WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, 14 August 1918, Page 3

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

COAL FAMINE. BOARD OF TRADE REPORT. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 12. The report by the Board of Trade upon the coal supply of Wellington has not brought much comfort to the sorely-tried housewives of the city. It merely confirms what the Minister of J Supplies, the Hon. A. M. Myers, and the Minister of Mines, the Hon. W. D. S. MacDonald, have been telling the l ’ public for some months past. There is a very real shortage throughout the country and the shortage is affecting Wellington more acutely than it is affecting any of the other large centres owing to its distance from the sources of supply. Lignite slack is placed on the trucks at the Waikato mines at 5s ' a ton, but the rail carriage to Wellington amounts to 15/6 a ton and the loss in transit from one cause and anl other to 1/6 a ton. It is plain that neither the merchants nor the retail- : ers are making excessive profits, hut it is equally plain that the consumers : are getting very poor value for their ■ money. THE ABSENT MINISTERS. It is being assumed in some quarters that owing to the improved war outlook the return of Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph Ward to the Dominion will be delayed and that the session of Parliament expected to open in October will not be graced by the presence of the party leaders, at any rate during its earlier stages. The Minis, ters here, of course, are very reticent in regard to the matter, as they naturally are on all matters concerning the movements of the travellers; but there appears to be no good ground for supposing that the return of the leaders will be postponed on account of what has happened on the Western front during the last week or two. The magnitude of the Allies’ success need not be under-rated, but it is not likely to lead to the long desired peace conference this year and nothing else could keep Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph Ward away. THE PROHIBITION CAMPAIGN. The promoters of the prohibition, campaign for a referendum on the proposal of the National Efficiency Board to buy out the liquor trade profess to be confident of obtaining a petition to Parliament which will be far 'and away the biggest thing of the kind ever seen in the Dominion. The great petition for the extension of the Par. liamentary vote to women bore between 30,000 and 40,000 signatures. This petition, if the expectations of the promoters of the movement arc realised, will bear at least 300,000 signatures and probably 400,000. The electors here, however, have not yet grown enthusiastic over the matter. Had the campaign been launched immediately after the presentation of the Board’s report it would have had a better chance of success than it has now, six o’clock closing having very naturally lessened the “horrid examples” that were inclining the public towards the still more drastic reform. THE GERMANS’ JOKE. Though the discovery of the four supposed German escapees under one of the buildings at Somes Island has set Wellington at the joke the men played upon the authorities, it has not restored public cnofidence in the methods adopted to secure the safe custody of interned subjects. The official report upon the last escapade of the kind, in which one prisoner, deserted by his comrades in an attempt to reach the land, was drowned, has net yet reached the Minister, but there is a feeling abroad that the British way of “doing good to your enemies” has led to a certain amount of laxity which might he attended by serious consequences both to the prisoners themselves and to the commun- , ity. However, in a Plotter of this kind a jest with the laugh against the authorities may do more than a tragedy ] to mend matters and already it is an- { nounced the guard has been strengthened. , f