The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, JULY 27, 1942 EMPLOYERS NEW RESPONSIBILITY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 83, 27 July 1942, Page 4

The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, JULY 27, 1942 EMPLOYERS NEW RESPONSIBILITY

THE latest short cut towards making for individual efficiency is the recent regulation which makes it obligatory for employers to collect from their employees, outstanding union fees and arrears of income tax. In other words the Government appears to have lost confidence in its own powers to collect these monies and has no qualms whatsoever in loading the already harassed employer with the job. This is not merely unfair, but it compels the employing unit to accept full responsibility for the shortcomings of their staff; thereby lifting from the individual all sense of duty and discipline. to the state and throwing the stigma of forcible collection upon the persons who have every reason to detest unionism and its methods. It would appear to us that the State and the unions are alike, shirking in their duties, ta.king full advantage of war regulations and openly abusing their powers under that head. What individual has the right to sit back and compel others to collect monies and levies due them under the law of the land. The: normal procedure is still open under British justice to compel a delinquent to pay such just debt. The law courts were created for just that purpose. Why then should the Government and the unions award themselves special privileges The whole arrangement is preposterous and foreign, to established ethics. The mass of unwilling union members, can be numbered by thousands and to throw the onus of forcibly deducting the levy from their wages, on to persons who regard the organisation as equally obnoxious can only lead to feeling and disharmony. DISTURBED® R3URES FIGURES supplied by the Minister of Health concerning the incidence of cerebro-spinal meningitis in this country are disturbing. It may be true, as Mr Nordmeyer points out, that the disease is "never entirely absent/' but this does not explain, nor does it offset, the fact that a marked and steady increase has lately been recorded. In six years, from 1935 to 1940 (inclusive) the: average number of cases a year was between 19 and 20. Last year the number was 210 and in the first half of this year it was 260. In the last two weeks there have been 36 cases (the equivalent of 936 per year). Such a trend cannot be ignored and if useful precautionary advice of a more detailed nature can be given the public it should be forthcoming without delay. So far people have merely been warned to avoid congregating in crowds—a thing much easier said than done in these days of transport congestion and swollen main-centre populations. In New South Wales, where the disease is reported to have reached epidemic proportions, the Director of Public Health has said that there is no need for alarm "if people are careful and get at the disease early." How best can such advice be implemented? It is reassuring to know that modern drugs have robbed meningitis of much of its former terrors, but if there are practicable ways of guarding against the disease the Health Department should give them the fullest publicity, LIFE THE next time someone looks thoughtful and asks profoundly, ' What is life?'' don't let him get away with it. Answer his question (he won't be expecting an answer) and the next move is up to him. Here is what life is, in the words of Renee: Eulenberg-Wiener, noted biologist: "The phenomena of growth and ageing may be considered to originate in the electro-dynamic fields created by the dynamic asymmetric configuration of the molecules composing the protoplasmic colloids."'.