WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, 25 September 1916, Page 3

WELLINGTON TOPICS

AN OLD STORY. STATISTICS AND PRICES. (From Our Own Correspondent). Wellington, September 20. The reports of the little breeze at the Annual meeting of the Canterbury Farmers' Co-operative Association on Saturday over the management's rather unfortunate investments in wheat hare revived recollections of an animated controversy that was going on in the House of Representatives a couple of years ago. The directors of the Association laid their troubles at the door of the Government, which had begun by issuing misleading statistics and ended by prohibiting exportation till it was too late for them to get out of their bad bargain. Of course, it was the Government Statistician, not the Government, that was to blame for the first blunder, but the Government cannot escape responsibility for having kept up the delusion that there was a shortage of wheat in the country. Mr. Thomas Buxton, who was thou member for Temuka, and probably the best-informed authority on the subject in the House, stated in the most explicit way on two or three occasions that there would be a surplus of 300,000 or. 400,000 bushels. But the ll'rime. Minister pooh-poohed the idea of a business man knowing more afoout the matter than the Government Statistician did, and proceeded to back up his own judgment by buying a million bushels of Canadian wheat at the inflated price. MAKING AMENDS. That Mr. Massey 'was actuated by the very best of motives in doing what he did no one has ever seriously doubted, but that he committed a very grave error of judgment in speculating on a shortage is obvious to everyone in the light of what has happened since, .He may count himself lucky that he did not have to pay more dearly for his mistake. Had the Allies suoceedcu in making their way through the Dardanelles and releasing the stocks of Russian wheat lying along the shores of the Black Sea his little "llutter'' in Canadian options would have cost the country .something in the neighborhood of .€IOO,OOO or £130,000. What it did cost probably the public never will know. But if the Government takes the lessons of this unpleasant experience to heart the money will not have been entirely wasted. It has made one longstep towards a better state of all'airs by setting up a board of trade to advise it on such matters. if it would clothe this body with the same authority as is possessed by the Commodities Committee in New' South Wales, the countvy would not be very long in recovering the half million or so it lost over the wheat muddle. The Government requires only to attack this problem with some of the courage displayed by the statesmen of older countries to make the public much more tolerant than it is at present of its minor sins of commission and omission. DISCHARGED SOLDIERS. The progress'statement for the period ended on September 1 just issued lty the Minister in charge of the Discharged Soldiers' Information Department, is not quite so satisfactory as the friends of the men who have done their "little bit" at the front could wish. The total number of men on the register of the department at the beginning of the present month was 5505. Of this total 1083 had returned to their former employment or to military diijty, 1007 bad been placed in employment, 1014 had signified that they needed no assistance, 37!) had left the country or failed to respond to the enquiries of the department, and 135 had "drawn sections of land," while the cases of 1287 were under consideration or not ready for action. That the return is not more satisfactory is certainly due to no fault on the part of Mr. Hcrdman, who has been most assiduous and tactful in looking after the interests of the men. Its most disappointing feature is the small number of returned soldiers placed on the land, fewer than 3 per cent, of the total, and the position ought to be receiving the very earnest consideration of the Government. Plainly it is not offering sufficient inducements to the men to become primary producers, and . ii >*■ continue to neglect its duty igs

this rejpect it will encounter very grav< difficulties when they begin to return in their thousands seeking employment after the war. THE FRENCH WAY. As bearing on this subject in a more or less direct way a letter addressed by Seregant Isitt, the elder son of the nieni- ' ITer lor Christchurch North, to a friend in Wellington is of special interest. Sergeant isitt has been in the trenches "somewhere in France" for several months, and between strenuous bouts of lighting he has been allowed on one or two occasions to make afternoon excursions -into tlie country lying behind the lines. ''These trips," he writes, "have been a revelation to me and a delight. The l''i'cnch people are the'most genu; inely hospitable and courteous folk I have ever known. Their 'Bon jour, Ser- | gcant,' as you meet them on the road or pass them working in their little plots of ground—women and old men—sounds like a welcome and a cheery prayer for your welfare and not a bit , like n conventional salutation. How I they live I can't tell. But they seem always working, always cheerful and always ready to share what they have with an Englishman. There are no slums in the towns like we have even in New Zealand, ind every cottager about the country has his piece of land, perhaps only a few square yards, and from this he appears to get all he wants to eat and drink and to give away. If| this is the close settlement you have been talking about you are on the right track. It would do our politicians a vast, amount of good to travel through France and see now a. brave peasantry can bear itself in such an awful time as this. The people's love for their country and the use they make of it are simply splendid." Probably Sergeant Isitt has not delved so deeply as his father has into social ind economic problems, but, like many another New Zealander, he is keeping his eyes open while fighting tlie battles of' the Empire and fitting himself for the tusks which lie before the younger generation here. THi: GENERAL STAFF A certain amount of nonsense is being talked about the employment at ■Defence. Headquarters and elsewhere in the Defence service of men who "ought to be at the front." It is quite true that there arc in the various "Defence offices many men who would very much like to get to the front and who doubtless would be of great use if they did get there. But New Zealand, with some 12,000 men continuously in the training camps, must retain an expert staff, and it is scarcely reasonable to say that all these,, men could be replaced by civilians or even by returned soldiers. A mill- . tary organisation cannot be run by men who have not had military training, and comparatively few of the returned soldiers are capable of doing the work that is required. In any case, they have not the wide experience of the men already in the jobs, and it surely would be a mistake to reduce the efficiency of the military machine, now running fairly smoothly, by drastic staff changes. Every draft of reinforcements that leaves New Zealand takes with it some men who been doing staff work, and tlie number of returned soldiers employed by the Defence Denartment in New Zealand grows steadily. The commandant, speaking on this point, stated that the process was going along quite as rapidly as was consistent with the maintenance of efficiency. There were men in the Defence Department, he said, who had applied again and again for permission to go to the front, and who felt very keenly the refusal that had been given them; but he felt that these men could not be allowed to go without detriment to the training of the forces. The maintenance of a regular steam of well-trained reinforcements was the first and main consideration.