TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9549, 22 July 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

NEW ZEALAND PHYSIQUE. We believe that what New Zealand needs is a system ot universal military training, involving, as an essential element, physical training. Public opinion, happily, is tending in this direction, and it would enormously strengthen the hands of those who are leading the movement if the public realised that universal training would give the Dominion not only adequate protection against military attack, but also the certainty oJt" a marked and progressive improvement in tne physical stamina of the race.

CANADA IN 1950

What is Canada's future? The "Toronto Globe," the most influential newspaper in CanaJa, boldly prophesies that in forty years from now Canada will have a population of thirty millions and an annual revenue of £100,000,000. This is to say, by 1905 Cana;iu will have attained a rank among the Great Powers. However extravagant it may seem, a similar belief is held by all good Canadians as an article of faith. And this faith is not mere exuberance and blind optimism. At one time it was thought by oldfashioned people that habitable Canada consisted of a relatively narrow belt of territory along the American boundary line, and that even so the rigours of a Canadian winter hardly justified the term "habitable." But we now know that the Canadian winter is terrible only in comparison with our own, and is no worse, than a winter in New York or even Berlin. As for "habitable" Canada, no one can now point with certainty to the degree of latitude which limits the wheat producing area, and every year sees another northward advance of the wheatfieids. In 1900 Canada's population was roughly equal to that of the United States at the beginning of the nineteenth century—about five and a half millions. From 1800-1850 America's population increased fivefold in spite of the fact that the distributing machinery of the railways, nowadays the great avenue of set-

tleraent, waa then lacking, and expansion westwards was correspondingly cramped. Why should not Canada, with her advantages, make equal progress The tide of European j emigration is being diverted slowly, but still surely, to the Canadian ports. Within the North American continent itself the migiatory movement has changed its direction from west to north, and the farmers of the Western States are sending their sons over the border into Canada's untenanted spaces, all of them pioneers by heredity, and, what is more, with an adequate supply of capital. This year alone, it is estimated, some lOC,OOO young American farmers will enter the Dominion.

PREVENTION OF SWEATING.

Mr Churchill's Bill for the prevention of sweating in the English trades, which was last week read a third time m the House of Commons, is the beginning of a reform which it will be generally conceded ought to have been introduced long ago. For the present, the wages boards which he proposes are to apply to tailoring, cardboard box making, machine made lace and net finishing, and the ready made blouse trade. Power is taken to extend the provisions of the Bill to other trades by an order which will acquire validity when it has lain on the table of the House of Commons unchallenged for thirty days. A board having been formed in any trade, it establishes district committees, which will comprise representatives of employers and workmen and a proportion of the members of the central trade board. The latter will also be composed of representatives of employers and workmen, and it will have three expert paid members. In any trade where women are largely employed, at"least one of these three experts will be a woman. The Bill allows different treatment to be applied simultaneously to home workers and factory workers in any district. A minimum time rate will be applied, and to that minimum all piece rates will be referred, and it will also be open to the trade boards to fix a general minimum piece rate for articles which are more or less standard in their character. An employer will I be able to go to the trade board and ask for a special rate for any class of work the/ may have in hand. It will be open to the trade board to fix different piece rates, and, in some cases, different time rates for home and factory workers, even in particular districts, and all these piece rates and time rates will be co-ordinated as between districts by the general decision of the central board.