WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taihape Daily Times, 21 January 1919, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

COST OF LIVING

DEMAND FOR INQUIRY, (Special Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, January 20

The cabled extracts from the report of the Commonwealth Interstate Commission on the cost of livingwill create a demaiTd for the appointment of a similar commission here-i Prices for the" particular lines menSfc tioned in the cable messages have been substantially higher in New Zealand than in Australia, and ft is argued that if the average profits made by the manufacturing and wholesale firms in the Commonwealth have rTs'en'from 13 pei r cent, to 33 per cent, the adyance has been considerably greater in the Dominion, if there were any prospect of prices returning to their pre-war level in the "near future, probably the sorely-tried consume* and user wo-uld be disposed to let bygones be bygones, "but judging from present appearances it will be many months before the position from the buyer's point of view is materially improved'.

NATIONAL FITNESS. The "Dominion" is publishing a series of very interesting articles dealing with "the fit and the unfit," as it puts it, medically examined for miltiary purposes during the course of the war. The article published this morning classifies according to degree the fitness, of the 71,177 men drawn in the First Division ballots. Of the number 25,382 were pronounced fit. for tctivo sen vice, 654 fit for active service after treatment in camp or hospital, 1641 fftK for active service after treatment ana recovery at home, 2251 likely to become fit for active service after special training, 38,546 unfit for active service, but fit for service in New Zeafffnd in connection with the war and 2693 unfit for any service at all. The figures, if. seems, are just about what the medical men expected from the examination and in keeping with the experience of other countries. LABOUR FEDERATION. Notwithstanding the. loud protestations of the Labour leaders of theis peaceful intentions in seeking to bring all the workers' unions into one big federation the majority "of the employers here look upon the movement with a good deal of mistrust and apprehension. "A one-big-uuion devoted to class war," the "Posf\" says on their behalf, "means, at the outset, the general strike, which amounts to a stranglehold imposed by unionism on every other member of the body politic. At the least it means that, and at most it means the \vhole range of Bolshevik principles and practices." This view is built up on the assumption that the leaders of the movement are prepared to defy all constituted authority and the leaders themselves hold it to be entirely unjustified. PEACEFUL PENETRATION.

One of them, whoso absence fromr m the Christcbmch ennferewe perhans* may discount the value ofTrfs evidence, speaking on the subject to-day, said that so far as he could judge a great majority of the unionists were opposed to what had been called direct action for the removal of their grievances. Their success in the recent byelections had turned their attention more than any amount of talking couia have done to the possibilities of political action and he believed their future efforts would lie fn THis direction. They realised that strikes, whether justified or not, must estrange the sympathy of large sections of the community from the workers, and if for that reason alone strikes were falling intc< more and more disfavour.