TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3104, 29 January 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

RETRENCHMENT. The Hon. J. A. Millar has already incurred a certain amount of odium in the Railway Department by effecting some minor economies, and when the Prime Minister produces his "comprehensive" acheme of retrenchment we probably shall have a repetition of the outcry which greeted the famous "10 per cent, reduction," says the Lyttelton "Times." We may hope, however, that Sir Joseph Ward will be able to devise a more equitable plan than the one that was accepted by Sir John Hall. It was the man earning low wages who suffered most from the hasty compromise of 1880. Now it is the superfluous man—the man who can be well spared from the public service—who must bear the brunt of retrenchment. CONDUCT OF HOTELS. The commendable and remarkable effort which is being made to bring the conducting of the hotel business into line with public opinion- deserves an encouragement which will help to sustain it in face of very evident difficulties, remarks the Aucidand "Herald." The best representatives of the "trade" have always and consistently repudiated the charge j that they arc indifferent to public' opinion, and 'ire to be congratulated upon having eAcrted an influecne which opens the way to very acceptable reforms. The voluntary abolition of certain features of the business that have led to abuses and have excited a g"eat deal of popular criticism is a concession as credit-'

able to those who have brought it about as it should be satisfactory to the public generally.

MR ROOSEVELT'S LAST MESSAGE. President Roosevelt's lest annual message to Congress was in many respects an interesting document. In referring to national matters, he remarked that "the danger to American democracy lies in having the administrative power insufficiently concentrated, so that no one can be held responsible to thfi people for its use." He dealt at some length with labour and industrial troubles. It was to the interest of all, he said, that there should be a premium put upon individual initiative and individual capacity, but he evidently did not intend this to be construed as unqualified support to the competitive system and to "freedom of contract" in connection with labour. "I believe," he stated, "in a steady effort to bring about a condition of affairs under which the men who work with hand or with brain, the men who produce for the market, and the men who find a market for the articles produced, shall own a fargreater share than at present of the wealth they produce, and be enabled to invest it in the tools and instruments by which all work is carried on." "The war we wage," he added, "must be waged against misconduct, against wrong-doing wherever it is found; and we must stand heartily for the right 3 of every decent man, whether he be a man of great weatlh or one who earns his I livelihood as a wage-worker or a tiller of the soil." THE SAFE OCEAN.

A writer in the American "World's Work" contends that*, travelling by sea is now safer than travelling by land. The captain ot the huge White Star liner Adriatic is quoted as spying that while his boat may not be absolutely unsinkable, he cannot imagine "any condition that would cause her to founder," and is confident that if such a condition did arise, there would oe ample time to save the life of every parson on board. Another "great steamship captain" has said that the passenger is fifty per cent, safer on sea than on shore, if the captain observes four golden rules: "Look to your wireless; don't speed in rough weather; run your own ship; go slow in fog." Danger from a broken shaft no longer threatens the twin and triple screw liner, and the captain of the Atlantic leviathan has no fear of the fiercest gale or the highest seas. Hi 3 vessel may loss a boat or a few yards ot railing, but that is all. Disasters have resulted in the development of a system af water-tight compartments that seems to be independent even of human error. At first it was left to the crew to close the doors in cast of collision. A system was designed by which an officer on the bridge could operate every door in the ship by turning a lever. Then it occurred to someone that the man on the bridge might forget to turn the lever, so a contrivance was designed by which the doors were closed automatically when there was two feet of water in any compartment. Of course it must be remembered that the writer is dealing principally with the trans-Atlantic traffic, in which shipbuilding has reached its highest point.