WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 12 March 1917, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

1 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY HOW IT IS TO BE ACHIE\ ED. (Our Special Correspondent) WELLINGTON, March 9. The Acting-Premier has returned from his Auckland tour well satisfied with the spirit in which the Government’s national efficiency scheme has been received by the people of the Northern province. Farmers, business men and even representatives of labour have assured him of their hearty goodwill and co-operation. The first business of the Efficiency Board will be to make provision for carrying on the affais of those farmers called to military service, and this, Sir James is already well in hand. Then the Board will undertake the classification of industries into essential and non-essen-tial and the organisation of labour with a view of its most profitable distribution. It may be necessary to enrol women In certain industries in which the members of their sex have not yet been employed, and here the Minister is confident of a ready and enthusiastic response. Sir James thinks that the good effects of the scheme will be apparent almost at once, and that its ultimate achievements will be of great national value. DISCRIMINATE CONSCRIPTION The publication of the Government’s scheme for promoting national efficiency is not saving the Ministers from the iteration and reiteration of the criticism to which they have been subjected in this respect since the beginning of the war. Mr H. D. \ avasour, writing to the ‘'Dominion,” protests that the Government, while urging the farmers to increase their production by every means in their, power, is compelling them to reduce it by conscripting a large part of thei,r available labour. Apparently he would have farm workers excused fom military service altogether. The Labour organisations, on the other hand, ’are urging that the Government is exacting too much from the workers and too little from the capitalists—is, as they like to put it, conscripting bone and sinew and exempting wealth. The Government’s object is, of course, to get the most it can from both sources .and Ministers claim they are working towards the end. THE PEOPLE’S SPEECH The Minister of Education is finding the activities of his Department sadly hampered by the financial demands of the war, but he is doing his best with the means at his disposal, and with the assistance of his responsible officers he is laying the foundation of many Reforms he hopes to institute when this mad world is again clothed in its right mind. One of the matters to which he is giving attention is the teaching of reading in the primary and seconoaiy schools. In many of the primary schools this subject is taught in the most perfunctory manner, and in most of the secondary schools scarcely at all. The result is that thousands of children are leaving the schools every year knowing little of the pronunciation of their own language and nothing at all of the uses of enunciation and emphasis. Mr Hanan’s wish is to correct this tendency by having reading raised to its proper place of importance in the syllabus of every school, THE CLERGY AND THE WAR. The Minister of Defence is still being bombarded with resolutions of protest against clergymen and theological students being conscripted for the war. One of the curious features of the controversy is that Sir James Allen is as often accused of extending favours to on e particular Church as he is of selecting this Church for special persecution. As a matter of fact no sort of distinction is made between the clergy of the different Churches. They all fare just the same in the ballot, and those drawn for service all have the option of undertaking non-combatant work if they prefer this to going into the firing line. It may seem almost a too personal matter to mention here, but those Churches that are sensitive on the question of military have reason to be thankful that the Minister has a punctilious regard fo,r religious beliefs and for Christian, ideals and aspirations.