WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3497, 27 May 1920, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

WHEAT SUPPLIES.

CRITICAL SITUATION.

(Special Correspondent)

WELLINGTON, May 2(5

Though Mr Massey has been as3-irod by well-informed people that a substantially larger area of land in the South Island will be sown with wheat this year than was the case last year, he still is a little uneasy over the supplies of the cereal that have to carry the Dominion on till the end of February next, when the earliest of the new crop will be available. Between 600,000 and 800,000 bushels of the last Australian purchase still have to be delivered, but with short supplies on hand in Melbourne and Sydney and a drought devastating many of the wheat-growing districts, there is some danger of the Commonwealth Government being unable to discharge its contract. Mr Massey is in communication with the Wheat Board in regard to the matter and this. morningis sanguine of the supplies absolutely necessary for New Zealand being forthcoming. WELLINGTON SLUMS.

Wellington is still trying to persuade itself it has no slums, but Mr. Leigh Hunt, who accompanied a photographer engaged on Monday in taking a series of moving pictures, must have knocked the last prop from its selfcomplacency by his account of what he saw during his tour. "We went into one street," he told the Hataitai Electors' Association, "and there chaneed to be two or three children playing about. One" was a little girl carrying a baby. The girl herself had sores all over her face and her eyes were running. The baby was an absolute bag of bones: starvation was written all over'lt. Nest to the girl was a little boy, and he was an idiot. A still smaller child had only a singlet on and was covered with filth and dirt." And this is the capital city of the Dominion! HOVELS.

Nor was this all Mr Hunt, who is interesting himself in town-planning schemes, had to report. He and his companions, he went on to say, had found absolute hovels, houses 10ft wide by 16ft long that had been standing for thirty or forty years, and in one of them a returned soldier with his wife and children was living and paying 14/- a week rent. Such conditions were breeding disease and vice and making rebels. People could not be expected to remain loyal living in such conditions. Apart altogether from humanitarian considerations — end this, of course, must take first place —no one could doubt it would be good business and good patriotism to have these shocking conditions removed a Q d men and women and children given an opportunity to become useful citizens. THE RAILWAY DISPUTE. A report was current in the city yesterday to the effect that the negotiations between the Representatives of the Kailway Department and the representatives of the A.S.E.S. were at a standstill and that the prospect of an amicable agreement being reached was extremely remote. It seems that the only ground for this gloomy view of the situation was the fact that yesterday the representatives of the parties were sitting separately, each considering the proposals and counter-proposals from their own point of view. This does not necessarily mean any disagreement upon vital questions and it is officially stated today that nothing in the nature of a breach of negotiations has occurred. It is still hoped that a satisfactory settlement is in sight.