WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 March 1917, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

RAILWAYS AND WAR. (Special Correspondent). Wellington, Marcli 2. When William Harold Hales, the timetable expert, on whose ill-requited ability to dove-tail the various services together the whole railway system of the Dominion seems to depend, came before the Wellington Military Service Board the other day to ask for an extension of his exemption his application was supported by the District Traffic Manager and the Assistant General Manager, whp declared that the Department could not possibly spare the young man. In explaining this extraordinary position to the Board the Assistant Manager said the railway authorities had so far obtained no indication of the policy of the Minister in regard to the reduction of train services, but was preparing a scheme oil its own account which would release a further batch of men for military service, if it were approved by the Government. To-day Mr. Herries himself was able to give some particulars of the siheme, which includes the discontinuance of a number of passenger trains and the discouragement of traffic by raising the charges. The mere discontinuance of race trains and excursion trains, the Minister says, would afford little relief, practically none at all. It is the whole service that must be overhauled, and the public must be prepared to put up with fewer travelling facilities. SOLDIERS' SETTLEMENT. The executive of the Returned Soldiers' Association is protesting against the half-hearted fashion in which the Government is dealing with soldiers' settlement. Much of the land set aside under the existing legislation is of such poor quality that it can be occupied only in large holdings, and men capable of taking up such holdings need no assistance 1 rom the State. Even some of the land acquired from private individuals has been leased in considerable areas to men who very well could have shifted for themselves. On the other hand, men who had hoped to secure 'small block?, of good land suitable for grazing a few cows or carrying on the smaller industries have been sadly disappointed. Already cases are "being quoted in which men have taken up hlotiks of mnd beyond their means, and aftof spending their little capital on preliminary work have abandoned their holdings. Obviously the whole system 'ladlv needs ovcr-houling. At present it is not giving anything like the results Parliament expected. COST OF 'PAPER. Wellington has bee.'i entertaining this week--not unawares—two or threescore of newspaper men, proprietors, managers and journalists, who have been attending the annual meetings of the Newspaper Proprietors' Association and the Press Association. Some public interest was given to the proceedings at the meeting of the former institution by the fact that an increase in the price of newspapers was among the subjects set down or discussion. The enormous advance n the cost of paper since the beginning of the war had made some step of this kind absolutely necessary, and it was rather in a facetious mood than in sober earnest that one or two of the members of the Association suggested certain economies in production and competition as an alternative to a rise in price. One gentleman instanced (he gross extravagance going on in Cbristcliurch in the issue of five daily papers, and another insisted that if Wellington would content itself tfith one morning paper inHead of maintaining two it would get a better service at about half the' pre sent cost. But the trouble, as the chairnan smilingly pointed out, would be to : determine which should commit harakiri. NATIONAL EFFICIENCY. Judging from his replv to a deputation that waited upon liim at Stratford yesterday to remind him of the grave difficulties being created by the enlistment of farm workers, Sir James Allen himself is not very sanguine of the National Efficiency Board working all the miracles to which it is invited by ( its order of reference. He hoped, he said, that by the time the next milking season came round the whole problem would have been solved by the systematic organisation of labor. The next milking season is still six or seven months aw'av, and, curiously enough, this is about the time popular opinion has fixed for the presentation of the Board's first interim report. After that legislation, orders-in-ouncil, administrative machinery and a score of other linings will be required before the recomemmlations of the Board, even if they are acceptable to the Cabinet, can be put into operation. All this, of course, is being used as an argument for the Government taking the work it lias relegated to the Board in hand itself and so ordering the affairs of the Dominion that its trade and commerce and industries may be placed iu the highest state of ctticienev.