WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 9 January 1917, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

NATIONAL SERVICE. WORK AND WAR. (Special Correspondent). WELLINGTON, Jan. 8. People liere who have been urging for months past —some of them since the beginning of the war —the mobilisation of the whole strength of the Dominion, men, women and wealth, in support of the Empire in its struggle for existence, have taken heart of grace from Mr Lloyd George's attitude, and are now pressing their views upon the Acting Prime Minister and his colleagues in the National Cabinet. Mr Allen is not unsympathetic. He admitted to an interviewer the other day that "a great deal more ought to be donte to get the best out of our people," but he suggested that a levy en masse was too big a problem to face in the absence of the Prime Minister and Sir Joseph Ward in London. The friends of the movement do not suspect Mr Allen of any lack of courage in tins matter,, as they scarcely could after his firm administration of the Defence Department, but a preliminary step towards the institution of national service would be a session of Parliament, and it is believed there is a tacit understanding between the Ministers that members will not be called together, during the absence of the party leadA MATER OF URGENCY.

The feeling that this is a matter of urgency which should not be delayed till the return of Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward is growing and extending., end even the "Post," which usually takes some time to assimilate revolutionary ideas, ventures to observe that "a suspension, of high policy because, ,f the absence of the two leaders is a , disadvantage to which there should be ; limits. •• It is pointed out, too, that the extension of the two leaders' visit to the Old Country by two months or more has materially altered the position, and that waiting for their, return. will mean deferring any effective action by New Zealand till the middle ot our own winter, when the campaign by which the Allies hope to win the war will be in full swing, and the Dominion's ability to help in the supreme effort will be at its lowest ebb. That the Ministers on the spot recognise the need for better and further organisation may be gathered from their public utterances. Mr •Allen has mentioned the matter again and again, Dr McMib has urged it on many occasions, Mr .Myers has found the need for; closer in the munitions and supply departments, and Mr McDonald, as Acting Minister of Industries and Commerce, has given practical expression to the idea in scores of ways. PRACTICAL EFFORT.

The operation* Mr MacDctaald jis carrying on in connection with wool, meat and. batter, and the negotiations he has in hand in regard to wheat and flour arc in some sense an application of the principle of national mobilisation, but they touch only the fringe of the subject, and apparently the Cabinet is prepared to go further than this without waiting for, the mandate ot Parliament. Speaking at Gisborne a week or so back, Mr Mae Donald said Ministers had discussed the organisation of agricultural labour, and were going to ask several State departments concerned and the farmers' unions to assist in framing a scheme to ensure the best results to the producers and adequate wages to the workers A Wanganui citizen, again, has suggested that all the racecourses in the Dominion should be put down in wheat this year to augment the country's supplies .of foodstuffs at a very small cost. But these can only be spasmodic efforts, leading to nowhere in particular, unless they are taken up as part of a national effort, and carried through in the most efficient way possible.