WELLINGTON TOPICS

Waikato Times, Volume 92, Issue 14258, 8 January 1920, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS

COAL SHORTAGE. APPROACHING FAMINE. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. •The coal shortage in Wellington has reached an extremely acute stage—the stage of famine indeed—and there is no prospect of relief in view. Supplies are being doled out to dealers m 5, 10, and 15-ton lots, at long and irregular intervals. and these again are di&, tributed,' as far as they will go, in quarter-bag and half-bag parcels, the cartage in many cases costing as much as the coal itself. It is safe to say that not half the homes in the city at ttie present lime have a week's supply of fuel on ha n d, and that,, many of the other half are little better off. So far the gas-cooker has saved ,the situation in many householdsj but the Gas Company has let it be known that the supply may be reduced at any time, and if this should occur the housewives' troubles would be greatly aggravated. „._ „ Going Slow and Going Short.

The main cause of the trouble is, of course, the limited supplies coming forward from the West Coast, and the cause of the limited supplies is the "go slow" policy adopted by the miners there. This, at any rate, is the opinion of 99 out of every 100 people in Wellington, and the feeling of resentment against the men is becoming very strong. The public understands pretty well the nature of the quarrel between the miners and their employers, and its disposition is to sympathise with the men, whose work is known to be. arduous and perilous and entitled to very generous remuneration; but the public realises there are constitutional methods of settling the differences between the parties, and contends there is no legitimate excuse lor making it a chopping block, so to speak, in this wrangle between Capital and Labour. Legislative Council Reform. ' The Gazette notice that the Legislative Council <Act, suspended during the "party truce" and the existence of the National Cabinet, is to be brought into force at the expiration of the prescribed period, s 0 far has attracted little attention. The effect of the Act as it stands would be to make the Legislative Council gradually elective under tho present franchise and by a system of proportional representation. When it was. passed through Parliament in 1914, its nature was not fully understood by the Reform majority, nor, it* would seem, by the Ministers that promoted it, and Mr Masscy already has indicated there will be material alterations in its character before it comes into actual operation. Tile most important of these, it is said, will be a simpler method of dealing with tho transferable votes, and better provision for settling deadlocks between the two branches of the Legislature. The Housing Problem. The housing problem, of which there was much talk on all sides of politics during the recent election campaign, is threatening to require much more monev for its solution than was expected to be the case when the legislation of last session bearing on the subject was placed on the Statute Book. This legislation Provides that the Government may spend £I,OOO,OUU on its own housing schemes, may advance up to £250,000 a year to emplovers for a similar purpose, and £1,000,000 a year t 0 local bodies. Hie Government a'lready is practically committed to the exoenditure of the sum it will control itself, and the local bodies have applied for amounts which taken together would absorb another million several times over. The Christchurch City Council, to take one instance of local enterprise, wants £200,000, and several other bodies are eager to operate on the same scale.