WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taihape Daily Times, 14 May 1918, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

DEFENCE EXPENDITURE. V■_ A « THE COMMISSION’S REPORT, WELLINGTON, May 13., With the close of the sittings of the Defence Expenditure Commission in, sight speculation as to the nature ofjp * its report is rife. Sceptical people, remembering the ways of previous Com> missions and previous Governments, arc not sanguine of anything very drastic resulting from the labours of SirRobert Anderson, and his colleagues. They have seen a brave show of resolution before, they say, and ver-yUittle performance. But people better acquainted with Sir Robert Anderson’s, methods and his work in Australia are much more optimistic. They expectthe chairman, whose running commentary upon the evidence has been both.. frank and suggestive, to make recommendations which it will be impossible: for the Minister to ignore. The need for reform in various directions has been shown beyond the shadow of a doubt and Sir Robert Anderson is not the sort of ma to be a party to obscuring the fact.

SO FAR SO GOOD. During the sitting of the Commission on Saturday morning the Chairman paid a somewhat dubious complynent . to the Minister of Defence. been a disposition on the part of several witnesses to attribute everything that has gone wrong la the administration of the Department to the obtrusion of political influence and it was in commenting upon the evidence of a witness who had contradicted a particular allegation of this kind that Sir Robert Anderson rather overdid his exoneration of the Minister. "We Have asked all over the place,” he said, “and never once been able to trace a case in which the Minister of Defence has interfered with an appointment.” So far as it goes this is admirable. But the most serious criticism directed against Sir James Allen is that he does not interfere with the heads of Departments enough and that, amongothcr things, he allows them to make utterly unsuitable appointments with motives loss unimpeachable than his own, THE SEDITION CASES. The Christchurch sedition cases, in which three men intimately associated with the Labour movement were sent to gaol for three months for proposing, seconding and supporting a mo.tion. put to a public: meeting by ; : o'f the city, has attracted a of : attention here. Indignationnineetinss culminated on. 'Saturday in a dcpui* tion waiting upon the Minister of- Justice with a request , that the men should be immediately released, and though the Hon. T. M- Wilfred preserved a very proper ministerial, nity in his reply it will not,, be ,ajt all surprising if a very payir of the men’s penalty shop]d j!t l>e . remitted At the hearing of the charges the Mayer tf Christchurch excused himself for having put the motion .bysaying ho had not noticed its seditious character, and a member of the deputation emphasised the very obvious point that if a chief magistrate could not detect a breach of the War Regulations it was absurd to expect a plain working man to do so. COST OF KEYING. The Board of Trade does not get all the honour it deserves in Wellington—this, of course, being its own county—and just now it is being severely taken to task for rushing off to Dunedin to inquire into the prices of groceries there when the prices of groceries hero are not only materially higher than those in the southern city, but actually higher than those in any of the smaller towns with the exception of Napier and Gisborne\. The prices of groceries in Wellirigron are, indeed, a positive scandal, many people with practical knowledge declaring they have soared to their present height through the machinations of a ring that has proved too strong for the well-intended legislation, of th'e Government. The facts are published every month by the- Government Statistician.. who in this respect has done excellent work, but, they have made no impression upon the ring and now, it appears, have made no insistent appeal to the Board of Trade.