NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 999, 14 December 1910, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

$ The Labour Department of the British Board of Trade issued last month a very interesting . report upon collective agreements between employers and workpeople in the United Kingdom. The figures illustrate very strikingly tho possibilities of conciliation and free agreement even in a country accustomed to labour wars. The collective agreements of a general trade or district character known to the Board of Trade number 1G93. Tho distribution according to trades is shown in the following table: No. of No. of WorkAgreements. people. Mining and quarrying... 50 900,000 Transport trades 92 500,000 Textile trades 113 400,000 Metal, engineering, and shipbuilding 163 230,000 Building trades 803 200,000 Clothing trades 303 50,000 Printing trades "9 40,000 Other trades 87 20,000 Total 1,090 2,4-00,000 In addition to those directly affected, a large number of other workpeople have their wages and hours of labour, etc., governed by the collective agreements in force in the trades concerncd. Mb. G-. R. Askavith, of the Labour < Department, says in a prefatory note to the report that "the wide prevalence of these arrangements in the, most important industries must have an important influence on industrial enterprise, for when tho level of wages, the length of the working day, and other principal conditions of employment arc regulated, for specified periods of greater or less duration, by clearly defined agreements, the employers concerncd must be enabled to calculate with precision that part of the cost of production which will be represented by labour. Further, when these agreements bind the whole or a very large proportion of the firms engaged in a given trade, the danger of undercutting by rivals who find it possible to obtain labour at a lower price materially reduced."' Here is a wonderful orderliness of industry achieved without the intervention of the State. If it is possible in Britain, it should be quite easy in New Zealand to dispense with compulsory _ arbitration and its permanent coercion.

One of the most important questions dealt with by . the Methodist Synod of the Wellington district at its annual meeting yesterday was that relating to tho training'of candidates for the ministry,. the need for tho establishment of a residential college for students being . _ strongly emphasised. The foundation and maintenance of such an institution would, of course, involve considerable expenditure, but Methodists have always been ready to make sacrifices for their Church, and when their duty in such matters is made clear to them a prompt and enthusiastic response may be expected. Never in the long history of the ■Christian Church has the need for a highly-educated ministry been more imperative than at the present time. In the days before the system •of national education had been, inaugurated tho clergy formed a kind of intellectual aristocracy, but tho . establishment of free schools wherever two or three are gathered together has brought about a wonderful change. Almost everybody can now read and write, and the enormous extension of tho spheres of influence of the daily, newspaper and periodical literature has' brought tho best thought of the age in a popular form within tho roach of the masses of the people. These facts have made it all the more necessary to make adequate provision for the training of ministors of religion on the best modern linos. Tho Methodists have for some time past felt the need for a residential college, and it is probable that a determined effort will be made in the near future to set up a strong . central institution, from which there will come a steady supply of tho-roughly-trained men for ministerial work throughout tho Dominion. That'tho Methodist Church intends to go into this matter with thoroughness and with a clear recognition of modern requirements is shown by tho resolution carried at yesterday's meeting urging that students for the ministry should be instructed in child psychology, the principles of pedagogy, and Sunday school organisation. In view of the fact that no religious teaching is provided in tho State schools, it is of the greatest importance that tho best possible use should be made of the Sunday schools as a means of instruction in the Christian faith, and this can only ba done by adopting tho most scientific methods of teaching.