WELLINGTON TOPICS.

(Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, Tuesday. WOMEN'S WAH WORK.

There are many women In Wellington, as there doubtless are all over the Dominion, anxious to find some more effective -way of helping in "winning the -war" than by knitting socks or selling buttonholes at street corners, and, with the advent of compulsion, they are hoping their sphere of usefulness may be considerably enlarged. - So far the women of .New Zealand have been admitted to scarcely any of the more strenuous occupations their sisters at Home have entered in their thousands since the demand for men for the fight-ing-line began. A few hundred of them are filling gaps in public and ■ private offices, and a few score have taken other vacant places, but the great volume of woman-labour capable of releasing men for the front is still in reserve. Of course, it is in the manufacture of munitions and other military supplies' that the bulk of the new women workers arc employed in the Mother Country, but women are driving motor-vans, delivering bread and milk and groceries, acting as postmen, tramway conductors, electricians, and chauffeurs, and doing a vast amo-unt of gardening and fanning work. There 13 not one of these occupations for which the New Zealand woman is not at least as well fitted as her English sister ie, and there is not one of them she would not gladly undertake if she had the opportunity to do so under proper conditions. The "Dominion," perhaps, as a corollary to its demand for more men, is urging that women should be organised forthwith in preparation for services that may be required from them later on, and reaßyit is qnite surprising the number of avocations it is able to enumerate as suitable to their physical powers and the limitations of their sex. ' The next move should come from, the women themselves, who have, everything to gain by indicating in a practical way their readiness to take up the men's home ■burdensTHE SHOE PINCHES. Nemesis is on the heels of 'Mr. G. VPearce. During the whole of his political career the member for Patea has been calling out against interference with private enterprise. He has detected" the hand of the -wicked Socialist in advances to settlers, in loans to workers, in State fire insurance, in State coal-mines, and in everything else that fcae hampered the operations ana lessened the profits of the unhappy «**"" talist and memopoliei. Through «H *»»e years he has held gbeadtaatly to the narrowest doctrines of the individnafiat, proclaiming aloud the sanctity of freehold, Free Trade, and freedom ofwntract. But now prirate entexpree, with base ingratitude, hae tamed on its champion. The shipping companies aaro raised the freight on -wool, and Mr. Pearce las telegraphed to the Bon- Jas., Allen urging him to buy or «barter «ups to "break down the monopoly" and defeat the "disgraceful grab." No wonder the Labour folk are making merry over this sudden conversion to Socialism. They are writing to the paper* reminding Mr. Pearce that tke Aickeneie and iis iriends have so- earefolly tended are now coming home to rooet, .«uLto«t the whips they prepared for *«c j*«*ers are fcein* applied to fiidr ■« l »«****i The similes eerve their purpose passing well. TO* , ] the moment the member for Patea, w> never has been guilty of a joke *»*»*! own account, is the butt of many* J«»- ]