TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3113, 11 February 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

A WAVE OF CONCILIATION

"So far as Otago is concerned, there is a sort of wave of conciliation going through the land," said Mr W. Scott, secretary of the Otago Employers' Association, in the Arbitration Court, on Tuesday last. He said that the court, at its fitting in Dunec'in this month, had put up something of a record, for of eight disputes that had been filed, every one settled without the court's intervention. He hopsa that this hapoy state of things might long continue. His remarks followed an acknowledgment on Mr Brsen's part of the way in which Mr Scott had assisted in inducing the contending parties to come to an agreement, particularly in regard to the difficult matter of the conditions of employment in hotels and restaurants.

UNEMPLOYMENT, Let it be remembered that affcar all tightness of money is the greatest cause of unemployment, and that creating a want of confidence is ths surest way to produce monetary stringency, remarks the Christchurch "Press." The best way of promoting prosperity is to increase the value of our products. If they should rise spontaneously owing to more favourable markets, we shall at once feel the benefit, but apart from this, much may be done by opening up fresh areas of land to cultivation and by encouraging the investment of capital in industrial enterprises. To ensure the latter, it is essential that the investor should receive fair treatment trum our laws, and care, should be taken, in addition, not to create unnecessary "scares" when a Elight check occurs, and so weaken the public confidence just at the very moment when it requires support.

THE PANAMA CANAL. Owing to its situation, there is no country likely to be more affected commercially by the Panama Canal than New Zealand, and no port more than Auckland. For, although the distance between Auckland and London may not be appi'eciably lessened, the relation between Auckland and the trade routes will be radically changed, says the "New Zealand Herald." At the present time, as witness uur lamentably inefficient mail arrangements, New Zealand is isolated from the great liner routes by wide seas, on which they have no pressing business. When the Panama Canal is cut through, the Pacific trade will pour through that channel, and passenger traffic will pour with it. The great American shipping companies will not only cater for the national trade between their eastern States and their own Pacific Slope, but will make a bid for the South American trade now going through Magellan Straits and round the Horn. French, German, Spanish, and Italian companies must vie with the Americans, nor will the British companies in the South American trade be slow to follow. Inevitably some of these must push across the Pacific to win Australasian trade for the support of their enterprises.