CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 207, 2 March 1914, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

SLUM AREAS. It is our business to sec that slum areas do not get .established in the centres of population. It has become one of the main functions of the Government and the municipalities to look after the 'health of the people, and to o what they can to beautify their surroundings. Ugliness is naturally associi ted with a low standard of life, and beauty tends to beget refinement. Town-planning must go hand in hand with good housing, otherwise the results will never be satisfactory.—The Dominion. LOST ITS S/VOR. For Labor in general in the Dominion Arbitration has lost its savor. So long as the Court granted increases in wages and improvements in conditions, trades unionism and other .branches were content. But once that tribunal could give the appellants nothing more, then—then Arbitration was no good. It is a fact true, if sad. Faith, for the great majority of unions, in Arbitration has "one. The substitute is still awaited—Christchurch Press. A CHEAP DELIVERY SCHEME. A scheme to secure the cheap and prompt delivery of goods in the citv and -suburbs is engaging the attention of some Ohristchurc-h business men, and it will probably materialise into an accomplished fact within a few weeks. The plan of operations, briefly, is that parcels will be collected from retailers for customers, and conveyed to a central storeroom. Here they'will be sorted, according to localities and streets,"put on board motor vans, and conveyed to their destinations. One van would thus be able to carry -the goods of several firms for any particular district, instead of five of six vans being employed by as many firms. A meeting of business'men will be held shortly to discuss the project.