WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1917, Page 3

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

KAILWAY SERVICES.

EASTER TRAFFIC.

(Special Correspondent.) Wellington, April 11. Holiday-maker;, are returning to town frith anything but flattering accounts of the Railway Department's arrangements for the Easter traffic. It would seem from some of their stories that the management had deliberately provided the worst possible service this year in order that the public might be the more readily reconciled to the withdrawal of suburban services and the discontinuance of holiday fares. In many cases the ordinary traffic was suspended to make room for excursion trains which ran to the wrong places or at the wrong times and were only half filled. In other cases the excursion trains simply ran in competition with the ordinary trains and merely doubled the cost of carrying an indefinite number of people to a certain number of places. The time-tables insisted upon long delays at some without any regard to their importance, and upon running through others without any stop at all. Probably the official explanation of all this, if the facts were admitted, would be that the railway staff had been depleted by the demands of the war; but as a matter of fact many fewer hands would have been required for an efficient holiday service than for the very inefficient one that was provided.

MEN AND PBODUCE.

The iterated and reiterated insistence of the Minister" of Defence upon the supply of men being of more consequence than the production of foodstuffs at the present stage of the war is being discussed 'With some warmth in the rural districts. There is no suggestion from sane people anywhere, of course, that the strength of the reinforcements being cent to the front should be lessened. On this point the farmers to a man are with Sir James Allen. But they argue that the production of food and clothing for ourselves and for the Mother Country and her Allies should be made an essential industry, and that a sufficient number of men should be exempted from military service to keep it running at its fullest capacity, 'This, they protest, is not a plea on their behalf. They would bo ready to submit to any reasonable scheme of organisation which asked them no greater sacrifices than were demanded from the rest of the community. A farmer should not be excused from military service because he was a farmer, nor a farm worker because he had been employed about a farm; but because he was the person best qualified to give the country the particular service it required at homo.

THE DEMOCRATIC FARMEK.

The farmers who are propounding these very admirable sentiments claim to be much more democratic than 'the Ministers who are administering the Military Service Act, or the irresponsible Socialists who are denouncing the measure. The fault they find with eon- ■-■ n'ption is not that 'it compels men to ■~em whether they like it or not, but that it does not sufficiently discriminate in regard to the services they shall render. It tries to manufacture soldiers out of men who are utterly unfitted for a military career, but who would make excellent farm workers or stockmen or dairy-hands. "What we want in times like these," to quote the words of a Manawatu farmer who has two sons at tho front, "is every man in his right place, doing the job for which he is best fitted, and doing it with all his might." Perhaps in due course the 'Efficiency Board may lead the country some way towards this very desirable goal but it would he too much to expect a Government dependent for its very existence upon the goodwill of so many diverse elements to make such an heroic venture in national organisation on its own initiative, y " TAXATION.

The Acting-Minister of Finance lias made it quite clear tliat an over-flowing treasury is not going to save the country -from further taxation, and his candor lias encouraged many speculations as to the*direetion in which Sir Joseph Ward will look for his additional revenue. That there will he no increase in Customs duties on what are popularly regarded as the necessaries of life may be taken for granted in view of the present high cost of living, -hut it is pretty certain there will be another turn of the screw in connection with both the income tax and the land tax. Tt is being urged in some quarters that the exemption should be lowered in both cases, and though this would produce a comparatively small amount there is a growing feeling, in favor flf getting at the unmarried men without dependents who are earning £2OO or £3OO a year. The feature of the Budget, however, is likely to be a very substantial increase in. the taxation upon large incomes and large estates. The Minister will require to get at least £750,000 a year to meet the charges on the new war debt, and there is little doubt the great bulk of this sum .will be obtained from those fortunate people who can spare a few pounds a week without any personal inconvenience.