FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 116, 6 August 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN” A "BITE- ABROAD An Aucklander who was recently In France writes to say he had been suffering from a mild attack of bloodpoisoning, through having been bitten on the wrist by some poisonous insect. He assures us that insects are not the only things that “bite” in France. He took three people to the Hermitage Hotel for dinner one night, and he says he could have got an infinitely better dinner for four, and better cooked, at an Auckland hotel for 12s. The necessary tip to the waiter of Ss 4d was more than the price of a first-class luncheon for four in Auckland. And at the French hotel referred to there is a "cover charge” of Is before , you sit down. The dinner consisted of grape fruit, a small boiled trout, small steaks with chopped potatoes and peas, a wing of chicken, strawberries, coffee and liquer. For this, the host paid £4 2s Bd, which included 11s 2d tax and 3s 4d for a packet of 20 Player cigarettes. “There are tens of thousands of Americans here who spend money like water,” sr/s the writer, “and the French accordingly think everybody else wants to do the same.” He adds that it cost him £ll 9s 2d for his bedroom alone. There „is nothing hermit-like about the charge at the Hermitage. CORRECTED! A keen reader writes to point out an error and suggest that the Lookout Man should keep a keener lookout. Figures are responsible—or, in this case, the lack of a figure. In a paragraph “U.S. and Us,” concerning trade between the United States and New Zealand, it was stated that our exports to the U.S. for 1925 were valued at £434,975. ’Twas a sad slip on the part of the figure 8 to drop off the end of the row. Otherwise the tc) 1 would have been correctly given as £4,349,758. But mistakes will happen, even in the best regulated newspapers. WHY WOMEX WORK Apropos of the discussion on why women work—the married woman aspect of which is now being debated with considerable vigour by education boards in New Zealand—the letter of a young woman to the London “Daily Chronicle” is interesting. “For one woman who works for ‘pin money,’ ” she asserts, “there are 99 who work from sheer necessity. I work, firstly, because my parents cannot afford to keep me in idleness; secondly, because I have a brain and a pair of willing hands; and, thirdly, because education has taught me that I was not sent into the world to be a burden to the parents who have reared me.” This, by the way, is the kind cf education that seems to have been somewhat neglected in New Zealand. But, to pass on—another correspondent puts the case for the married woman worker: “1 have no doubt that my position is identical with thousands of others; I am a young married woman who is compelled by circumstances to go out to business. This condition is brought about by the action of firms who pay poor wages to their men employees, and the outrageous prices demanded for rooms and flats nowadays, and a good many women will have to work who would not otherwise do so, as long as these two factors are present.” Short, but to the point!

MOUNT MORGAN The community movement for the working of the famous Mount Morgan mines will be watched with intense interest. The high cost of production has led the directors to decide that the property cannot be profitably worked under existing conditions, but it may be that co-operative work will so increase individual effort and eliminate waste that receipts and expenditure can balance. The Mount Morgan mines have supported a town of 10,000 people, 24 miles south-west of Rockhampton, and up to now they have produced over £2O million worth of gold and copper. Unless something is done to keep the mines working, Mount Morgan may go the way of Cobar, the New South Wales town of melancholy history. Cobar was a great copper-producing centre, supporting a town of 5,000 people in an arid waste. Increased cost of production, and the fact that the copper had to be hauled 459 miles to the sea for shipment, effectually crippled Cobar, which is now but a sad relic" of better times, kept from utter extinction by a mere handful of people.