WELLINGTON NOTES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18431, 15 March 1922, Page 6

WELLINGTON NOTES.

'Special to “Chronicle.”) WELLINGTON, March 13 PREPARING FOR UNEMPLOYMENT. Systematic preparations are being uade for dealing with the unemployment which it appears will be inevitable this winter. The Public Works engineers are drawing up lists of works which can to best advantage be carried out as reliei works. So far as is possible ouch works will be near to the large centres of population so as to proride for the married man who is always the greatest sufferer when hard conditions compel him to travel from his home in search of employment. Local bodie a are being asked also to make what plan s they can to aid. Wellington city hopes to have a fairly large ■programme of street works for prosecution in the winter if the money can be obtained. Ihe big city loan is expected to be on the Ixmdon market very shortly, but unfortunately one item has been struck out of it as the underwriters considered it too small for inclusion in the schedule, and that item is £57.000 for street improvements. The greater J®rt of the balance of the loan will be •pent mainly on machinery and material ; but the Council proposes to make an effort to raise th" £57,030 locally, and if the money will help to relieve unemployment there should be little difficulty in finding it. MAIN ROAD CONDITIONS. After a tour of the North Island by motor, Sir John Luke has returned to Wellington with much to say regarding the state of the main roads. Auckland people will sympathise with what he says regarding the Rangiriri Hills, and his condemnation of the state of the Napier-Taupo highway will find an echo in Hawke’s Bay. Sir John’s trip appears to have made him a whole-heart-ed supporter of main roads legislation, if he were not one before. He suggest • that if the Main Roads Bill next session is referred to a committee of memoers acquainted with existing conditions an 1 also with the requirements of both uiban and rural districts, it will eni». :n< in a form which will ensure its success. He retrains from expressing an op n. is as to the method of assessment for the construction of the main roals but here is little room for disagreemen: with his general statement that the pr<sent conditions must de remedied. In the meantime local aut’.i irtzi *s in all parts of New Zealand continue to pro test against the damage done to th" roads by motors which are carrying goods which should go on the rail wavs. GUARANTEED PRICES. Discussion by Canterbury far.nei s of proposals for the renewal of the u heat price guarantee has led to bom*? spirited protests by press correspondents in M ellington. The writers do not view kindly the suggestion of the wheat farmers Jiat they should be protec• cd. ft is argued that if the wheat pri • is to be guaranteed there is no logical reason for refusing a similar guarantee to all other primary producers, and to some of the secondary producers also. f>f course, it may be replied that the manufacturers are at present protected by the (us to nib tariff, but this is true also of the farmers, and especially true : of the wheat growers for whose benefit l a duty of two shillings per hundred pounds of wheat is imposed. A merchant, whose views were sought, stated emphatically that this duty was not sufficient to make the growing of wheat profitable in all seasons, and if the Dominion were not to become partly dependent on imports, some further protection wa* necessary. It appears certain that the Government will this year u involved in some loss, because of the guarantee given to the wheat growers, and this is bcund to create a teeling of opposition to the guarantee even though the price of bread is now reduced., No hint has yet been given of the Government’s attitude respecting a renewal of the guarantee unless it can be regarded as coming under the head of subsidies, of which Mr Nosworthy. Minister of Agriculture, has pronounced himself a strong opponent.

residential flats. In a city such as W ellington, where ?asiiy-nccessible residential land is scarce fiats are bound, in the future, to necome a feature. Hie country surrounding th" commercial area is all bounded by hills, which make the provision of hist means of communication expensive and difficult. Twentv-five minutes’ journey from the centre of the city by trani is the distance one must now travel to obtain reasonably-priced residential land, and car fares, for such a distance, amount t o about 4s Cd per week for each adult travelling to and rom vhe city daily. Already numer»us private houses have been divided jito apartments-and fiats, but tlie citv authorities have disapproved of such di. visions in buildings nut built for occupatioii by large numbers of people. The lire risk is increased enormously, and the provision oi fire escapes is always liable to be insufficient. Now, at last, a start is being made with the erection of properly planned residential flats, lhe site chosen is one within a convenient distance of the city. Each flat will be entirely selfl-contained. and fitted: an the best English and American models. Jn effect there will be four separate houses in the block, but they will be contained in the outer wall and the main economy in construction will be in the use of one section of land which under ordinary methods of building would accommodate only one house. The building will be an experiment but the promoters of the enterprise are verv confident that it will be only the forerunner of numerous other residential flat buildings. ROBBING THE CREDULOUS. In every large city there are many persons who live by tlieir wits. Wellington has its full share of these and many of them are fortune-tellers. With our liberal education system it would be thought that such persons would have a very limited clientle, but reports show that the more popular of those who profess to reveal the future have no lack of business and are able to make very good livings out of it. Womenfolk are their special game. Lately the police have been giving attention to the fortune tellers and have brought two of them to book. The method followed has been to send some young probationer constable to learn what he can of the future, and afterwards to have the notice matron’s fortune told. The revelations of the trials should be sufficient to dissuade most people from wasting half-crowns on such practitioners. ’A here the fortune-tellers have been right in their statements of fact those statements have been so general that it would have been stranger if they had been wrong, and when they have come down to the particular they have usually proved very poor guessers. It seems, however, that nothing will discourage the patrons, and the only way to stop this foolishness is to make the practice of . fortune-telling expensive, as the magistrates have done, by the imposition of heavy fines.