WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 May 1918, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE LUCKY DENTISTS. PROFESSIONAL ARMY PAY. ;\ (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, May 15. The Defence Expenditure Commission concluded its sittings mere yesterday, and to-day the members left for I'almorston, where in the quiet of the agricultural capital of the North (hey will prepare their report. One of the last witnesses examined by the Commission was Lieutenant-Colonel T. A. Hunter, Director of Dental Services, who after claiming that great credit was due to the profession and tlie members of the dental carps for the sacrifices they had made, floundered rather pathetically in his efforts to emphasise the point. The chairman, while recognising the value of the corps, wanted to know why dental men should receive professional pay, and the Lieutenant-Colonel could urge only that they had given up their practices and that the Army had had thp benefit of their training and experience- Following up the subject Sir Robert Anderson asked the. witness if he could tell the Commission of any other country in which pay was given. The Lieutenant-Colonel could not.

THE COMMISSION'S REPORT. The chairman, of cour/e, dominated the whole of the public proceedings of the Commission, and. no doubt, will be responsible for the tone and tenor of its report. This implies no reflection upon his colleagues, who have supplied the local knowledge and inrVeatcd the directions in which inquiry and investigation should proceed, this materially li?hfening Sir Robert's labors and facilitating his conclusions. What these rnnclusions will be it is net easy to predict, for thoueh the chairman has been singularly frank and pointed in his comments, bis purpose, obviously, has been to elicit information rather than to foreshadow any opinion he may have to express later on. It is tolerably safe to say, however, that he will go to the very root of the matter, and that ttie whole of the defence expenditure will be passed under the most searching review. This is what the public is payini for and it will not find its money has been wasted.

I EXEMPTTONS Tn addressing a larcre meeting of members of the Second Division League here last night the chairman of the National Executive laid it down most emphatically that the desire of the Lf-ague, was to assist the Government in the administration of the Military Service Act and claimed that its efforts to secure adequate provision for the dependents nf the men going away were directed towards that end. A majority of the members present at the however, showed a disposition to kick f -minst. the wholesale exemption of First Reservists—thev were sick ami tired of exemptions, :;« one nf their speakers "nt it —and finally thev passed a resolution demanding the immediate review of all sine die exemptions and the acceptance of physical fitness as the only factor in determininjr whether or not a man should be in the military forces, with the sin?le exception of men permanently employed in essential national work. INDUSTRIAL CONSCRIPTION. The conference of trade unions held here on Monday night to discuss the proposals of the Government for "industrial conscription," while fully representative of the local unions, was scarcely entitled to speak for the rank and file of the workers. The language of the resolutions adopted by the conference was temperate enough, "protests'' and "requests"' (iking Hie place of the usual "denunciations" rfnd "demands," hut tiie fact that Mr. Hiridmarsh's vote in Parliament in favor of the Government's action was called in question suggests that political feeling was not altogether absent from the gathering. As a matter of fact the Labor member for Wellington £3onth, whose scrupulous loyalty to his party has cost liim more than his critics will ever know, was with Mr. Veitch among the foremost in obtaining assurances from the. Government that the so-called industrial conscription would not operate to the disadvantage of the workers.