WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16034, 27 January 1920, Page 9

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

WELLINGTON'S DEATH-ROLL.

STREET TRAFFIC

(From Our Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, January 26.

It has been left to the Wellington Automobile Club to stir die newspapers into protests and the local authorities into promises concerning the unnecessary perils of the city’s street traffic. A deputation from the club waited, on the by-laws committee of the City Council on Friday—impelled, it has been unkindly suggested, by a guilty conscience—to recommend a number of precautions which the members of the chib thought would reduce the toll of killed aud wounded. These included street widening, better recognised crossing places, the curtailment of carriers’ aud taxi drivers’ stands, the appointment of more patrolmen, and the prosecution of pedestrians who walked aimlessly about the street. Reminded by the chairman of the committee that in Pans it was an offence for a pedestrian to allow himself to be knocked down by a vehicle, a member of the deputation exclaimed “That’s what we want here!”

SEND FOR THE POLICE. The Dominion, referring to the subject this morning, founds its hope for a reduction in the casualty list upon an improved police service. “Of all the measures that can ho taken to limit street dangers, and reduce to a minimum the fatal and other accidents that have been far too frequent in recent times,” it says, “the strict enforcement of traffic regulations by the police is esaily the most important and the most promising.” Among the advantages of this measure which will appeal very strongly to the municipal mind of Wellington is the fact that the additional police required for the strict enforcement of the regulations would be paid by the State. The City Oouucil, 'the Dominiou says, should, fully inquire into this scheme before considering any alternative.

FUTURE OF LABOUR

In Ms address on the position of Labour which Mr Peter Fraser, the member for Wellington Central, delivered here last night, he said the object of the party with which he was identified was not merely to elect members to Parliament, but, still more important, to get all thinking people in the community to recognise the justice and advantages of Socialism. This was the great goal now before the organisation, and the work done by its members between this and the next general election would determine the position their candidates occupied on the polls at the next appeal to the constituencies. All this, of course, was very acceptable talk to the large audience that warmly applauded the member, but strangers who attended the meeting were disappointed by the absence of any definition of tie particular brand of Socialism with which he expects to usher in the millsnium.

COST OP LIVING. The current number of the Monthly Abstract of Statistics shows that the prices of foodstuffs continue their upward march. Between September 30 and November 30, a period of only two months, the average prices of groceries increased from the index number 1013— 1033 having been the index number on the outbreak of war—to 1665; the prices of dairy produce from 1476 to 1511, and the prices of meat from 1624 to 1681. The increase over the three groups—groceries, dairy produce, aud meat—was from 1585 to 1635, and the percentage increase upon the prices ruling in July 31, 1914, from 48.13 to 52.80. lu the grouped figures, Dunedin, among the principal cities, stood highest with an index figure of 1667, followed by Wellington 1632, Christchurch 1631, and Auckland 1605. The rise in rent—which has taken place everywhere in spite of legislation to the contrary—is represented by 321 points in Wellington (from 1000 to 1321), 57 points in Christchurch, 55 points in Auckland, and 6 points in Dunedin. In Wellington people are paying the prices and being thankful for having a roof over their heads.