WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taihape Daily Times, 14 September 1918, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE BY-ELECTION. THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT’S DILEMMA. w (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Sept 12. From what one can pick up iu the “usually w r ell informed circles” the delay in selecting the National ernment’s candidate for the vacaHp Welington Central seat is not due so much to the multiplicity of aspirants for Parliamentary honours as it is to the difficulty of finding a suitable man ready to enter the contest w r ith the prosepet of sitting in the House for only one session and then having to face the electors again. Mr. C. Sker* ratt would be entirely acceptable fo both parties represented in the Cabinet and probably to a large sqction of the .Laour Party, but he is essentially a man of action and can scarcely be expected to make large personal and professional sacrifices for the privilege of playing the part of the “dumb dog” till the termination of the war forces the private member to take ,a r more active part in the management of the affairs of the country. Though he has not yet defienitely refused, the nomination, his intimate friends think it unlikely he will embark upon the troubled waters of politics at the present juncture.

LABOR’S PART. Meanwhile the leaders of the official Labour Party, with their freer hand and better combination, are makpreparations for a preliminary ballot to select a candidate. They are doing this with no personal hostility to the Hon, W. D. S. MacDonald, the acting leader of the Liberal Party, who happens to be a persona grata to the great majority of the workers;] but they hold that the late Mr.. Robert Fletcher was returned to seat by their efforts and that they are en* titled to the nomination of his successor. This argument does not taka into account the fact that the Liberals and the Reformers together constituted a substantial majority of the electors of the constituency in 1914 or the further fact that the two older parties are committed by the “party truce” to the maintenance of the status quo. However, it is not yet beyond hope that a candidate acceptable to the Natihonal Government and to a large proportion of the workers r will be found and the spectacle of a’Sectional contest avoided. * THE COAL DISPUTE.

Though strict secrecy has been imposed upon both parties represented at the coal mines conference in regard to the progress of their negotiations, scraps of information have leaked out which encourage thehope that an amicable settlement of the matters in dispute will be reached. The owners once having agreed to meet the men, at the earnest instigation of the Government, took up the conciliatory attitude proper to the occasion and made certain proposals which it is hoped will meet with the approval of the unions. Yesterday the conference was engaged in the discussion of a scheme for settling disputes without the men being driven, to call attention to their grievances, by striking. The popular opinion is that the Conciliation and Arbitration. Act makes provision for this, but apparently both the owners and the men have found the existing law an insuffi-

cient safeguard. COST OF LIVING. The Board of Trade has been busy for some time past in gathering information as to the effect of retail prices and house rents upon the cosh; of living in Wellington. The figures it has collected are the basis of a report it is presenting to the Minister in charge of its Department and for the present, at any rate,-are not available for publication; but the returns of the Government Statistician have been constantly dinning it into the ears of the housewives of the capital city that since the very beginning of the war they have been paying higher prices for their supplies, with, the single exception of meat, than have been current in the other large cities of the Dominion. As for rents, they are some 30 per cent higher here than they are in Auckland and, roughly, 40 per cent higher than they are in Christchurch and Dunedin. Many tenants are actually buying their houses as the only escape from what they regard as extortionate rates.