WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 May 1918, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

WAP, EXPENDITURE j MOKE CANDID CLUTICISM. (Special Correspondent). Wellington, April 2!) Move very candid criticism of the administration of the Defence Department wan lien rd by the Defence Expenditure Commission on Saturday. Two staff Sergeant-Majors from Featherston Camp were the witnesses examined, and their evidence went a long way to confirm disagreeable stories that have been flying about the country for months past. One of them said that the lack of organisation at the camps made proper supervision impossible, and that Blackness was prevalent everywhere. Kit. inspections were scarcely ever held, and shortages were never found till the men were about to leave. Practically unfit men were sent into camp and allowed to hang about for weeks at the expense of the country before they were discharged. Tlie other Sergeant-Major gave instances of young officers who never had put their leg across a saddle being paid considerable sums for horse hire, and of other irregularities suggesting the prevalence of waste and extravagance. The report of the Commission is now being anticipated with very keen interest.

PRICE OF GROCERIES. The report of the Commonwealth Inter-State Commission on the price of groceries, which is summarised in a cable from Melbourne this morning, is likely to attract more attention in Wellington than in any other towns of the Dominion, simply because the' capital city has suffered more than any other centre from the exploitation that has been going on in this particular line of business since the beginning of the war. But the report discloses good reason for vigilance on the part of consumers everywhere. The Commission has found evidence on the wholesale and manufacturing side of a trade organisation which is developing a rigid exclusiveness and- threatening to harden a monopoly. It would not take a commission very long to find exclusive evidence here of the existence of an organisation which keeps the prices of groceries higher by a very substantial margin in Wellington than those prevailing in the small inland and coastal towns that draw their supplies through this port.

THE GREY SEAT. The official announcement that the Grey seat is vacant through Patrick Charles Webb having failed, "without permission of the House of Representatives to give his attendance in the said House," during the recent session, has created no stir in political circles here. It was bound to come in due course, and though the Labour members of the Hquse did not join in the compact which suspended party strife during the course of the war, the leaders of the other parties have striven as far as possible to give them what benefit they could from the arrangement. ■ In pursuit of this policy Sir Joseph Ward probably abstain from expressing any opinion about the second by-election in Grey, but there will be very keen disappointment among the Liberals here if the progressive electors of the constituency cannot find a candidate ready to give whole-hearted support to the win-the-war efforts of the Empire. In other respects the community would be very tolerant towards a critic of the National Government.

CLASS B. Though the Second Division League, in view of the facts that a large body of Class B reservists have been drawn in the ballot, is reaffirming its demand on behalf of married men, it must not be supposed that the Government is unsympathetic in the matter or that a large proportion of the men are disinclined to take up the burden that has fallen upon them. The Defence Department is making a vigorous effort U> secure every physically fit member of the First Division before taking the members of the Second Division into camp, and the Military Service Board, is terminating leave and reviewing exemptions. The married men, on tlieir part, speaking generally, are recognising there is urgent need for their services and are accepting the inevitable with cheery good-will. From a military point of view, according to the reports from Trentham and Featherston, the recruits from Class B are going to be equal to the best of those that ha,ve gone before them.