WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 206, 9 October 1916, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE GREAT PUSH. XEAV ZEALAND’S PART Special Correspondent.) \V ELLINGTON October (1. AVith the report of the British Man Power Board as its text the “Dominion ’ ’ yesterday morning again, urges that New Zealand should put more men into the field to assist the Mother Country and her Allies in the concluding stages of the war. Answering the chief objection advanced against its proposal the local journal says it fully realises there is a limit to the number of men that can be spared from the Dominion without gravely reducing its capacity for production. “But,” it adds, “the available figures indicate that New Zealand could form two additional brigades of infantry for service in the probably decisive campaign of the next European spring and summer without impairing its ability to reinforce the existing units at the present rate until the end of the next year. ’ ’ The ‘ ‘ Dominion ’ ’ estimates the available men of the First Division of the Reserve at 15,000, the men reaching military age during the twelve months at 8,000 or 9,000, and the married men and widowers without children, forming the first class of the Second Division at 15.000. If these figures are correct—and ther seems no reason to doubt their accuracy—the country has men enough and to spare to meet the larger demand, and such military experts as we have here are unanimous in their approval of the “Dominion’s suggestion. Now, they insist, is the time when New Zealand should, be putting every ounce of additional weight it can spare into the great puslp PRICE OF BUTTER The application of the butter dealers to the Government for permission to raise the local price of butter by 2d. a pound and to export their surplus stocks has provoked a storm of protest from consumers and their representatives. Last night the City Council appointed a deputation to wait on the .Minister of ‘Agriculture in connection with the matter, and the Trades and Labour Council decided to remind the Government of Mr Massey’s promise to prohibit export whenever the price of butter rose above 1/7 per lb. • Mr McDonald, tho Minister of Agriculture, is administering the Cost of Living Act during theabsencc of the Prime Minister, and he is now conferring with the Board of Trade in regard to the butter dealers’ application. It is understood that the Board has reported against the increased price and against tho export of supplies unless adequate provision is made at a reasonable rate for tho local demand, and there is little doubt its recommendations will be accepted by the Minister, who understands the position as well as his advisers do, and is not easily deluded by such plausible sophistries as are being employed by the holders of large stocks of butter. ELECTORAL REFORM.

The Hon. George Fowlds, more in sorrow than in anger, is distributing a memorandum giving expression to his disappointment at the action of Parliament in postponing the operation of the Legislative Council Act, which would have made the Upper House partly elective next year and tvholly elective in 1920. Mr Fowlds thinks the postponement will have the effect of “throwing the whole subject into the melting pot,” and in anitcipation of this he suggests the ending rather than the mending of the Council. The stock argument for the retention of the second chamber —the need for a check on hasty legislation —ho meets with the stock arguments on the other side, the Initiative, the Referendum, the Recall, and the rest; but he does not stop just there. He claims, it would seem,quite logically, that the admission of the need for the application of the elective principle to the Council is an admission of the need for abolishing the chamber altogether. Two chambers elected on the same franchise by different constituencies, under a different system and for different terms, each standing on its own rights and privileges and each insisting on its own dignity, would be in costant conflict and the joint sittings provided by the suspended law would only be a palliation, not a cure for their troubles. That is the gist of Mr Fowld’s case which is likely to appeal with renewed force in these strenuous times to those electors who regard the Council as a useless encumbrance to the legislative machine