A POLITICAL ECONOMIST.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 554, 8 July 1909, Page 7

A POLITICAL ECONOMIST.

\ FROM BERLIN. A NEW EIGHT-HOUR PROBLEM. Visiting Wellington at present is Professor Alfred Manes, of Berlin, a student of political economy, who is travelling the world in the interests of institutions in . Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Leipzig that are practically universities of commerce. With the Germans, commerce is something more than a mere means of livelihood—it is a profession to be studied in its manifold phases as closely as any other of the recognised professions. Not content with homo knowledgo and book-learning, theso institutions are reaching out in an effort to gain first-hand information of the commercial con r ditions of every country in the world, and incidentally such legislation and laws-in-practice that affect, commerce and the social condition of the people, that live under such laws. ■ Professor Manes admits that New Zealand's experimental legislation has interested him for somo years, and what he has read about the. Dominion.has intensified the desire to seo if "things are as they are printed." "It is stated," said no, "that New Zealand is the working man's Paradise—l have come to peep into your Paradise to seo how it is all worked out. Wo cannot help being interested in your country—it is here that you have in practice all those things that are theories to us—your old ago < pensions, women s franchise, Conciliation and Arbitration Courts, liquor laws,. hours of labour. You have the practice without theories; we have theories without practice. We want to 'know.' Of course, here you only have one million, we have 61 .millions; you. increase a few thousand a year, we a million a year. Wo have a- powerful social-democratic party which you 'only have the beginning of hero.' These varying conditions ; mako one careful in deducing opinions. . "All, the laws you are practising now must be followed in Europe. They are giving old age pensions now in England, and womon's franchise must come. It is the same with the liquor laws. Is the State better, are the people happier, under these laws, and what effect have they 'on trade and commerce? That I must try and find out. "Your hours of labour—you work eight hours .a day, sleep eight hours—what of the other eight hours? That is the pointl Never mind what hours are worked—it is what is done in that other eight hours. We have people •who shout for eight hours I But what are they going to do in the hours they do not work or sleep? That is the question —the whole crux of the social problem. It is too long a time for recreation in the ordinary sense. I don'tknow what you do, is different in'our big cities; we have bands in the gardens, theatres, music halls, gymnasiums, lending libraries, but that is not all. Our working people , are attracted by science''and technology, and by paying a penny can attend lectures on the subjects that they are particularly interested in. Yet our people do not have so much time as yours. It is ■■ with all this advance legislation, have no professor of political leconomy. Do you know why?—it is because you are all political economists," said Professor "Manes with a smile. "I hove asked several people to toll me the difference between the Government and Opposition parties, and none of them could. Some say' there is no. difference—just the ins and the outs.! .':■■.< "If your laws are good—the new social laws you have passed—the land should belong to the State. You can't give the land to the individual under such laws; they won't—" Here the, professor interlocked the fingers of his hands, inferring the word "dovetail." The broader deduction was that the freehold and Socialistic laws are as oil and water —unmixable. Professor Manes has been long enough in Wellington to taste our beer, and he finds there is no health in it. "I drank a small glass,.of. your beer. It is very heavy, and went to niy hoad at once. Why .don't they make it light? The Government .should make, them"..- -It is too bad to" mako the'beer so heavy. In Germany the effect of drinking two long glasses of our beer, would not bq so great'a6''on_e-of your whiskies. Your beer, wants legislating upon."