TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3109, 6 February 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

CENTRAL SCHOOLS. A large central school supplying the educational requirements fur a radius of, say, five or six miles would need a large staff, better salaries could be paid, and consequently a better class of teachers would be available. The children in small schools under the present system have all to be taught by one teacher, with perhaps an

assistant, and classification according to their mental capacity is therefore impossible, but in the central school, gayg the C'ristchurch

"PiWS," it could be carried out as in a town. school, and therefore not fti'erely the quality but the method of the teaching would be improved.

LAND SETTLEMENT. This is a country where for many years to come room must be found for the bulk of the increment of the copulation. It is a country, moveover, which must progress fjr many years by adding to the primary wealth, rather than by seeking outlets for the products of manufacture •in the face of our own population for a market for our hostile tariffs. We have to look more to manufacturers than to the populations of other countries. Therefore we must increase the number of our fields and of their tillers. Up-to-date as our towns raay fee, attractive as we are making urbaai life, says the Southland "News," we must not forget that the country life must be sent ahead faster than the urban, and that our greatest need is to add to the products of the S3il.

A GRAVE QUESTION. ■ w At -the present time," remarks the ''Mercantile Gazette," "more tradesmen are looking for employmerit»than has been the case at any time since the Industrial Arbitration Act came into force, and unfortunately there is no reasonable prospect of their obtaining work its fche near future. The inelasticity of the awards under which aM tradesmen are now grouped prevents the operation of the automatic check which in all civilised •centres comes into force when labour Ids superabundant. If supply runs ahead of demand the . price of any commodity falls at once to a point \when buyers operate, and labour is no exception to the rule. In New Zealand, however, the Workmen's Unions have legislated that the automatic relief, which follows the operation of the law we-have cited, shall have no application, and the consequence is that as it is an il.le.gal act on the part' of any employer to pay lees than the award rate of wages, -and as that rate offers no inducement to have any work done except that which is actually necessary, there is no means by which the pressure upon the workmen can be relieved, and there is no reasonable prospect to hupe that the present congested condition is merely a slight sat back to >ie followed immediately by employment at full rates. The building trade depends to a great extent upon cheap money. If money is plentiful, and therefore obtainable at a cheap rate, the ibuilding trade is prosperous, because an addition to the bona fide house requirements of the people, speculation in land is encouraged, but it is also onp of the first trades to fsel the efEect of any financial stringency. We see no reason to hope that rmney rates will rule much, or any, lower than they are at present during this year. The legislation of the Dominion bars us from access to the Lot.don market, and although it may be possible for public loans to be raised, as investors in those .obtain a State guaranteed mirimum return which cannot be reduced or affected by socialistic legislation, the private individual prefers to keep his money in England with a three per cent, return rather than permit it to come out here, as he believes that our advance.! legislation may not stop at lowering his interest, but that his capital even migh'; be endangered. It is no use disguising the fact, the English money-lander will have nothing to do with us, he considers that the Labour Unions are supreme in New .Zealand, and he positively •declines to lend his money to assist them in any way. Whether he is. . ighfc in his assumption, or in his cotJ cluiion, we do not say. Under ordinary circumstances money could not be dear in New Zealand, and a j drug in England as it has been for j months," I