WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 June 1917, Page 10

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

CIVIL SURVAX'rS' WAK BOXI/S.

IMJBLTC PROTESTS, (.'•'nun Our Own Correspondent). Wellington, June 11. The protest from Christchurcli against the civil servants' war bonus, which, ib in rumored, is again to be included in the Government's financial proposals this year, is not being very warmly endorsed in Wellington. There are too many people in the capital city personally interested in the State, bounty to allow anything like unanimity in its condemnation. -Pew families here arc without some connection, more or less intimate, with (lie civil service. But there is.- a strong under-current of feeling which in any other community would ainoii'nt to public opinion, in warm sympathy with the resolution of the Canterbury Education Board. It denounces the payment of the bonus as a scandalous misuse of the tax-payers' money and as a monstrous discrimination in favor of those who have not. Perhaps its language is a little extravagant, but when it is remembered that among tho people who received the bonus 'Were at one end men enjoying handsome salaries and at the other girls being taught telegraphy at the expense of the State and temporary 'hands in the Defence Department, it is at least understandable. MORE PROMISCUOUS GENEROSITY. There is, however, another piece of promiscuous State generosity which appears to have escaped the notice of the members of tho Canterbury Education Board or to be too nearly connected with, their "own administration to receive their pointed attention. It seems that when a teacher employed by the Education Department joins tho Expeditionary Force and obtains a commission his salary as a teacher is continued as a very pleasant little addition to his pay as an officer. In this way a young fellow who has been earning £l5O or £1(50 a year by the drudgery associated with theeharge of a country school or with a junior mastership in one of the centres of popuplation may at once double his income by joining one of the Reinforcements if his training, as it well may, fits him to take a commission. If iTe is married, or if he chooses to marry after he has made certain of the larger 'income, he receives the married teachers' allowance from the Education Department and the wife's scparatibn allowance from the Defence Department. If, however, ue remains a private merely with a private's pay he gets no consideration at all by reason of his profession as a teacher. It would be interesting to hoar what the Canterbury Education Board has to say ahont this. LAND FOR SOLDIERS Tho announcement that the Government has purchased a block of land at Southbridge, one of the richest agricultural districts in Canterbury for settlement by returned soldiers, has been received with general satisfaction by people here interested in the welfare of the men coming back from the front. But it has drawn attention to the fact that the great bulk of the settlement of this character which sto far has been completed has taken place in the Wellington district, which happens to have a Land Commissioner and a Land Board that have thrown themselves with very special enthusiasm into this work. Soldiers from the South Island in l particular, who naturally would like to settle down in the part of the Dominion with which, they are best acquainted complain that they are not given the ready assistance in acquiring land that is extended to. men anxious to make homes for themselves in tho North Island. Enquiries show that it is information rather than anything else that is required by these men and it has been suggested thai tho publication in pamphlet form of particulars of all the land available would at' tract, many more of them to their own districts. GAMBLING. A very gratifying access of activity on the part of the local police has resulted in a number of the small* fry among tho bookmakers doing business in Wellington being hauled befrfre the. Stipendiary Magistrate and more or less substantially penalised for their transgressions against the law. But the big men who employ little armies of assistants up. and down the country and gather in large incomes from tho cupidity and stupidity of people who imagine they can get rich quickly by backing doubles and engaging in other forms of illicit betting are still earning on business as usual and apparently are going to escape unscathed. It is not unlikely the. whole question of gambling will come up for discussion 'ddffng the approaching session of Parliament, and if it does an attempt will he made to catch these men by drastic amendment -of the law making betting on horse racing in any form apart from the totalisator an offence punishable by imprisonment 'without the option of a line. Nothing short of this seems capable of suppressing an evil which is discrediting legitimate sport and doing incalculable injury to the morals and well-being of the community