WELLINGTON NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 January 1919, Page 5

WELLINGTON NOTES.

i RAILWAY WOBK& STILL PM-AYEIX (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Jan. 8. The. Hon. W. H. Herries, the Minister for Railways, returned to Wellington yesterday, after spending the xwftjor part of his holiday in attending to various matters connected with the administration of his Department. It was thought that during his absence he might have progressed the preparations for the long-promifeed railway works in the North a stagfli &ui when interviewed on the subjttct after his arrival, ho had nothing very definite to communicate. The authority to raise the necessary loans had been granted four years ago, tat the finances of tho war had to take precedence. Exclamation work st Aueldf<Tid, however, was going on as a preliminary to railway extension, and plans had beten prepared for the much-needed liew station in Wellington, Beyond this, nothing could he done for some months yet. FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE.

The demobilisation of a number of married men who had been in camp at Trenth/am and Featherston for periods rangipg from one j» four or more month b has been followed toy a large crop <•< complaints concerning the administration of the Soldiers' Financial Assistance Board. Men have returned to their" homes to find that not a penny of the amounts they had been promised by the sjoard for rent, ,Jife insurance, and so forth has been paid, and that in some cases landlords were threatening ejection, apd life policies had actualy lapsed. Inqniries at the office of the board are usually met with sympathy and regrets, and invariably with courtesy, but rarely with prompt redress. Probably many of the complaints are'over-colored, but some of them have been fully justified by independent investigation. A CASE IN POINT. A married man with one child went into camp three or four months ago with an allowaneo from the board amounting t& about 20s a week for port of his rent and for premiums upon the life policies of himself and his child. On being discharged last month, he discovered tha't none of the payments promised by the board had been made, that the landlord was asking his wife for thft balance of the rent, that his own life premium was overdue, and that the policy of his clijld was subject to forfeiture. The explanation offered to him at the office of the board was that tho military authorities, in spite of repeated applications, had_neglected to verify the fact that he had bees in camp. His paybook and Ms honorable discharge could not he substituted .for tnia formal testimony, and Ms rent and his life premium are still unpaid.

THE POLITICAL SITUATION, i The correspondence columns of tlie local newspapers are reflecting the general unrest concerning the pol'tical situation that has grown up in this community as a result of the Labor successes in the Wellington Central and AVellington South by-elections As a ipaiter of fact, in neither of the constituencies did the Labor vote show the slightest increase. It was the neglect of the Reform toid Libera) electors to go to the poll that gave Mr Fraser and Mr Semple ■their victories. But the alarmists, persistently ignoring thesvs facts, are calling aloud upon eome power from Heaven to save them from the impending deluge of Bolshevism. Repr jachea 4re being heaped upyi the National Government, the "Party Truce," and upon every ? other scapegoat that caa be found, but so far it has oemxed to none of the organs of public opinion to point out that it is -the "sane" section of the community, not the "Bolskeviki" element, that is responsible for what haa happened.