 'o make a ton cf f.cur has cost the nv'.ler £9 10/-. This -when manufactured yields a ton of flour (20001 b) and TOOlbs ol bran and sharps. The bran and sharps practically pay for the cost '•f manufacture and the flour is sold -f £l2. The ton of flour is baked into 656 41b loaves and these in turn sold at a rate which gives £2-2 4/-. ""Vr is rm increase cf £l2 14/- be--•■'■r-nn the ro S t of the raw material ind the selling price of the manufacMirr.'l artnle. 128 per cent., and the • rv e ]v tv\ or ] house-wife ha s a right to ■"new in these times where all this money gees. SAVING OR SWEATING. The enquiry concerning the Public cjot-vice Commissioner's claim to have considerable saving of expenditure in several departments during *;,„ v - fir< which Mr. R. W. Smith is put- '''!■)"• fr> the Minister of Internal Af--"airs-, suarsests another Question'of at •erst enual importance. The Commis■vmer is a little prone to advertising M->e 3enlevements of his own office—blowing hsi own trumpet, as it has been less delicately put—and it would be. interesting to know exactly what these savings mean. It is alleered on what sems to be fairly good authority —no less than that of the AuditorGeneral —that some of the statements contained in the Public Service Re-

i pert last year were not precisely corj rect and the purpose of the question ! put to the Minister by the vigilant 1 member for Waimarino is to ensure | that greater accuracy shall be cbserved in the future. It is being suggested j that the savings are not savings in I the legitimate sense, but the result of j civil servants who have not gone to the work being required to do in addition to their own work the work of those who have without extra remuneration. If this is actually the case the facts ought to be plainly set out in the Commissioners' report and cre- ! rlit given to whom credit is due. The • members of th fi service are not comV'loinins* indeed they are glad to he I'dr'.ng 'heir "little bit" by assisting j t:., n \ v comrades to set away, but they , oriprf- t.o the "savings" being put down itr the Commissioner's unassited ef- ! forts.