FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 182, 22 October 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN” BOYS AND TRADES The Minister of Labour is seriously concerned regarding the dwindling opportunities of boys to learn trades. Mr. Anderson quotes a case in which only one apprentice is employed by a firm which has 100 journeymen on its pay-roll. If boys cannot learn trades by being apprenticed, they must be taught somehow, and Mr. Anderson intends to turn to the schools. “Greater use will have to be made of the schools to teach trades,” he says. The schools would certainly be performing more valuable service by teaching trades than by continuing to fill young heads with figures after those heads have thoroughly appreciated the fact that two and two make four. Doubtless Mr. Anderson will consult with the Minister of Education in this matter. It may be suggested that the curriculum be altered so that the last two years of a boy’s stay at school should be a period of technical training.

REGARDING S U PER ANN U A TION Sturdy old Mark Cohen, M.L.C., raises the question as to whether men who have earned large salaries from the State and have been retired on superannuation ought to be allowed to accept other positions and enter into competition with private individuals. It is a moot point. No one would insist that a pensioned civil servant should go to rust in the active years left him; but if he is adequately provided for in his declining years, should he take the job of the man who has nothing? The remedy for this incongruity seems obvious. Let us have a general scheme of superannuation. The man in private employ works just as truly for the State as does the State employee. There is no reason why the State employee should enjoy the preference he does.

THE MONKEY-MAN “They saw white men and women robbing, murdering, warring, lying, getting drunk and committing every sin and crime possible, without being punished.” Thus Mr. J. Beckett, formerly Protector of Aborigines in Australia, in pointing out the dangers of picture shows to the aboriginal mind. The Australian black wonders why he can’t do the things the white man does on the film—and then he does them. As Mr. Beckett points out, the abo. is an imitative creature —a monkey man. To show him how to do things for which the law hangs people is to use the old invitation: “ ‘Will you come into my parlour?’ said the spider to the fly.” * * ♦ ON THE AIR A correspondent writes to-day saying that he overheard two studio tomcats in a rooftop recitative, broadcast from Florida. This opens up vast possibilities. Now that direct communication has been obtained bettween Sydney and England it may be possible for Australia to broadcast

exclusive sounds of this nature, such as a he-duckbill platypus (or should it be a drakebill?) singing his nocturnal love song beside a lonely currajong at Alice Springs, or a hunter exorcising the “devil” from Tasmania. England could reciprocate with the death struggles of a turtle prior to immolation in the Lord Mayor’s soup! But, reverting to Florida, the probable interpretation of the tom-cats’ snappy act was just plain static. Even IYA sounds a bit that way on the Look Out Man’s set —but lie frankly admits he is but a child in radio matters. THE NEW COINAGE The announcement of a new silver coinage is made particularly interesting by the fact that for over 110 years there has not been any important change in design. Early coinage w'as very fascinating, for it was often commemorative. At the Norman Conquest the silver penny was the current coin and there were local mints all over the country. Under Edward I. a new coinage was issued in which figured the penny, the half-penny and the farthing. In 1343 there was a gold currency—the florin, the half-florin and the quarter-florin. About a hundred years later, under Edward IV.. there came the royal or rose noble, in value, ten shillings. On one side of it a rose was represented on a ship and on the reverse the sun, so that it embodied the badges adopted by the King after the battle of Mortimer’s Cross. There was also a new coin called the noble angel, of the value of six shillings and eightpence. Under Henry VII. the sovereign made its appearance, but Henry VIII., not content Tvith this, indulged in the doublesovereign, the half-sovereign, the crown and the half-crown: and in 1526 the George noble, valued like the old angel at six shillings and eightpence. made its bow; while under Edward VI. there was a whole new silver coinage, crown, half-crown, shilling, sixpence. threepence and penny. This was the end of local mints; henceforth, gold and silver were struck only at the Tower. *■