LIFE IN CANADA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 283, 24 November 1908, Page 3

LIFE IN CANADA.

SOME OBSERVATIONS OK I INTEREST. Life in Canada does not vary except in details from life in New Zealand, in England, or anywhere else (writes the Canadian correspondent of the Otago Daily Times). Whenever conditions are favorable for the rapid enrichment of n few classes it is inevitable that other classes will be made relatively poorer. Nor does this necessarily involve the direct infliction of wrong, as right and wrong are popularly measured by the prosperous upon their less fortuaavVl, fellows. The injury may go on in degree while some show is made of generous dealings. For example, the rising i.f the scale of living, accompanied by hi increase in the actual cost of living, has borne very severely on salary-ear-ners, although within the ipi'riod of growth salaries have been bettered. The betterment lias not, however, been nearly equal to the heavier calls upon resources, so that to-day the pinch is keenly felt, The real hardships of modern social life are endured by those who, refined and educated, are desperately struggling to make an income of £3OO a year meet all domestic requirements and provide for the contingencies of old age. Wage-earners have done better within the past ten yeara—enormously better—than the salaried classes. Vet it is difficult to find improvements in their social and economic status commensurate with the advances in wages. This may be due, and probably is. to a corresponding decline in that subtle ami complex tiling we call thrift. Relatively fewer mechanics, for example, are buying homes for themselves. Much more tlnphirable is an obvious increase in the driu!: bill of the working clasjrs Bs a whole. No doubt the ewer came of this is the presence in our cities of an increasing proportion of English immigrants. Why it should be so is not explained, but these artisans from the. Mother Country are the men who fill our saloons after pa\ day, and give vise to the disturbing idea that inebriation is rapidly gaining ground in Canada These observations, although not directly cognate, tiring to mind our labor troubles. The strike of Canadian Pacific railway mechanics still continues. Tha men have stood firm and the company lias proceeded methodically to" lilt their places. The service of the railway appears not to be impaired, although the men assert,that the rolliag stock is rimning down The strikers are being given financial assistance from across the Line, and Mr Keir liardie, who has been on a visit to Canada, has rather suggested to them that aid will come to them from England, laus far there has been no violence, although 8000 men are directly concerned. The shops have been recruited at all points

Ifiom ocean to ocean ; lint the olil employees from time to time, succeed in

inducing liie new men to <|\iit work, tin the whole, and withoul prejudice, the indications are favorable to the company, chiefly because in this i'/islanc'e the men are on weak ground in not, having the award of the Board of Arbitratiou.