Untitled

Hokitika Guardian, 25 September 1923, Page 2

It is notified in this issue that the periodical conference of local bodies will he held »t the Town Hall <m Wednesday night. These gatherings should become meetings charged with very great importance, and it is worth recognising the action of the 'Westland Chamber of Commerce in this matter. There never was a time when there was greater necessity for a quickening interest in matters of a public (tearing. The opportunity offering through railway transport should, bo tlie occasion for the people to get together. and by combined effort, endeavor to help themselves to the greatest extent. Crops may not ho reaped without tilling the soil and sowing the seed. The conference to be held this week in regard to local affairs will 1)0 akin to that initial effort. The district will ho what the folk help to make it. and by getting together and discussing public affairs, action will be cdnc’p.ntrated on those ,’blatters considered most to the advantage and advancement of the place. There is now occasion for action because the opportunity is offering so favourably. The tide is at the-flood, and it is the time to launch our hopes, and from the wisdom of our direction will result the pleasures and enjoyments of tho voyage.

The recently opened Otiia tunnel, which pierces the Southern Alps of New Zealand for five and a thiru miles, is said to tie the longest in the British Empire. Yet in London there arc four tunnels that easily heat it (declares the ''Ala nc lies ter Guardian’’). The Piccadilly Tube is a continuous tunnel of about eight miles from where it dips underground at Baron’s Court to Finsbury Park. The Central London Railway comes nowhere into the open for seven miles between Liverpool Street and Wood I>ane; while the Bakerloo and Hampstead Tubes have each continuous tunnel-lengths of aver six miles. But for some reason or other these tubes are not counted among the great tunnels of England, and the Severn tunnel is always given ride of place. Perhaps this is because the Metropolitan—the first- of London s underground railways—is one tunnel. but a dot-and-carry system of short- tunnels and cuttings: its longest continuous tunnel, from King’s Cross to Edgeware Road, is under two miles. The longest stretch of line in the country without a tunnel is from Paddington to Box, over ninety miles; put there are other stretches on the

Great Western nearly as long. On nearly nil its routes this company follows the rules laid down by Brunnel. that you should have only one great, tunnel ami only one incline on a mam line. While the Midland has the greatest number of tunnels over a milo long, the South-Eastern has, in proportion to its length, the greatest tunnel mileage. Kent, particularly in the Dover district, is full of tunnels.

Signs are inultipying that a bitter struggle is imminent in the' United Kingdom over the fiscal issue. Unfortunately there is little prospect- of the questions- involved being considered dispassionately on their broad merits and in the light of present-day circumstances. Mr Asquith, and his supporters aro rallying in support of a traditional party j>olicy. The demand for protection appears to come chiefly from people who arc more intent- upon finding a remedy for their immediate difficulties twin upon the revision of a fiscal policy which obviously lias proved ineffective in a time of economic stress. There is not much prospect in these conditions of a really profitable* discussion of fiscal policy, at aJI events by those who are meantime taking th e front of the stage. As mutters stand, both parties are likely to exaggerate their case. This evidently applies to some reported observations by Mr William Mackinder on the Bradford motion in favour of the protection of the wool industry. Mr Mackinder says that the Bradford woo] industry must ‘'adapt itself to lower profits,” and that “it could not hope to keep up the fabulous profits of war-time, when spinners made up to .‘I2OO per cent." It is particularly obvious, however, that foreign competition is doing much more at present than lo limit the margin of profit in the British wool industry. Unemployment and short time working both on an unprecedented scale must he taken to mean that many Bradford firms or fi finding it impossible to earn any profit at nil.