WELLINGTON TOPICS.
REINFORCEMENT DRAFTS. (From Our Own Correspondent). Wellington, Nov. 8. The announcement that the men drawn in the twelfth ballot (Class A men of the Second Division) would not be required to enter camp before March 5 has been interpreted in some quarters to mean that reinforcement drafts were being dropped. That is not the case. The December draft has been put back until January (including the draft for the CI camp) in order to keep the camps clear at Christmas time, but the January and February reinforcements will be mobilised in the usual way. They will consist of First Division ballotted men, volunteers and youths who have just attained military age. The roll of the First Division has been exhausted by ballot, but it does not follow that all tho fit and available First Division men have reached camp. The recruiting authorities, as a matter of fact, have several thousand First Division men in hand. They are men whose appeals are under consideration, men who have been granted periods of leave to settle their private affairs, men who I are temporarily unfit and so forth. Tiiese I reservists are being gathered in as quick!iy as possible .and the recruiting authorities anticipate that tho amount of overlapping .8.3 between the First Division and the Second Division will be reduced to a mnimum
CLEARING TRENTHAM. It is announced that no reinforcement draft will be taken into camp next month. The Defence authorities want to have the training camps as nearly empty as possible during the holidays, in order (hat the staffs may have a rest and that the huts and tents may be thoroughly disinfected. The men who have been set down for the December draft will enter camp in January. Christmas and New Year leave will bo granted to practically all the men In the training camps. The leave will begin about December J9 and the men- wil" be due to return about January •">- '■ :_ pei'ienc? has shown that no gooil r.urposo is served by keeping recruits j u C ;uii» during the Christmas and New Year holidays, when nobod/ wants to work and when family calls are insistent.
LAST REMAINING SON. The disagreement between the Legislative Council and the House of Representatives over the. exemption of teachers caused the Government to drop the Expeditionary Forces Amendment Bill, and this involved the loss of a. clause providing that exemption should be granted to any reservist who was the last remaining son of his parents of military age, if three of his brothers had served or were serving with 'His Majesty's Forces in the present war. This clause had been accepted by both branches of the Legislature, and the Defence authorities have taken steps to bring it under the notice of the Military Service Board, which are recommended to take into account the wish of Parliament when they ore dealing with cases of the kind. PRICE OF BUTTER.
The High Commissioner's suggestion, reported in a cablegram from London that the New Zealand producers are being unfairly treated in comparison with £he Irish farmers as far as butter is concerned does not commend itself to the Ministers who have had the handling of the Imperial purchase business here. Irish butter commands the market price in England because it can reach the market easily and quickly. New Zealand butter is in an entirely different position. The buyers, that is the Imperial authorities, have to provide the transport and they arc doing that with increasing difficulty. There is ground for believing that if the transactions were placed on a purely business basis, as would be the case if New Zealand were n neutral country, Britain would not take our butter or our lamb at the present time and would not provide ships for moving either article. The Imperial authorities want beef, mutton and cheese, the beef coming an easy first. It has fallen to the lot of Mr. Massey to appeal again and again for additional ships, and' his appeals necessarily have raised the issues of kinship and sentiment. It is perfectly safe to say that if the New Zealand producers refused to sell their butter for less than the Irish farmers are getting, Britain would not buy this season. There are markets to be found else\Vhere, but apparently it would be almost impossible to get access to them. THE QUESTION OF LEAVE,
Orders have been issued in the training camps that members of departing reinforcements, who may wish to obtain !«ave for business or domestic reasons, must make application on a special form in time for their cases to be considered by the Wellington Military Service Board before the dual arrangements are made for the departure of their draft. It has been found that each month there are some men who, having completed their training, desire to obtain leifcve for reasons that appear to them to be urgent. The granting of this leave nieans sometimes that the men concerned have to be put back to a later reinforcement, and then their places require to be filled by other men, who probably havn not had the same amount of training. AH the applications will now be considered by the Board. Experience has shown that most of them can b': refused without undue hardship, but in some eases the reasons urged in sSppoi't of Inn request for leave are strong enough to convince the Board that the concession should be granted. HEALTHY CAMPS.
THE BUTTER PURCHASE Wellington, Nov. ft. The announcement that the military camps are to be closed during the Christmas holidays for cleansing and disinfection draws attention to the marked improvement that has heen effected in the sickness statistics of the troops. The New Zealand training camps are probably the most healthy in the world at the present time, and the credit for that fact must be given to Surgeon-General Henderson, who was brought to this country to take charge of the military medical staff at a time when the sickness rate among the soldiers was unpleasantly high, (leneral Henderson has done his work very thoroughly. Ho was not content with the isolation and the effective treatment of the sick soldiers, he sot himself to trace the cases of sickness to their sources and to prevent infection by removing its causes. He arranged for the examination or recruits when they entered camp in order t-> detect ■'carriers," lie established inhalation chambers and insisted on disinfection in
every direction. His reward is the reduced sickness rate. SCARCELY FAIR ! Sir Thomas Mackenzie, if he has been correctly reported in a. brief cablegram published by the New Zealand newspapers, has been scarcely fair in his suggestion that producers of butter in this country are being treated unfairly in comparison with the Irish farmers. The conditions of sale are not comparable at all. The Irish dairy farmer can put his butter on the English market without the least difficulty and without salting it ov freezing it. He commands the highest market price as a matter of course. The New Zealand farmer must have cold storage ashore and afloat, and he must allow for heavy shipping and insurance charges, and he is entirely dependent upon his buyer, that is, tho British Government, for shipping facilities. There is no doubt that the Imperial authorities could have made a much better bargain for themselves if they had chosen to deal with Mew Zealand in a eoldly commercial spirit. They command the means of transport. A SETBACK. To-day's had news from Russia (still unconfirmed at the time of writing) did not come altogether as a surprise to members of the Government who have been prepared by advices from London for the triumph, temporary or permanent, of the pro-German influences in Petrograd. Possibly Mr. Massey will have some statement to make on the subject pressntly. It may be said confidently in any case that the defection of Russia is not going to spell dishearteninent to the Allies. What it does mean is that all hopes of an easy and early peace must be set aside. "Any man of military age who imagines that the war will end before he is called upon to bear arms is making a mistake," said a member of the Government in conversation recently "We will send our fit Second Division men, and then if reinforcements are still needed wo will lower the military age to eighteen and extend it to fifty-five or sixty. The cue thing that New Zealand cannot do is to quit. We l nave got to "stick it" until victory '«>raes. The support of tho United "'■■ites is an assurance that wc cannot lose if we make it a fight hi a finish." POOD PRICES.
The Government Statistician lias earvied up to September last his comparison of the percentage of increases in the prices of essential foodstuffs in the main centres of New Zealand. Wellington again makes a bad showing. The percentage of increases in the prices of groceries, dairy produce and meat since the outbreak of war has been 30.84 in Wellington, 29.27 in Ohristchurch, 28.G9 in Dunedin and •24 86 in Auckland. Palmerston North manages to show the biggest percentage for the whole .Dominion, owing to a 50 per cent, rise in meat prices and 40 per cent, advance in dairy prices. Blenheim, with a total increase of 19.40 ner cent, for the three groups and Nelson, with 19.97 per cent., are at the other end of the list. These figures arc deceptive in some respects. It is obvious, for example, that Palmerston North occupies its apparently unfavorable position, not because it is the most expensive town in New Zealand in which to live, but because it held a particularly good position before the war. It has suffered from a levelling up of prices.
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Taranaki Daily News, 13 November 1917, Page 7
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1,632WELLINGTON TOPICS. Taranaki Daily News, 13 November 1917, Page 7
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