WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 February 1917, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

RECRUITING. (From Our Own Correspondent). The otlier day the Minister of Defence explained that the delay in bringing tho defaulting men into camp -was due to the necessary machinery being incomplete, but this would seem to imply that liis responsible oflicers again have placed him in a false position. It certainly .was unfair to hurry into camp men who recognised their duty and were prepared to do it, while men who chose to ignore the law and the country's call were allowed to go about their worU and their play as they pleased. The Minister is still appealing to the patriotism would be very materially .quickened if a score or two of their number were hailed before a court-martial on a charge of desertion. Patience may be carried to a length at which it ceases to be a virtue. Additional drafts of recruit? for the 26th Reinforcements went into camp today. About 200 men arrived from tlie South Island and were marched through the city to Lambton Station, where they entrained;, for the camps. A contingent from Group 5 (Wellington City and Suburbs) also marched through the streets. Some drafts from other .parts of the North Island went direct to the camps by train. The camps do not yet contain their ful quota of men, but the Defence authorities anticipate that the shortage which lias existed for some time past will be wiped out- within tho next few weeks. Very many of the men called up for service under the Military Service Act have required time to settle their affairs or to place appeals before the Military Service Boards. But these men are now becoming available in considerable numbers, and drafts are being sent into camp weekly from the various districts.

The Military Service Boards are overtaking the accumulation of appeals, but they will scarcely have cleared away the work in hand before the appeals from men called in the fourth ballot begin to arrive. Apparently there will be work for the ten boards for many weeks to come.

SOLDIERS' SETTLEMENT The allusion to soldiers' settlement in the cables from London a day or two ago has revived the waning interest in this subject and a member of the House of Representatives who made the North Auckland tour last month has just put forward the.' suggestion that the Government should take advantage of the scheme outlined in the message and purchase a million acres of good land on the peninsula Beyond Auckland for occupation by men returning from the war. The district, he points out, is particularly suited for settlement of this character. Very few of the present settlers have made eostly improvements, having satisfied themselves with clearing and grassing the land while waiting for the Government to provide roads and bridges and railways, and the price might be very fairly Dased on the present productive value without taking the unearned increment, for which most of the owners are waiting, into account at all. Ho estimates that £5,000,000 or £(1,000,000 ought to purchase the area he has suggested, and that £2,000,000 or £3,000,000 expended on means of communication would provide homes for 10,000 soldiers at a cost of not more than £BOO apiece. "The cheapest land settlement scheme ever put forward in New Zealand," is the comment with which lie clinches the matter. STATE CONTROL OP HARBORS.

Whatever may be the ultimate outcome of the trouble 011 the waterfront —and no one is dogmatising' about the matter just now —the intervention of the Government ought to be welcomed by the advocates of State control of the harbors of the Dominion. They can argue with some reason now that if the Government has to step in when private enterprise fails to carry on tho necessary business of tha country it might as well remain in and' see that the business of the country is never interrupted. Hitherto the principal argument against State control of the harbors has been that it would entail the State taking over the liabilities of the harbor boards, but jhe war has given the country a new conception of finance, and in these days few people would be greatly alarmed bv the Treasury taking over the book-keeping o fa dozen local bodies that rarely have displayed any particular aptitude for the task. 'That, the . reformers contend, is all the change would amount to in this respect, and in other directions, of course, they sec many advantages in State control. LABOR TROUBLES.The Wellington wharves were working normally to-day, and it appears that there is no immediate prospect of a renewal of the recent trouble. But the dispute arising from the demand of the workers for a new agreement with substantia] improvements in wages and conditions has not been settled, and is bound to recur in some form, presumably as soon as the proceedings before the Conciliation Council are brought to a close. The men insist still that they are serious in their demand for an increase of wages from Is. Sd to 2s 2d per hour work working general cargo ordinary time. The employers are quite determined that they will not pay the higher rate. Representatives of the Miners' Federation and the mine-owners are to meet! on Wednesday of next week to discuss' the dSmand of the miners for a new agreement, involving big increases in the charges upon the employers. It is hinted locally that the miners and the watersidcrs arc going to assist one another on this occasion, but it would be a mistake to attach too much importance to this suggestion at the present stage. The watersidcrs only a few weeks ago refused definitely to support the Blackball miners, who initiated a strike on the conscription issue. The attitude of the Government regarding the waterside dispute remains to be made clear. Apparently there is no immediate intention of making use of the power taken by the Government under the War Regulations Act to control wharves.