THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8286, 14 November 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1906.

Dr Bill, in an article in the Engineering Magazine, utters a note of warning to American manufacturers. The real danger, be says, is not from without, bat from within—the danger that oomea from over haste and laok of thoroughness. These things are just as oharauteristiu of American industry aa is the marvellous alertness that has been its motive power. In the meohanioal arts, for instance, American methods and workmen produoe average results of, remarkable excellence; but if ono wants a bit of work done with the utmost thoroughness and preoislon, times out of 20 he will find that the workman who has finished it ia a German or Swede or Englishman—if, indeed, he is able to get it dune at all. As every thoughtful manufacturer fully realises, there is a dearth of skilled labour, and native American skilled labour is the rarest kind. As a result the finest artisans in many lines of work are not found in the country, and thq goods which they produoe are imported. 'Ahe primal intent of this system is to produce at the lowest possible oost the largest possible quantity of marketable goods. The result is to reduce manufacture to operations by automatic rnaohinery, using human labour only where it cannot be avoided, and constituting a manufacturing plant as a species of enormously complicated machine tool, of which the artisans. are merely belter, wheels and oilcans. The American workman ia bsfctor

paid than his foreign competitor, but instability of employment, common lu all lines, t»ud a reeo/jniaeil feature ia many, goes far to compensate for tbe nominally greater wages cf the American. Tha cooeequent feeling of insecurity is a demoralising inSuemje, the seriousness of wbiob it is hard to overestimate.

A Bill to restrict til©- liberty o'fi tbe press to an extent that does not obtain even In Russia baa been drafted by tb» Servian Minister of the Interior, with a view to tbe suppression of ant) regiulde feeling in the country. One- clause' forbids the mention of tbe date June- 11th whether in praise or in blame; under a penalty of a heavy floe. Another renders the owner of a. journal responsible for whatever appears-in it, no matter over what signature. A third ffnrfcids the publication of "seditious" delivered! ia Parliament. It is anticipated that, on the reading of tbe Bill,, tbe entire : Opposition will protest by leaving the Stuptsbina in. a body.. M. i Paptitch'd followers will: then have 'the credit of passing, a measure described by tb« German* press as "a 'disgraae to> the joint civilisation of Europe." The suppression of tbe journal Otatßbiua has dtolveet a dangerous element into hidden channels. The ao<tl-regicide oigaa, worked* ao long; to defendl bervia's. goods name in the face of Earope'& defamation,, supplied a useful outlet to the oeat-up feelings* of many. It must not be forgotten that the editor,. Captain Novakovitch,. did more to- render possible the resumption of relations with England than any other man in Seiviau.