WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 June 1918, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

FINANCIAL ASBLSTANUE. AN ÜBKBRTAIN QUANTITY; (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, June 3. The executive pi the Second Division League U still unsatisfied. It does not question Sir James Allen's concern for 'file welfare of the soldiers' dependents nor the general accuracy of the figures he supplied to the newspapers the other day. But it objects very strongly to a most essential part of the Government's scheme of allowances being left solely to the Financial Assistance Board, which, as it says, has neither a soul to be damned nor a body to be kicked.' The Board may grant assistance up to £3 a week towards the payment of rent, insurance, or any other recurring demand that may fall upon the wife during the husband's absence from home on military service, the amount being largely determined by the previous earnings of the husband. But whether the wifje with one child, for instance, shall receive a bare £2 16s a week, including an allotment of 3s 6d a day from her husband's pay, or up to £6 16s a week, is entirely at the discretion of the Board. BY RIGHT. This, in effect, has been the bone of contention "between the Minister and the league all along. The league has acthe differentiation between the dependents of the man who has been earning £3 a week in civilian employment and the man who has been earning £6 a week, but it does not wish to'eee the wife and children of either man left to the tender mercies of a body which conceivably might he less concerned for their welfare, than for the pockets of the taxpayers. Already cases justifying the league's apprehensions l in this direction have occurred. The Board seems to have proceeded on the assumption that the departure of ihe husband is going to relieve the family exchequer of an expenditure of 16s'or 20a a week, and that where only a wife and one child are left behind the wife, by paying the same rent, is trying, in response to the Minister's appeal, to "keep the home circumstances, the league is asking, for a. definite assurance from the Minister that the family of email meWM will not be required to make a financial sacriflcs as well a» a great personal One when the breadwinner is taken away.

THE LABOR PARTY. The advanced wing of the Lab* p*Mty is taking heart from its success in the Grey by-election, and talking loudly of. what it is going to do at the ne*t general election.. At their various places of meeting last night the leaders of the Wing assured their audiences that Mr. Holland's succeW* was the deatn-knell' of Liberals and the Reformers!, and that'in Parliament the new member for Grey would herald the appearand of an irresistible force in the political heart of the country. The more moderate members of the party are not quite « much elated by what h«s happened on the West ; Coast. They realise the signifUaice of the decline in the Labor vote, aUd are not sure Mr. Holland is going ta lfelp in restoring it to its former dinieflsions. They believe that after the war" there will be large defections from ttoth the old parties, and that in a combination of all the progressive elements Mile Labor will find its opportunity, and come into its own. ELECTORAL REFORM. The appointment of a large batch of new members to 'the Legislative Council and the announcement of the L«btW party's intention to contest every seat in the Dominion at the next general election has brought the question of electoral reform again into some prominence. The Legislative Council Act, which would have begun its purpose last year by making half the members of the Upper House elective, was as good as repealed by its suspension when the National Caßteet was forced, and the whole ground will have to be gone over afresh when the parties retain to their normal relatione, This is not altogether regrettable. Tile system of proportional representation embodied in the Act was unnecenlttfiiy cumbersome, and a more fully inform*! Parliament would produce a much !ieltter measure. In the opinion of many people reform is still more urgently needed In the House of Representatives. What form it should take is not a subject for discussion here, but it is certain that with three strong parties in the constituencies the present system could give only the most inequitable results.