TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3204, 2 June 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

"TOO MUCH SOCIALISM." At a meeting of the Auckland Trades and Labour Council last week a delegate from the Engineers' Union stated that in his union there were murmurs of disaffection. He believed that it was because there was too much Socialism and too much politics talked in the council. The object of the council should be to secure unanimity amongst the unionists, and not to deal with extraneous matter. Thi9 rather candid criticism of the council and its activities drew protests from several members. They frankly avowed that they wereSocialists, and that the aims of the council were Socialistic, but insisted hat it was only through politics that they could further the attainment of those end?. This being the case, the council would be useless for any purpose, ii it were not a political organisation. One speaker blamed the "nondescripts"—the men who, he said, were neither true Labour men nor Socialists—for all the trouble in the matter of the secession of unions.

RAILWAY ACCOUNTS

"What has been very unsatisfactory to me has been an examination of the tailway accounts," saiJ Mr Jas. Allen, M.P., in discussing the public finances for the year ended March 31st, with an "Otago Daiiy Times" reporter. "I had expected that the revenue for the quarter ended March 31st, to the opening of the North Island Trunk railway and the acquisition of the Welh:.gtoii-Man-awatu railway,, would show a large increase in revenue, but, instead of that, it shows some £5,000 less than the corresponding quarter of the year 1908. It is true that, the expenditure on the working railways for the same quarter of the year just ended shows a decrease of £78,000 as compared with the same quarter in 1908, and that despite the larger mileage of railways opened; and one begins to wonder what the economy was that was pracLispd to bring about that largely reduced expenditure, with great length of railway lines to run and keep in order. With regard to railway details, I find that there is an imrease in the mileage during the year of 200 miles. I kno'v a good deal o>f it was not. available until the latter end of the year; still, the curious thing is that, after deducting the working expenses, the railway returns are lower than they were before by nearly £4,000. I do not want to raise any question o Nprth Island and South Island, but the North Islanders have done it themselves, and wish to draw their attention to the fact that there is no South Island section of the line that has not shown a profit both this year and last year. But in the North Island during both years the Kawakawa and the Kaihu railways have each shown losses per milt." MR CARNEGIE'S MILLIONS. a recent cablegram stated that Mr Andrew Carnegie had offered Prance j £200,000 to endow a hero fund, I similar to those he has already en- j tablished in Great Britain and America, to reward the heroes of ! peace and for the maintenance of their widows and children. Mr Carnegie has now distributed over £34,000,000 in charities and in aid of education, his gifts to libraries alone exceeding £8,000,000. To the Scottish universities for the payment of class fees to students he gave in 1901 £2,000,000. To Birmingham University he gave £50,000, and he also presented a public school and a large public park to Dunfermline, and has been a generous helper of the University of Pennsylvania, the [ Pittsburg Polytechnic School, and other smaller institutions. He then gave £200,000 for founding the Car- I negie Institute at Pittsburg, and a similar sum to establish the Carnegie Institute at Washington, D.C. In :

1903 Mr Carnegie founded the Dunfermline Trust, with an annual income of £25,00 C, "to be used in attempts to bring into the monotonous lives of the toiling masses of Dunfermline more sweetness and light." He has arranged to build a Palace of Peace at the Hague at a cost of £300,000, and in 1905 he announced a gift of £2,000,000 for providing teachers in American universities and colleges with pensions. In 1906 to promute international peace Mr Carnegie gave £200,000. Next year he gave £150,000 towards the construction at Washington of a Peace Palace for Amenca,£l,2oo,ooo to the Carnegie Institue for the purpose of forming technical schools and £IOO,OOO to the King's Hospital Fund. During the present year he | added £1,000,000 to the Carnegie I Institute.