SAYINGS AND WRITINGS OF THE TIMES.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 August 1926, Page 1

SAYINGS AND WRITINGS OF THE TIMES.

A NEW ITALY. . “ On one point you will find every foreigner who has known Italy at all in the past completely convinced. You will hear hut one opinion, and that is that Eascismo and Mussolini, its great leader, have lifted Italy from the lowest depths of national disintegration and chaos to the most impressive level of national efficiency, material wellbeing, and sound and " systematised national life. There is a new Italy in j a very true and real sense.”—Mr I Frank H. Simonds. f A NEW PAY-DAY. “ Unless employers have some sort of wish to support the drink traffic, why do they pay wages when a man has come to the end. of the week, and is most tired land feeling tho want ol an anaesthetic, and has time at iliis disposal to go and spend money on it? f ask you to cease paying wages at the week-end. Why not do it on Tuesdays and Wednesdays? There is no difficulty. It is a very small matter of bookkeeping,' and the present system is a direct incentive to drinking.”— Professor Collis.

A SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

“We hear a great deal just now about economic laws and their limitations. But economics are made for man, not man for economies. Economics are, in fact, what man makes them. To the present generation has fallen the trfsk of initiating a second industrial revolution. This revolution has two aims, the one closely related to the other fto reconstruct the material elements' of industry according to modern scientific knowledge, ancl to bring its human relationships into harmony with ancient religious principles, the principles of Christianity. To unite Christianity and economics is not so Utopian a mission as our modern pagans imagine. But it cannot ho done by statesmen whose mentality is that of the rulers of Rome—Rome not in the days of her glory hut in the days of her fall.”—Mr Lancelot Lawton in the “Fortnightly Review.” THE EDUCATIONAL LABYRINTH “It is this tendency to minimise the value of education involving manual dexterity that causes the persistence of the idea that the universities are the pinnacle of the educational edifice. The upholders of that view cannot reconcile that-article of their faith with tho fact that somo men with.the highest honours at the University can only obtain lowly paid commercial appointments. It is only another example of the law that you cannot learn one thing by doing another. Tf this land is going to he mightier yet, they will have to recognise two pinnacles to their temple—University education of the commonly accepted type, and the higher technical colleges of the nature of the Imperial College for Technology, , the Manchester College of Technology, the London Polytechnics, and similar institutions.”—Mr W. A. Evans, president of the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions, in the “Daily Telegraph.” i

RESEARCH . THE KEY. “ It has been frequently urged that it is undesirable, not to say wrong, to devote public money to industrial research., which should he supported entirely by the trade concerned. There is, I think, a very good answer to this criticism. Truly successful research is rarely without benefit to mankind at large, and one need not do more to emphasise this point than refer to tJlio lifeworlc of such a man as Pasteur. As regards industrial research it may safely be said that the fruits of such research are always for the public benefit. It has been estimated, for example, that the research work of the General Electric Company of America is saving the American nation at least a billion dollars a year in the matter ol electric light.”—Dr Crossle.v.

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. “ To get to heaven was one thing but to stay there was quite another thing. If they would stay in heaven they must obey 'll lea veil’s laws, and they were more exacting than earthly laws/They put you oil your mettle, and called upon you to play the man, not the fool. Unless you were going to obey heaven’s laws your stay there would ho a brief one. It was a mistake to suppose* that Utopia would be laid on like gas and water. Without heroes to defend and women to hear its burdens, the Kingdom of Heaven would finish- in a night.”—Principal L. P. Jacks. COMBINATION FOR COAL EFFICIENCY. “I, personally, am firmly convinced that the coal-mining industry of Great Britain can be placed on a. profitable basis; and tliat in the liot-distant future; but to accomplish this drastic reorganisation will be required, the first move being in the direction of the combination of the collieries into groups of like natural conditions and of conditions of trade. Combination would displace vested interests. Economy of administration would be achieved. The number of directors.

f managing directors, consulting engin- | eers and general managers would be ■ 'greatly reduced. Combination would enable freights to be controlled to an extent impossible to the individual coal-owners. Underground and surface haulage would be simplified, central pumping could be concentrated at tho most advantageous points. Money would be forthcoming to develop the poorer, and backward collieries to the best advantage and allow of the greater meelianicalisation and introduction of labour-saving, appliances.”—Sir Richard Redmayne, in the “ Iron and Coal Trade-s Review.”

COAL CONSUMERS AS COAL MANAGERS.

i “I propose that the chief consumers ! of coal—that is, the chief customers of the mines—should get together and form a consumers’- syndicate, or, ns I should prefer to call it, a ‘Coal Consumers’ Co-operative Combino (or C.C. C.C.).’ Tho prime object of this body would bo to buy out the mine-owners and to carry on their industry on a self-supporting basis:—i .e., the business of providing cheap power, warmth and light for their consuming shareholders rather than of creating a highly profitable undertaking on ordinary trade lines. They would pay their way, and pay proper and reasonable wages to capital as well as to labour, but their chief aspirations and thoughts would be the provision of good and cheap material, raw ‘.and finished, under stable conditions to their share-holder-consumers. The people to do this, to name only a few of them, are tho railways, the shippers, the gas companies, the chief municipalities, tho Government departments (War Office, Admiralty, Office of Works, etc.), tho co-operative wholesale societies, the generators of electricity, the burners of brick, lime and cement, the chemical works, tho iron, steel, and other furnaces, tho industrial and producing companies in the country great and small, and any individual! consumers who might favour such investment.”—Mr J. St. Loe Strachev in the "Sunday Express.”

WORK AND PLAY. “ The question of the utilisation of workers’ leisure is the corollary of the larger problem of the limitation of the hours of work. Employers and the workers themselves, both in this and other countries, have for a long time seen the reality of this corollary. While on tho one hruid the employer has introduced welfare work, which has become an important movement, on tho other hand the workers have made their own contribution towards the solution of the problem in such an activity as the Workers’ Educational Association and other well-known organisations.”—The “ Bournville Annual.”