CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 221, 6 February 1913, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

DON'T "TAME" THE MOUNTAIN. "'I hope they won't take the advice that has been so freely given during the. past few days and 'tame' the mountain," remarked a prominent citizen to a News representative the other day. "Why, without a spice of danger, old Egmont would not be half as attractive as it is to climbers," he added. "The very ruggedness and grandeur of the mountain are a challenge to mere man down below. Provide aids for its subjection, for its taming, and von knock the joy out of accomplishing the task. Tt is, of course, unfortunate that fatal accidents should occur, but there must always be the element of risk present ; if the mountain is to maintain its attractiveness."

THE PATEA HARBOR. The finance committee of the Paten Harbor Board at its meeting on Monday recommended the Board to increase wharfage on butter, cheese, frozen and eased meats by (id per ton, as from May 1, the proceeds to bo devoted towards improving the port. The committee further recommended the Board to adopt the smaller scheme suggested by the Marine Department for improving the port, involving the expenditure of £SOOO. The recommendations were adopted. The bigger scheme was esiiniated to cost £30.000 or £40,000. Patea is finding that to keep its port open it must spend money. The spending of 1 the £SOOO contemplated will probably mean the beginning of a much larger expenditure. The harbor has had a bad run of late, and it is to be hoped that the contemplated improvements will render the river port quite safe to navigation. In his annual report the chairman said: "It is thought that under the circumstances, and considering the absolute necessity of making the port workable at all times, that the ratepayers would consent to a rate in their own interests, failing which, there appears to he little hope for many years of further improving the entrance, but if on the contrary, this consent were forthcoming, it is more than probable that effective further work could be done at the entrance, making the river and bar, workable at all states of the tide all the year round. If we are to maintain our trade, which is fast increasing (especially in dairy produce), something will have to be done in the near future, as under present circumstances, although an extraordinary amount of produce is exported at times the output is checked by weather and tidal conditions, which would be considerably amended by judicious expenditure under the best expert advice. It is. therefore, for the ratepayers to consider the question of a small rate seriously as affecting their own interests."

THE ''FATAL MOUNTAIN." Under the above heading, Mr. C. W. Wilson writes:—"The recent cruel and distressing fatality on Jit. Egmont having induced apparently some consideration being given to the minimising o'' the risks incurred by the more inexperienced climbers of the mountain, I might be allowed to- suggest that though the Dawson's Falls House Committee's scheme of a "chain" to be laid on the ascending ridge seems more or less ridiculous, some device of a similar nature might not be despised as impracticable. An old notion of mine was the fixing of strong upright iron rods, embedded deeply in the scoria or shale, and piled round at the foot (such rods to be, say, lengths of small gas pipes); these fixtures to be ranged in line on the mountain ridge as far up as possible, which would not be very remote from the top. The rods -might be connected with wire, even plain clothes line wire, let through or threaded through the upper ends of the iron pillars pr piping. Such an arrangement might offer more direct security to a lost party than even a telephone, though there might certainly be no reason why a telephone should not be inaugurated. Any spot chosen, though, 011 the mountain slope for a telephone station midway to the summit would seem to involve an operator stationed there permanently. As donations seemed to have flowed in pretty freely for the building of an up-to-date hostelry, furnished with every comfort and convenience for living and amusement, subscriptions for the providing of some safeguards for climbers should he easily forthcoming. A Mr. Baxter, of Egmont Village, suggested huts. Some such covered harbor of refuge at or near the summit of the mountain was one of my theoretical possibilities. Such huts are to be found on the Swiss Alps, mountaineers having outlived nights in such a building 011 Mt. Blanc, weather-bound by snow, blizzards and avalanches. Parties descending Egmont not knowing the mountain might not go amiss to try and notice some prominent landmarks on their way up as aids in finding tlie w r ay down or back."

LABOR FREEDOM'. Hero freedom for the anti-Arbitration-ists >s not what the Federation is demanding. Tt does not want equal treatment and equal opportunities for all: it wants freedom for its own followers, but it will not allow an equal freedom to those who prefer to remain under the Act. That is a demand which cannot lie justified on its merits, and it is small wonder that the speakers 071 Fridays' deputation were led into absurdities where they deviated from violent rhetoric. A union may be duly registered under the Act, but ic will he described as a "bogus union" if it is "opposed to the interests of a majority of men in the industry," or, in other words, if the Federnlinn of Labor objects to a registered union of that district. We are not unaware of the difficulties of the situation, but of one thing we can entertain no doubt: that it should not he within the power of anybody, while the Arbitration Act remains on the Statute Book, to prevent the registration of a Union which satisfies all the requirements of the law and which can establish its bona fides. This is a right which must be safeguarded, so long as the Act remains. Tf the preservation of this right leads to anomalous situations, there are only two remedies which can be tolerated. One of these is the complete abolition of the Arbifration Act; and the other is to tighten up the law so as to compel all trade unions to register under the Act. We shall be told (hat neither of these remedies can for the present be applied, but either one or the other is essential to justice. We trust that, in the meantime, the Government will not complicate the already defective and anomalous Act with such a piece of tyranny as the amendment asked for by the Federation.—Dominion.