WELLINGTON NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 258, 10 April 1915, Page 6

WELLINGTON NOTES.

MUNICIPAL MILK SUPPLY. (l'roni Our Own Correspondent ) 7. , ■' wlio laud private enterprise and decry, "docialistic experiments" do not i'itid anything disturbing in the columns of 1 lie Wellington Evening Post, but that journal is coming forward as an earnest advocate of a municipal .milk supply for tlic capital city, "in tlie case of milt we gravely doubt whether the present private system can lie made satisfactory to the community." «ay.s the l'ost. "The experiment lias been tried during long decades, in which Governments and .city councils have come and gone, but the abuses continue and threaten to continue. .Successive administrations are unwilling to make the punishments sufficiently drastic to drive, dirty or fraudulent milkmen into another industry in which their neglect or dishonesty will not be injurious to the public." Municipal milk may not be all that its advocates claim for it, but the conditions of the milk supply in Wellington at the present time are well nigh intolerable. The thin, unwholesome looking .fluid that is dispensed by a great many of the milkmen in and around the eitvj presumably has its origin in dairies of some kind. But the unfortunate consumer is disposed to assume tliat they are very poor dairies a long way off. Wellington housewives will tell you that the daily milk does not turn sour in the honest, old-fashion-ed way when the weather is warm; it goes bad and smells unpleasantly. A nasty sediment is to be found at the bottom of the milk jugs, and the cream is scanty and slow to rise. Very' many people /iav» suffered these unpleasantnesses for a long time without making their complaints but there are signs now that the municipality is going to he forced ijito action. STKAMSHIP ENTERPRISE. "I have reason to believe that the Union Company of New Zealand have already made plans for the institution of .a cargo line between Australia, New Zealand and America, and that this line will be run by ships with ample space for frozen products," writes the New South Wales Trade Commissioner in San Francisco. "It is also staled on good authority that Jaines Hill, whose companies control several' transcontinental lines with tJ'ieir terminal point on the Pacific at Seattle, intends esatblishing a fast line of steamers between Seattle uid some Australian port, with the object of instituting another quick routife through to the Eastern Stales of America and London. These are developments which will have a veryi important bearing upon the future of our trade, and they should be carefull- watched, and encouraged, as it is absolutely essential that additional accommodation must be 'provided if the trade is to grow." The Commissioner proceeds, to complain that at the present, time New Zealand exporters have an advantage in the trade with the Eastern Coast of America, owing to the fact that their Government subsidises the Vancouver service and secures for them first call on the refrigerating space of the regu-' lar steamers. He foreshadows an enormous development in the import trade of Western America—California expects to receive half a million immigrants annually through the Panama Canal—and urges that the Australian States should "get busy" in order to make sure ot grasping their share of the American dollars. New Zealand is not neglecting this matter, and the Department of Industries and Commerce is able to show a record of very useful work in connection with American trade. But importlint happenings' are impending in relation to the trade movements of the Pacific, the arrival of Japanese commissioners in Wellington being one symptom; and the Dominion authorities will have to be upon the alert. ORGANISING THE RURAL WORKERS. Members of the recently-appointed Rural Workers' Organisation Committee have been in Wellington this weak and the result of their deliberations is likelv to be renewed activity on the part of the organisers who are trying to bring farm workers within the fold of the Farm Laborers' Union. The Canterbury Farm Laborers Union appears to 'be the strongest of the provincial organisations at the present time, and the delegates have had to admit that in many districts the work of organising the farmers' hands is in a very backward state. The farm labourer is the most difficult worker in the world to draw into union membership. He often lias no permanent address, his work does not bring him into contact with largo groups of his fellows, he tends to imbibe those conservative traits that belong to 'the soil, and he is seldom in ai position to pick and choose when he is seeking a job. Many of the farm workers come into town when they have made a cheque and spend all their moneys before they go back into the country. Then they must take the first employment that offers and union principles—or prejudices—may go hang. Sooner "or later the Farm Laborers' Union will be strong enough to make another appeal to the Arbitration Court, but there is plenty of work for the paid organisers to do in the meantime, and the farmers do not Beem to have much cause for immediate anxiety. When ffie proceedings of a year or two ago are resumed the Court, which refused last time to grant an award owing to the peculiar conditions of the farm laborers' work, will have to take into consideration the precedent it created when it granted an award to the Canterbury Journalists' Union. The newspaper man works l quite as much broken time as the farm laborer, and his hours of labor are at the mercy of events which ah; at least as capricious as the seasons. But the Court gave the Canterbury journalists an award which limited hours and defined time off aj well fixed wages.