CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 77, 26 January 1914, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

"TIIK FINEST TIIING IN THE WOULD." "Profit-sharing is the. finest thing in the world," was the remark made by a Belfast manufacturer, now on a visit to Wellington, to a Post representative the other day. lie explained that the principle adopted by his firm was to pay its workmen the same interest (in proportion) on their wages as w.as paid to the shareholders in dividends. If a man's wages were £l-20 a year, for instance, lie would receive interest on that amount, provided, of course, that the year's working' admitted of a dividend being paid to the shareholders. If the shareholders did not receive a dividend then the workmen did not expect to receive one. This was a better method than the bonus system, as the employee did not understand, while the business was going on apparently in the same way as usual (although a loss might be occurring), why the bonus was withheld. The interest scheme meant taking the worker into the employer's . confidence, but it paid in the long run. In the case of his own firm (the manufacturer stated) the system had proved so successful that travellers .who three years ago were earning £l2O a year, I with travelling expenses, bad increased ' their sales to such an extent that they wero now being paid £4IX) a year, and the firm's turnover had trebled itself iu three years. ( . THE STATE OF THE PARTIES. It is an axiom of British politics that by-elections lend to go against the party in power, and the Liberals have been suffering during the last two years in tho way the Unionists suffered under other conditions. But the House of Commons, despite everything Mr. Bonar L?.w and Sir Edward Carson can say to the contrary, has still a decisive ministerial majority, pledged to support the Home Rule Bill and tlrfc other policy measures of Mr. Asquith's .Ministry. The state of the, parties immediately after the general election of 1910 and to-day is shown in the following table: 1 ' 1010. 11)14. Liberal 272 2G3 Labor 42 31) National 84 84 Unionist 272 284 The Liberals have lost nine sc.its, the -Labor Party has lost three and the Unionists have gained twelve. The Ministry lias a nominal majority of 102 votes on a want-of-confidenee motion, and would be secure even if the Nationalists did not vote at all, since the Labor members would never help to put a Conservative-Unionist Government into office. ELECTIONS IN CANADA. Mr. Ceorgc Dewe, a Christcliurch business man who has now taken up his resilience for a time at Edmonton, in Canada, was much impressed by a municipal election which took place there at the end of November. "For fully a month before the polling day," he writes, "there was intense excitement, quite as much as you have in NewZealand at a Parliamentary election. Mayors here appear to be invested with great power, and they devote the whole of their time to their civic duties. Many of them, I am told, become very autocratic. . . . During my long residence. in New Zealand 1 never heard of an election meeting being- held in a church building, but during the recent contest a very largo and enthusiastic meeting of electors was held in the biggest Methodist Church here, the minister of the church presiding and conductingthe proceedings in a very admirable way." The successful candidate for tire mayoral chair sit the election mentioned by Mr. Dcwe admitted having spent 12,000 dollars on the campaign, and it was estimated that some of the candidates for a seat at the Council table had spent nearly as much. Patriotism must run high in Canada, or civic offices in the big Dominion must lie worth