LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16032, 25 September 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

BY. meeottio. !•■ ' •'--. 4 xumbeb of New Zealanders are con---:xed about the provision in the War pensions 'Act limiting payment of pendens to persons resident in New Zealand. ■One- has only to look at the casualty lists 'L gee that this limitation must in some ' way or other be removed. While nativeborn New Zealanders provided the great |> : majority of our soldiers quite a number lave gone with the New Zealand forces - whose homes are in the United Kingdom, - ■, md hi Australia. But this is not a I'/condition peculiar to New Zealand. We jt j s^; that a very largo proportion of the gj Canadian forces nave their permanent • homes and relative* in Great Britain: i every day wo wad of New Zealanders I who'have fallen " ; the field while fight i j n g with the Australian forces. In fact M% can be safely :- .\\ that the New ZearVland force has a larger proportion of | native-born thai, any other colonial force.

The sensible course to meet all difficul- ; ties would be a scheme of reciprocity in : ! pensions payments in which every self- "■'■; governing State in the Empire joined. ~- This might be done by the State in which the pensioner was< resident either undertaking responsibility for the pension or for the administration of pensions payments made by other British States, (-•probably the latter would be the best folntion. It would present no difficulties except that owing to the numerous scales : in operation and the difference in cost of ; living as between the United Kingdom and the Dominions, the recipient of a S colonial pension living in England would be ' passing rich while a British pensioner living In New Zealand would be having a ;• iard struggle. This might be got over by the Dominions fixing the pension according to. the scale of the State in which the pensioner resided. Thus, if a New Zea- : land pensioner preferred to live in Eng- | land, there would be a deduction from the pension and the balances could be used to supplement the payments to British pensioners coming to live in New Zealand, This would be an aid to emi- • gration as well as a measure of strict justice. In any case the matter cannot /rest where it is. We can only regard the New Zealand provision as merely pre- - cautionary. Doubtless) other States have I taken the same precaution. It is a ; matter for mutual agreement; and there I tan be no doubt that it- will be fairly adf justed.

' : ' The scarcity of literature amongst the | i! New Zealand "soldiers in Gallipoli has frequently been referred to. and judging by f"* ! letter received in the South from a :>-.l)nnedin" rrember of the Expeditionary iorce the. demand for reading matter to while away spare time is a very real one. m the.writer states that he himself had been "fortunate enough " to come across a copy ;|of such an illuminating New Zealand work as Stout and Sim's Supreme Court procedure, the reading of which he expected S.-SBuld occupy him- for several days. His surprise at" finding on- the Gallipoli H peninsula, a copy of this interesting -work tt&s probably greater even than the satisfaction that he derived from perusing it. , It is to be hoped, however, that this incident will not induce New Zealanders to send legal literature to the men in the trenches, as it can hardly be supposed J thai our soldiers have a very keen appetite for pabulum of this character. The '' perusal of odd volumes of . consolidated ,-ututes or law reports can scarcely be ' regarded as. an ideal relaxation for "'days .off" in the "dug-outs." '"One might fdmost as -well suggest copies of Hansard, wjuch, of course, is thinkable. We must : - -be merciful as well as grateful to our j hrave men at the front.

Now that the nicely-balanced calculaI tions of the Defence Department on the subject of reinforcements have been upset by the driving force of necessity, is it not ' time to also reconsider the Department's • prejudice for the centralisation of camps? Trentham broke down once because every other consideration . had to give way to Kcentralisation; it may break down again from the same cause. Surgeon-General (.Henderson has advised as a measure of ' safety that when a force sails the camp they occupied should be thoroughly disinfected for six days before another force is drafted in. On the day upon which this official report was made public, it was also announced that the departure of reinforcements was to be expedited. Here ■we have the pressure of conflicting inn terests just as we had them before the Trentham epidemic. The reinforcements need all the training they can get; if ■ they have to wait at home till the camp -is disinfected the tendency will be .to cut . down the six days to five, then to four, till we get over the danger mark. The f^: remedy is to cease depending on one or two camps. A few months ago we were "told that it was impossible to train the men unless all were centred on one site. : V Now we have two camps. Why not three ? ;. : The impossible has been accomplished |-S. already. Besides, the word is unsuited I to the times. It should be struck out of j .'the Defence vocabulary.

% It is about time for Mr. Parr to pay another visit to Otago. The percentages . of the contributions of the various military districts to the Ninth Reinforcement have been published, and, as usual, Otago T makes a poor showing. Its contribution pis about half Canterbury's, about twoi fifths of Auckland's, and about a third of I Wellington's. All this is a trifle confused K ■by the drafts being taken from the mili- | tary districts of Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, and Otago, and not from the -f provinces- Thus the Wellington military area includes Hawke's Bay, Taranaki, and the Gisborae district, embracing a very fjt large population, and enabling it, with the help of good recruiting, to stand per- ;; manently in first place. Compared with this area the Otago military district has a small population, but nobody believes that t --.. its population of military age is only a • third of Wellington's. Were the quotas H drawn from the provinces, accurate comparisons could be made either with the general populations or with the populations of military age. Mr. Parr, shrewd :-controversialist that he is, has m?.desome capital for Otago out of the fact that some "nthusiastic North Islanders floundered among the figures and made some grotesque mistakes. Meantime Mr. Allen ■holds tight to the figures which could : give the real comparison, and allows Mr. : Parr to burn his fingers in pulling the . Otago chestnuts out of the fire. If Mr. "- Parr is sincere in his enthusiasm for .Utago, why does he not use his influence . ■ °« a member of Parliament to get accurst* figures published? If the truth is as . he represents it, the publication of the tacts would clear away a great deal of • hysunderstar.ding and, incidentally, save . him the trouble of another visit to Otago.

.«, ,* be eight veara to-morrow since *•>« Colony " of New Zealand was pro- .;., «aimed a " Dominion." It, seems a long jjjH pine since bir Joseph Ward, at the open- > ing of the Parliamentary session of 1907, r. Drought forward his "'surprise packet," v ; ** the annonmem.!,! of the intended — « * g r* Was th< " bribed. During the ;.,;>.nrst few months after the status of the :-, country had been changed many New Zeaii*K erß , found n difficulty* in accustoming wemselves to the new designation and the I Jong familiar .void "Colony" fell from I Sneir lips moi* frequently than did the rnH W ? rd "dominion." "This little diffiwitty, however, has long since become a , i : /.»»ng of the past, and the word "Colony" ; isiiow rarely heard in connection with the I^j™J l oa - Still there are manv of the wo folks who possibly look back with a > - ' <nge of regret at the, disappearance of i .*!» ° rd with which the.ir earlv labours *"* association in the colony of the last fcJttmj wera B g intimately entwined*