CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 222, 13 January 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

AMERICAS AUSTRALIANS. One of the most interesting phases in the expansion of Australia is the very large number of citizens of the United States who have left Uncle Sam to take shelter tinder the Southern Cross. The Commonwealth Government, we are told, is about to negotiate for tire reduction of sea fares between the two countries in order to benefit as largely as possible by influx from America. Just as America in her early days owed the great rapidity of her commercial progress to influx from crowded countries, so must Australia expand in consonance with her ability to attract outsiders. New vigor is infused into all communities by newcomers, who bring fresh ideas, new hopes, new intentions, and new blood. Australia's great problems will sink out of sight if the influx of white outsiders steadily continues. The prospects in Australia attract many people from Europe, and a phase quite as interesting as the influx of Americans is the influence of Germans. The efforts of all new countries should lie in the direction of attracting population and in making it worth while for newcomers to become permanent residents. The reason why there is greater attraction to Australia than to New Zealand lies in the fact that the Federal Government, as well as tire- States Governments, have at last conceded that every question is insignificant in comparison with the settlement of the land. We in New Zealand have reason enough to lw pleased with the revenue returns recently published, but not much reason to be proud of the difficulties to be met in obtaining land. There is nothing so important as this question in New Zealand, and if political party warfare could cease for a little time in order that all sides in politics might concentrate on land settlement, there would be larger influxes of people and smaller effluxes. The problem before New Zealand is less serious than that before Australia, for New Zealand is easier to defend and smaller to settle. No New Zealand statesman has yet concentrated his whole energy on the land settlement question, and no New Zealand politician thinks it worth while to l»:come a specialist with a single ideal. New people nre more potent for the good of New Zealand than more laws; people are wanted much more urgently than more water power) people are of infinitely greater importance than party wriinglms, fat Hansards and glowing speeches about bulkier figures. Bulky figures are of little use if there are insufficient people to guard tie cash.

A WORD TO WOMEN'. The reader who sympathises with the demand of the carpenters of Wellington for a forty-hour week, will he surprised at the reminder that an Act was passed last session in relation to the hours of work for hotel employees. The Act provides that these employees, whether they work in hotel, boa'nlinghouse or restaurant, shall not be made to work more than sixtv-two hours a week, which is a very kindly concession, considering that they are not carpenters and many of them are women. There is, indeed, no reason why a robust man working partly in the open air should not "crack up" under the strain of forty hours and a-lialf and that a frail woman should be in the best of form after working sixty-two hours a week indoors. And, besides, as everybody knows, there is no money in hotel-keeping or restaurants or boardinghouses, while huge fortunes are made by speculative little builders. When yoil see a seaming anomaly like that, you must not be angry, biit only thankful that your live.s have been cast in such a pleasant industrial community, where the superior physical stamina of women enables them to keep going half as long again as stonemasons, plasterers, bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters, painters, scaffoklcrs, and builders' laborers. Public house—licensed or unlicensed—employees a.re, under the new Act, permitted the extraordinary privilege of a halfholiday per week, but it is hoped that this will not seriously dislocate business. We would like to gently direct the public thought to the point that the average man looks upon himself as a delicate subject whose esteemed health is likely be seriously affected by doing twothirds of a woman's work for three times the money. If the public will ponder on this and remind itself that it has a sister in a. bonrdinghnii'c or a cousin in a hotel, or an aunt in a restaurant, it should be proud of the stamina of the fiituro mothers of the race who will be a»ked to marry the forty-hour-n-wwk man, on whom the harsh wind of commercial competition must not blow. One never hears any raucous-voiced "down with the boss" person being chivalrous about women workers, aw! the worker is not above <ruflawing loudly at the mere mention of a "sufl'rauetie." Some of these days a. Napoleon of Labor will mount his soap-box and demand a seven-ty-hour week for workmen's wives, or some ridiculous and impossible concession of the kind—but not yet.

A ORKAT WORK. The late Sir Jolin Aird, whose death is just reported, will lie known to future generations by reason of his association with the construction of the great Assouan darn, which has been described as the 1 most permanent monument of the 'British occupation of Esrvpt. The story of the damming of the Nile is one, indeed, which is worthy to rank with the. most colossal incidents in the history of that country, and is one wholly creditable to the. enterprise of the British capitalists iind public servants. The contract was let :to Sir John Aird and Co. at their tender price of £.2.000.000 in ISOB, and they set about the immense work forthwith.' The Duke of Connaught laid the first stone of the granite walls, and his Ttoval Highness played a leading part in the opening of the dam four years later. By si sini'iilar piece of pood fortune there were two low Niles during the construction of the dam—an occurrence which had not happened twice within so brief a period for 40 years before. The co-operation of tin.? British and Egyptian Oovernmeiits, the generous supply of British ci'.nitnl. and the abundance of competent fellaheen labor enabled Sir John Aird and Co. to complete tlwir task much earlier than had been expected, and it was opened towards the

end of 1902. It has been said .that while the Suez t'linul benefited Europe at the cost of Egypt, the Assouan dam is designed for the profit of Egypt at the risk of the Hritish investor. The estimates of the annual gain which it promises to the Egyptian Government runs into millions of pounds. Its immediate benefit to the tillers of the soil is that it will bring to an end the accidents of the seasons by which sometimes the crops were flooded and at other times perished for laok of water. Upper Egypt will henceforth rival Lower Egypt in the fertility of its soil, and a step has brcn taken towards making the Nile navigable up to its source.