AUCKLAND HAPPENINGS.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 3 October 1918, Page 3

AUCKLAND HAPPENINGS.

[From Our Own Correspondent!

">%|u£^ Auckland, Oct. 1

TRAftE AFTER THE WAR.

Business firms throughout the Dominion are just now being inundated with circulars from agencies in neutral countries seeking to open up trade relations with N.Z after the war. The Board of Trade, I understand, reckons that most of these agencies are of enemy origin, and have been established with a view to Germany and Austria once more getting a grip on our trade. This matter, by the way, is engaging the attention of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce. "We have done very well without goods * made in Germany' for four years," re~' marked the President of the Chamber the other day, '* and can very well do without them for all time." Hear, hear ! —and so say all of us ! The Board of Trade is asking firms receiving letters or circulars of the kind referred to to forward same to them in order that steps may be taken to check the Hun's little game Germany hopes to engineer a great revival of trade after the war, and doubtless proposes to devote some of the profits toward meeting the cost of the next big war, which she is already planning. THE BAIT. The bait the Huns will no doubt use to tempt the British public will be —cheap prices. They will flood the market with low-priced goods. So if, by-and-by, you are offered lines which you suspect are Hun-made you will know what to do. If we Maorilanders are wise we shall, profiting by the lessons this ' terrible war has taught us, strive in fevery way to develop, extend, and perfect our own industries, and thus render ourselves as independent as we can ! of the overseas market. It is, of course, ten thousand times better that we should buy Jap goods than German goods. But the best plan of all is for us to make our own goods—so far as is practicable. THE FIVE-DAY WEEK. The boot factories won't have anything to say to the five-day week. "Taking one consideration with another —with another," as the policeman's song in '* the Pirates of Penzance " goes, the boot bosses " consider the five-day week proposition, at the present time, would be suicidal." " But," says Mr Murray, President of the N.Z. Federated Boot Manufacturers' Association (Auckland), "ifit is found that the 5-day week attracts workers from the boot to the clothing trade to such an extent as to inconvenience the former we may have to adopt the measure or some equivalent." My own impression is that the boot trade will be "inconvenienced." lam further of opinion that the 5-day week has come to stay, and that it will gradually invade all our industries, and also our offices, warehouses, and shops until it is as well established and as universal as the Saturday half-holiday now is. Already " A Draper's Assistant " has been writing to a local paper to urge the extension of the scheme to the shops. Depend upon it the time is coming when every place of business in Auckland —save and except, perhaps' the shops where perishable goods are sold, and the tobacco shops and confectioners —will be closed all day Saturday, and the commercial week will end on Friday night. IMMORALITY AMONGST YOUNG PEOPLE. The result of enquiries instituted at other institutions in Auckland goes to show that the lamentable state of things dis clqsad in connection with St. | £, Miffy's Home, (referred to in my last) exists, practically at all these other " homes," and that ' 'applications for admission to these places from young girls in their early teens —expectant mothers —are quite common, in fact almost every day occurrences. And the matrons or lady ' superintendents of these homes s66m to be unanimously of opinion that the source of the trouble, in almost every case, is lack of parental control. The parents simply cannot keep their young people in order, and the fifth commandment has become practically a dead letter I heard myself the other day of a lady who confessed, in despair, that she was unable to control her two children—a girl of seven and

and a boy of ten ! In ray youthful days discipline within the family circle was enforced, where necessary, by means of the strap or the birch-rod. These salutary methods would appear to have gone out of date—and with them have gone the respect and obedience children once upon a time paid to their parents. THE FAST DWINDLING SOVEREIGN. The purchasing power of the sovereign in New Zealand is now something over 13s, It has been steadily shrinking — becoming small by degrees but disgustingly less—ever since the war started, until it now costs, on the average of the four chief centres, 29/s^d to buy foodstuffs the cost of which, in the same four centres, averaged 20s during the period 1909-13. It is a tribute to the wonderful prosperity of the Dominion that notwithstanding the high prices of the-necessaries of life, there should be so little poverty noticeable. Occasionally appeals are made to the charitable on behalf of "the poor," in this country, but poverty —the abject heart - breaking poverty of the Old World —is unknown in New Zealand. And although we are paying pretty heavily for things we cannot very well do without, the people in England are paying much more than we are for such things. A private letter irecently in Auckland from London quotes some of the prices now ruling in the world's metropolis. Chocolates (when procurable) 4s per 1b; cherries, 3/6 per lb ; bananas, 5d each; peaches, 3s each ; small oranges, 5d each. Meat, butter, tea, and sugar are not sold — unless you can present a coupon. The rationing is'very strict. The daily ration of sugar is l^oz. Rich and poor are served alike. MONEY IN SCRAP IRON. The manager of an Auckland iron-foundry says that before the war these foundries paid about 60/- a ton for old scrap iron. They are now paying £7 per ton, This is not surprising when it is remembered that new pig iron formerly selling at a shade over 80s per ton is now worth from £14 to £20. The foundaries are buying up every scrap of castiron they can get hold of, Hence the disappearance of the once familiar heaps of old horse-slices to be seen outside blacksmiths' forges. All kinds of scrap wrought-iron command a ready market, and stuff at one time worth perhaps 30/- or 40/- a ton now fetches as much as £40 !