NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 288, 31 August 1921, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

What with Labour and lady delegates, Korean independence and other topics, President Harding’s Disarmament Conference looks like resolving itself into an interesting conversazione with Shakespeare and the musical glasses as about the only subjects not brought under review. What definite achievement can result if all these extraneous matters arc brought in is problematical. Ths President’s ambition is to create an association of nations that will displace and kill the League of Nations. The disarmament plan, important as it is, is but a first step in that direction, but in view of what happened at Versailles in 1919 to Mr. AV i Ison and his grandiose plans his successor would probably be wise to feel his way with one step at a time. The points on which understanding has to be reached between America, Britain, and Japan before disarmament can amount to anything that is worth while, are numerous enough and difficult enough to require the undivided attention of any conference. If a successful arrangement is possible it will be something for Mr. Harding to build the rest of his international structure upon. But if he gets his large and expensive conference together in Washington and has it rambling all over the field of world polity and economics we shall have the old spectacle of the mountain in labour with a problematical mouse in prospect. The President’s rounded periods are one thing, but the realities scattered about over the Pacific are another, and un'happily Washington at '.ho moment does not look like npproaa.ling Hem in the practical way that is necessary if points of friction are to be definitely removed.

A strike because the wages that can be made are too lagli <s a noveJy even in these days, but such an occurrence is reported on a building cor.tiact in Lincolnshire this morning. The case is similar to that in which He Amalgamated Society of Carpenters recently forbade their members to participate in Messrs. Lever Brothers’ profit-sharing scheme at Port Sunlight, ihe men v.cro expelled from Hie union (or accepting a share of the firm’s profits, and cn bringing a lawsuit for reinstatement i.i the union they were defeated on a technical point. Nothing daunted, they went or;' to the Court of Appeal, which in June last reversed the judgment. It setups that since 1999 the men hud benefited by the Lever co-partnership scheme, which gave profits on top <-f at ii’as-t full I,llion wages. The scheme was accepted by twenty-eight unions in the firm’s employ, but in 1919 the national headquarters of ths Carpenters’ Union suddenly raised objection, and ordered the carpenters at Port Sunlight to refuse to accept any share of Levers Brothers’ profits It seems that a union rule laid it down that no profit-sharing was eeceptahle unless the men had a majority 1 of the shares in the business. So far as can be gathered, the union’s objection was that if members received such increases in remuneration they would to reluctant to strike when ■’nlled upon, and union discipline would be weakens!, f rom any point of view it seems a strangely shert-fsi'.-’iteci policy. Messrs. Lever apparently were treating their men mors generously than the ordinary run of employers, and instead of working to bring others up to tli-i same standi’.l the union tried to insist on bringing ihe best employer down to the level of the worst. On whatever grounds the Court of Appeal decided that ihe union was acting il.'tgal.’y, its decision was undoubtedly in accord with ordinary common sense.

If a borough council in New Zealand went on strike and refused to collect the hospital contribution levied on it a position would arise analogous to that in Poplar. The difference would be that while any New Zealand council would probably have a bad case Poplar has a remarkably strong one. Poplar in the East End of London is a poor borough with a Capital value of less than a million, while Westminster at the other end of the scale has a capital value of A great part of the unemployment and distress now prevailing in London is concentrated in Poplar. Between .£30,000 and £ 40,000 has been spent out of rates in relieving the unemployment, land the guardians even in midsummer were distributing JBSOO a week in outdoor relief. On top of these heavy local calls came the demand of the London County Council and the Metropolitan, Asylums Board that the borough should collect the rates levied by them, and this the Labour majority on the Poplar Council flatly refused to do and declared their preference for prison. It is stated that to satisfy the demands made an imposition would have to bo made on Poplar’s poverty-stricken ratepayers of a. rate equal to -Cl 18s. Bd. in the .£l. The Government had promised PopiUr assistance, but practically none has been given. The demonstration now being made should have an excellent effect in remedying a most inequitable system of local taxation, and it is not surprising to learn from the cable messages that other poor London boroughs are rallying to the support of Poplar’s case. —

One of the most remarkable figures in Europe to-day is Herr Rathcnau, the now German Minister of Reconstruction. Herr Rathenau has written a book in which he preaches his gospel, and it is (i gospel of revolt '.against the "mechanisation” of civilisation. The world, lie declares, is being pushed in a direction that is wholly materialistic and antispiritual. At the same time this prophet of revolt standi, nt the very centre of the mechanisation he denounces, land is a complete embodiment of its force—superbusiness man, master of applied science, technician, inventor, manufacturer, or-

ganiser and financier. Herr Ralhcnau, who is the successful head of ihe biggest electrical enterprises in Germany, starts his book from the premise Ihiat all human aims and doings find their justifieatio'n in the unfolding of the soul and its kingdom. The condition of success in the seer’s task, he says, is that his foot must never leave the earth, nor his cyo the stars. On Hio economic side Herr Rathenau thinks that nationalisation of the moans of production has no economic significance. No mechanical hard-and-fast rule of administering the wealth of the world will ever bring about the moral land just regulation of ownership. Ho lays great stress on consumption, which, he says, is not a private matter, but an affair of tho community, of the State, morality, and mankind. He would limit luxury, suppress monopolists, speculators, and inheritors of great wealth, and at the same time raise education to a higher level. Before advance can lie made on the economic side there must, in his opinion, bo first of all a corresponding ethical transforman tion. Sloth, sensuality, vanity, ambition, love of display 'and lust of power are lions in tho path, and in a severely critical passage, tho part played by women in fostering their evil tendencies is reviewed. The road ahead is a hard way, this idealistic business man insists, but faith springing from love and the will of God is the driving force that will pusk mankind along it.

In the matter of a financial deficit on railway working, Queensland takes an, easy first place in Australasia. Its railway accounts for tho past six years show an accumulated deficit of more than six millions sterling, and tho addition made in the financial year just ended (on Juno 30) to this balance to tho bad was over £1,600,000. For 1919-20 there was a deficit of £1,230,000. The drift of Queensland railway administration under an extremist Labour Government is indicated in the following particulars, given with others in late Australian files: — QUEENSLAND RAILWAY WORKING. 1913-14. 1919-20. Number of emjiloyees 12,546 16,823 Train miles 11,316,000 10,413,000 Net revenue per employee £lO2/11/11 £37/17/2

While the number of employees has been increased by nearly one-third, the work done by the railways (as/indicated in train miles) shows a heavy reduction, and tho net revenue per employee earned in 1919-20 was little more than onethird of the corresponding amount in 1913-14. The financiil position would be even worse but for the fact that fgres and freights have been increased by as much as 37 per cent, on the 1913-14 level. Detailed figures for 1920-21 aro not yet available, but judging by tho amount of the deficit for tho year tho position is decidedly worse than it was in 1919-20. Tho present state of affairs on the Queensland railways took its rise, as one Australian writer points out, "in those wild days of tho Townsville riots, when members of tho militant Railway Union refused to drive a special train carrying police, who were being hurried to Townsville; when the same union decided just what it would carry on tho trains; when cattle were turned loose out of tho yards of the meat works; and when a few of the autocrats of the union declared sugarcane, flour, and other products to bo ‘bla/k.’ ’’