NOTES FROM THE CAPITAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 March 1916, Page 3

NOTES FROM THE CAPITAL.

THE OTIRA TUNXEL WORKS. (From Our Own Correspondent). Wellington, March 1. A deputation representing the workers engaged on the Otira tunnel works waited upon the Minister for Public Works (Hon. W. Fraser) to-day to express their alarm at reports that the construction of the tunnel is to be partly or wholly suspended. The Minister's answer cannot have been very reassuring to the men. Mr. Fraser indicated that the work weuld not be entirely suspended, but he said that the Government had to exercise economy in public works expenditure at the present time, and made it plain that the number of men employed making a hole through the Southern Alps was going to be reduced. The question is simply one of finance. The Dominion's expenditure on public works during the last quarter of 1915 is stated to have been actually higher than during the corresponding months of 1914, and the Government, faced with the possibility of the war extending into next year, must effect a substantial reduction. The sum of £2,000,000 borrowed last year within New Zealand for puWlc works will have to last, if the war continues, until the end of the next financial year, March 31, 1917. Another local loan before that date is not unlikely, but the money almost certainly will be required for war purposes. The Government cannot Count upon getting its war loan from, London indefinitely! One may hazard a prediction, indeed, that if the war does not end this year pnMic works will practically cease in i> T ew Zealand, owing to the necessity for economy and the growing shortage of labor. Nearly 30,000 additional" men have to leave New Zealand for the front before the end of 1910.

ARM BADGES. The Recruiting Board's scheme for the issue of arm badges to the men who have served or offered to serve during the present war is not working as smoothly as was expected. The red badges, which mark the returned discharged soldiers, are to be seen about the streets of Wellington, a nd presumably have made their appearance in flther centres. But the other badges, intended to distinguish the enlisted men, the men rejected on medical grounds and the exempted workers, are not yet being issued, and your correspondent was informed by Defence officers to-day that unexpected difficulties are being encountered. One of the difficulties is the unwillingness of many rejected men to be branded publicly as 'unfit." These men are not applying for badges in any numbers; yet it is obvious that if thev stand aside the value of the badges system will lie largely destroyed, since the "shirker" will not be distinguished from the men who have done their dutv. Rejected men who do apply for badges are required to undergo another medical examination, and the authorities believe that many of the men who were rejected in. the early days of recruiting, when slight defects of a remediable character were held to be disqualifications, would now he accepted. If the second examination resulted in a verdict of "fit," the earlier rejection would be cancelled and the man would have to wear the badge of enlistment, or no badge at all.