WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 November 1916, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

MILITARY SERVICE. THE FIRST BALLOT. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, Nov. 20. The elaborate precautions taken to ensure absolute fairness and accuracy made the drawing of the first ballot under the Military .Service Act a slow and tedious business, and it it was not till Saturday -morning that the work commenced oil Thursday was completed. The names 01 seme 4(100 reservists were drawn to fill the 1300 vacancies existing in the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Reinforcements, and it is not expected that when the medically unfit and those entitled to exemption have been eliminated tin., number will be at all too large for this purpose. There are in round figures 80.000 men in the first reserve; but of these 30,000 or thereabouts are rejected volunteers who may be expected to again fail to pass the doctors. This will reduce the 4000 by one-third, and it is estimated it will be reduced by another one-third through the removal of further unfits and the withdrawal of men entitled to exemption. If these anticipations prove correct the ballot will give only the number of men actually required by the two reinforcements now commencing their training, but if there should be a surplus it will be employe! in re-establishing the reserve which lias been practically exhausted in making up shortages in previous reinforcements The names of the men drawn in the ballot prooably will be published in the Gazette on Thursday next.

OBSERVERS AND OBJECTORS. The last txvo marbles in the ballot having been drawn by Mr. J. P. Luke, the Mayor of Wellington, and Mr. M. i Rcardon. the president of the Trades and Labor Council, who were among the representative people invited to witness the proceedings, the inevitable speeches followed. Mr. Luke testified to the orderly and impartial manner in which the business hail been conducted, and Mr. Rcardon complimented the Government Statistician and the Stipendiary Magistrate upon the smoothness with which their arrangements had worked out. Mr. Fraeer and Mr. McCarthy made suitable replies, the Statistician explaining why there would be some delay in the publication of the names, and so the historic incident closed. There can Ik no doubt that the ballot was taken with the greatest care and the utmost circumspection, the spirit of the law, which makes no distinction between individuals, being observed in every particular, and the assurances that have been given on this point ought to go a long way towards reconciling the opponent* of coir pulsion to a dire necessity which everyone would wish to avoid. There are riimors of "conscientious objectors'' and "passive resistors" who are going to give trouble later on, -but it is tolerably sale to say that the people who would deny the Empire the assistance it needs in the present crisis are in a very small and rapidly dwindling minority.

THE REQUISITIONED WOOL. The negotiations that are now going on between the New Zealand Government ar.d the wool-growers and their repiesentatives in regard to the price to be paid for the wool that has been requisitioned by the Imperial Government, have reached a stage at which they assume more than a passing interest for the general public. It seems that the objection of the wool-growers to the proposal that an advance of -15 per cent should be. paid upon pre-war rates wai based on the fact that seme wools have advanced in value more ihan others have, and that an all-round increase at' a flat rates would be inequitable. The Imperial authorities have mot this objection by offering to adjust the prie~ to the varying advances, and in the opinion of a great many farmers and business men this- ought to settle the matter; but it is reported that some of the people concerned are holding out for the full market war values. Naturally tinattitude does not commend itself to th • general public. The New Zealand Government could commandeer the wool here at any price it pleased, as the Imperial Government could on its arrival in London, and in view of all the circuni-, stances the Dominion it. not being placCU in a very good light by the people who arc trying to drive the hardest possible bargain with the Empire. However it may look close by, from a distance it certainly will appear a rather poor expression of New Zealand's patriotism.

iABOR UNREST. People who are seeing in the protests of the Social Democrats anil the threat* of the Seamen's and Drivers' Unions portend of a great industrial upheaval in the near future probably are alarming themselves quite unnecessarily. It is plain to everyone that the very large increase in the cost of living has added enormously to the difficulties of the married town worker, earning anything from £2 to £3 since the beginning of the war. Just how he manages to makr ends meet at all is an insoluble mystery to folk more fortunately situated. But though this man may grumble and pro(Cnt—as he has good reason and a perfect right to do—he is not the sort of person to enter upon a struggle with his employer till he lms exhausted every other possible means of obtaining' redress. The Auckland drivers have gone the length of giving notice of thenintention to declare a strike a week hence, and if the employers refuse to listen to the representations they doubtless will carry their threat into execution ; but these workers are placed in an anomalous position by the existence of an award vhicli takes no account of the increase in the cost of living, and failing an amicable agreement they have no other means of extricating themselves from what they regard as an intolerable position. Their case, however, need not lie taken as symptomatic. It is rather an incident in the readjustment of conditions.