NOTES FROM THE CAPITAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 March 1916, Page 3

NOTES FROM THE CAPITAL.

RAILWAYMEVS GRIEVANCES. (From Out Own Correspondent.) Wellington, Feb. 29. Tlte demands of the railwaymen were among the matters considered at a prolonged meeting of Cabinet to-day. The Minister for Railways (Hon. W. H. Herries) was not present, owing to his continued absence in the North, and it is understood that definite action was deferred until his return. It becomes obvious that the cost to the State of conceding the extra shilling a day asked by the members of the second division of the railway service would far exceed even the original rather startling estimates. The Minister for Railways has been informed by his departmental officers that the extra shilling for the second division would involve an annual charge of wore than £2*3,000. But' the members of the first division are making plain their belief that a concession to one branch of the service would involve a corresponding concession to the other branch. If tae railway servants secure extra pay, or a "war bonus." moreover, then: are other groups of public servants, smaller but still considerable, likely to ask for consideration. Indications suggest that the Government will try to do something for the railwaymen. ALLOWANCES TO SOLDIERS' DEPENDENTS. Referring to the decision of the Government to grant a separation allowance of sixpence per head per day to the children of members of the Expeditionary Forces, the Minister for Defence explained to your correspondent that the payments would be fully retrospective. The wives of soldiers already at the front will be entitled to claim the allowance, on behalf of their children (up to the number of four) as from the dates when their husbands entered camp. The maximum of 8s a day payable to the soldier and his wife under the new arrangement is intended to apply only to privates. A sergeant is paid at least 7s a day in the ordinary course, and his wife's separation allowance of Is a day would bring the total up to the maximum, thus depriving him of any benefit from the children's allowance. This point appears to have been overloiked in the drafting of the scheme, but the Minister for Defence assured your eprrespendent that there would be a ''readjustment" to meet the acse of the noncommissioned officer. The maximum will be extended for the sergeant, and probably for the corporal also. The new allowance means that a private with a wife and two children will be able to ieave his wife in possession of an income of £2 2s per week, while letaining Is a day for himself. A man needs no more pocket money than that at the front.

stomach-ache at the camps. The outbreak of gastric trouble recently reported from Featherston camp appear* to have been cheeked as fa'r as the soldiers are concerned, and the assertion of the medical authorities that the trouble had nothing to do with the food or water supply is supported by the fact that the same complaint is prevalent in Wellington city and the surrounding districts. Hundreds of people arc suffering from mild attacks of gastritis, accompanied sometimes by dysentery, and medical men are somewhat at a loss to account for the trouble. One doctor told your correspondent that he was inclined to attribute the trouble to the arrival in New Zealand of large numbers of soldiers who had been suffering from enteric fever. He remembered an outbreak of a similar kind at the time of the South African war. Some of the returned men admittedly were "carriers," and it was not certain that the Defence authorities had succeeded in retaining all of these possible centres of infection in the hospitals and convalescent camps. The trouble was not of a serious character, and there did not appear to be any cause for alarm, though admittedly a considerable number of people were being inconvenienced temporarily. BOAED OF TRADE. The Board of Trade, appointed recently under the Cost of Living Act, is to begin its work to-day. Mr. Massey, who is president of the Board in his capacity of Minister of Industries and Commerce, will meet the salaried members and discuss a programme of work and methods of procedure with them. He stated that until lie had talked the matter over with the other members he was not in a position to indicate what particular phase? of the cost of living question would first receive the attention of the Board.