NOTES OF THE DAY
' More heads and more hands are needed I for the development of the resources of New Zealand, but if our immigration policy is to bo made a real success, both from the point of view of the country and the immigrants, it will only be by tho creation of a close personal touch with the incoming population. The pro- ' gramme of immigration work adopted by the Church of England Men's Society deserves hearty commendation. Hotels liavo been secured in Auckland and Wellington at which arriving immigrants have the first claim on the accommodation, and arrangements are being made for assisting in securing work and generally giving a. helping hand until the newcomer? find their feet. With enthusiastic voluntary co-operation of this nature the imniigra**i>i: system c«n hardly fail to lie a success. Tho Church of England is not alone in The good work, for the extremely v.-xJunMc part taken by the Salvation Army in this direction also is well known. The immigrants arriving since the war have lxien freely commented on as generally of an excellent ctamp and likely to form a rval asset to the country. More people mean more enterprises on foot and more openings and opportunities for everybody once the newcomers are absorbed into useful and productive employment. All who lend a hand in placing immigrants are doing a real service to their country ao well as to the newcomer? themselves.
The temporary closing down of motorcar factories in the United States ii.dicates that the country \i tniich neuter tho motor saturation point than it suspected. Tho number of passenger cans running in America to-day is i?aid to be, roughly, 6,000,000, or one to every eighteen people. The average life of a car is put at 50,000 miles, or five years.' from 1915 to ItllS the passenger car fmtput was much restricted, and it was recently estimated that a replacement demand existed for 1,000,000 cars, while in addition half a million would-be owners were waiting to purchase; This gave an unsupplied demand for 3,500,000 care. It was thought probable that a production of 2,000,000 would be effected this year, which would Ifave a carry-over of a million and a half, with further increase in the replacement quantity. Thesu figures were collected in May last by the writer of a series of articles Tor the London "Times" on American industrial conditions. Altogether his informants were of opinion that there wa9 no need to worry about saturation-until at least 8,000,000 more cars, or one to eight of tho population, had been produced. I'M", optimism of seven months ago seems scarcely to havo been warranted iu view of the turn the market has now laken. After all, one motor-car to every eighteen people means a car to about every 21 families, and even the extraordinarily diffused prosperity which hard work and hustle have produced in America can Rftl'dly tie expected to go much further than this.
Opinion is much cjividcd in Britain as to whether the huge trades union amalgamations now projected will make for pence or war in industry One view of Hie situation was recently given by the Labour correspondent of the London "Daily News," who argues that experience of the past few years has shown that the greater the power wielded the greater has been the sense of responsibility created on both sides in an industrial dispute. This, he declares, has been cMnitely shown by the working of the Labour Triple .Alliance. The fact remains that the calling of a combined strike that would hold up all the vital sc-rvices of the country is greatly facilitated as the amalgamations increase in size. Which si.de could hold out longest in the face of such a devastating stoppage is an unsettled point that nobody but a fanatical minority of extremists can desire to put to the test. If these new Labour combinations lead in future disputes to a more thorough exploration of all avenues to a settlement by negotiation something will be gained. The greatest danger they present is the concentration of tremendous power in a few hands, aud the reduction in the number of executives which the extremist eectidns have to capture ito push the movement along dangerous courses.
Taxes on bachelors have been talked of for two thousand years or moro, but such as have been imposed have usually been more noticeable for their mildness than anything else. A French Department, according to a. message today, has decided to pay a bonus for every child born, and to raise the money for the purpose by the taxation of • bachelors, lvarlier in tjie year e. Bill before the French Chnmber of Deputies proposed to put a tax of no less than '25 per cent, on the incomes of all bachelors and divorced citizens over thirty years of age. That measure does not appear so far to have found acceptance. The French Revolutionary Senate in 1795 decreed that bachelors should be ineligible for membership in it, and a hundred years later the National Allinnce for the Increase of the Population of France had nothing more revolutionary to suggest than the privilege of a double vote to the father of three children. The' Spartans of old decreed that bachelors over a. certain age should not be allowed to behold "the gymnastic cxercises of the mauVens," but tho more practical Romans in the days .of Augustus laid it down that no bachelor under sixty should be allowed to take possession of a legacy until he had first acquired a wife. Twice when England wanted money .for military purposes recourse was had to the bachelor. Charles IT ouce put a tax of n shilling a head on every single person, and William JIT, in 170b', made cj?mauds upou bachelors according to their incomes or station in life. A plain bachelor "gentleman" was let off with six shillings, but an unwed duke had to jay Jil2 lis. As Dorothea in the story says: "Tho horrid old frights should bo taxed because—well, just because." And Dorothea in half a dozen countries has a vole nowadays.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19201231.2.15
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 82, 31 December 1920, Page 4
Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,015NOTES OF THE DAY Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 82, 31 December 1920, Page 4
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.