TOPICS of the DAY

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 299, 16 December 1911, Page 18

TOPICS of the DAY

THE RAILWAY TROUBLE TAXI-CAB STRIKE. XHZ2 FBXTJfCH ITAVT. A HEEDED COMMISSION. flrrom Our Special Correspondent.) A BLACK BUSINESS. LONDON, November 3. Encland is again face to face with the probability of another national railway strike, with all the ruinous dislocation of business which it involves. The decision is supposed to rest with the executive committee of the rour railway unions which is now holding meetings in London, hut there is no certainly that the men will accept their decision unless it is in favour of a strike. In that case they will undoubtedly obey their leaders' mandate, but if the comcounsel ho in favour of a, peaceful attempt to get what the men demand. the men are just as likely to throw over their nominal leaders as not, and strike "on their own." There can he little question that the majority of the men are in favour of a strike, and apparently they believe that it is the only way by which they can secure what they want from the railway companies. Arbitration is quite out of favour with them. They have accepted the attitude of "Punch's" striker: "Harbitratc! Wot's the use of harbitratln ashen he gives the other bloxe more than ', mer"

It was understood by the public that Che men and the companies had agreed to abide by the recommendations of the Commission which recently eat to inquire into the points at issue between £he -workers and the companies; indeed, tbe Board of Trade officially stated that each was the case. The recommendations of the Commission were, however, not to tiie taste of the men, and they promptly repudiated the statement of the Board o* Trade as to an agreement to stand by the Commission's report. The companies, on the other hand, have' adhered' loyally to their promise, and fhave even gone beyond tne recommendations of the Commission. Several have already decided to revise their scale of wages at great cost, and others are preparing to follow suit. The men now say drat the concessions of the companies only prove the justice of their claims, and they pat forward a programme under which the increased wages bill of the larger companies at the outset would mean an extra, expenditure of something like £1,000,000 a year—a sum that it •would 'be impossible for the companies to pay without materially raising the rates for both passengers and goods. If the extremists among the men can carry the day it is their intention to bring about a strike about the middle of December in order to hit the companies hard by paralysing the immense volume of Christmas trade then in full swing. The prospect is appalling, and the men's programme one of colossal selfishness. They have no doubt many real grievances, but they have none that cannot be met without throwing the machinery of the country out of gear and destroying the comfort and' peace of millions of people, and transforming a season of goodwill and happiness into * time of bitter tragedy.

FRENCH NAVAL MISHAPS. What is wrong with the French Navy? The tale of disaster and mishap since the ill-fated Jena blew up with appalling loss of life in March 1907 is sinister and uncanny. The Jena's fate was put down as being due to faulty powder, and when, on September 25th last, the liberte blew up and sent 200 men to their deaths, powder was again held responsible. From what has transpired Bince, there is certainly strong presumptive evidence in favour of the official theory that faulty fabrication of the explosives euppHed to the ill-fated ships was the direct cause of their loss, but there have been happenings on board other ships that suggest very ugly possibilities. During the past few months dozens of inexplicable mishaps have occurred on board vessels in the French Navy, and during the last few days no less than five mishaps, some fraught with the greatest danger, have occurred on different battleships. The first occurred on October 21st, on board the Mirabeau. One of the sluices for flooding the magazine was found to have been tampered with in such a way as- to render it ineffective, and in addition to this a mixture of powdered glass, emery and iron filings was found in an important electric converter. On the following day, on the Patrie, during gun practice an unaccountable breakage occurred in the mechanism of an elevator, in which shells were being hoisted to serve the guns, and the shells in transit dropped into the munitions store-room below. Happily none'of the shells exploded. Next day there was trouble on the battleship Suflreu. Here someone either wilfully or inadvertently left open a steam-cock serving as a fire-extinguisher in cases of bunker outbreaks. The'consequence was that the bulkhead between the bunkers and tlic powder magazines became so hot that it was deemed advisahlo to flood two of the magazines as a precaution against an explosion, the temperature in the magazine at the time being over 112 degrees. A few Says later tlfere were alarms on both the Diderot and the Justice. In the former fire broke out in the dynamo department, not far from the chief magazine, ond it was only discovered and subdued just in time to save the. ship. In the case of the Justice the circumstances wr>re a very ugly look. During gun practice fire broke "out in one of the fore turrets-, and such was the danger that the magazines were- at once flooded. At first a short circuit was blamed for the outbreak, but investigation ( proved that this was not the. case, and j the cause of the outbreak remains a mystery. Of course this series of inexplicable mishaps may have been purely accidental, but they certainly present a sinister appearance, and give colour to the suggestion that the personnel »f the French navy includes men who in pursuit of chimerical ideas have no com punction in endangering the lives of jumdrttfe of their ceraradr

A VHUKEPSJOhc BTBXKE. London is at the present moment in the throes of a strike, but only the minority seem to be taking any notice of the fact, or to be in the least inconvenienced by it. It is the taxi-cab drivers who have struck, and their strike will go down to posterity as the ''Threepenny Strike." for it was a dispute between the driver and a cab company over three pennies that brought masters and men to grips. But the " threepence " was not, of course, the origin of the trouble which had been brewing for quite a long time. For every passenger more than two an extra sixpence is charged, irrespective of distance, and for every piece of luggage ontside the cab the extra charge is 2d For a long time the men have neglected —in spite of repeated "warnings—-to mark these extras on the dial, and have retained them for their own.

The proprietors claim 75 per cent of the extras as their property, and in order to enforce their demands the proprietors placed " spotters" on the road, who should observe and report the extras at certain points in the streets, so that the men could be asked to pay up on their return to the garage. The men resented this, and it was In the report of a " 6potter" employed by the National Motor Cab Co. that the men found " the last straw" required to break their desire to keep the peace. The I" spotter " declared that he hod seen a ! certain cab at Paddington with two pieces of luggage outside. On the return of that cab to -the garage the driver was asked for the 3d. to which the company could be entitled if the "spotterV evidence was correct. The driver, however, refused point blank to hand over a penny beyond the sum his meter showed to be due to the company, nnd declared that at the time he was alleged to be at Paddington, he was at Liverpool Street plying for hire. The company's officials, however, refused to accept his story, anrt insisted on the driver paying the 3d. The man, however, left the yjrd without leaving anything beyond the proportion of the takings due to the company, as shown by the meter, and his blessing, and forthwith consulted his ffellow drivers. The result was that within 48 hours London was practically taxi-cabless, and 6000 drivers were idle.

The men's case is that they cannot make a reasonable living under the existing conditions of employment, unless they take the whole, or at any rate the major portion of the extras, and the cab-owners declare that tltey cannot get an adequate return upon the capital invested in the cabs and garages unless the lion's share of the extras goes into their pockets. Both sides produce eloquent figures !n proof of their contention, and it really looks as though taxi-cabs will presently be luxuries for which the public will have to pay 1/ per mile instead of 3d.

THE COST OF LIVING. The decision of the British Government to hold an inquiry into the cost of living of the working classes comes at a time when more than one section of the community is feeling keenly the depreciated purchasing power of the sovereign. Tie workingman undoubtedly is the greatest sufferer through the rising prices of the necessaries of life, for he generally buys on "from hand to mouth" lines, which, in most commodities, means that he pays more than the middle-class consumer. The latter usually buys sufficient of a certain article to last for a. week, or perhaps a month, and so often obtains the benefit of an appreciable reduction in price.

By a series of figures extending over a period of 12 years, it has been proved that the average cost of articles of dailj consumption—bacon, butter, cheese, flour, lard, meal, sugar, tea, jams, etc.—has increased by nearly 13} per cent, since 189$, no less than 8 per cent, of the increase haying occurred in the last five year*. The increased cost of living does not end with eatables. In tie last 10 years the prices of clothing materials have risen from 5 to 71 per cent., and coal has also advanced materially. Average house coal, which could be bought at the pit mouth for 10/ per ton in 1898, is now making over 13/, and that means that the working class consumer—in London, at any rate—who usually buys coal by the hundredweight, is paying on the average 2d to 3d more per cwt than he did a few years ago.

Of course, wages have gone up, but not it would seem sufficiently to com pensate for the additional cost of living. The report of the Board of Trade on changes in rates of wages in 1910 states that the downward movement in wages which commenced in 1908, and continued during the greater part "of 1909, was checked towards the end of the latter year. Early in 1910 it gave place to a slight upward tendency, which was, on the whole, maintained during the remainder of the year, with the result that the general level of wages at the end of 1910 was, with two exceptions (1907 and 1908), higher than at the end of any year since 1893. There is nothing at present to indicate that in the future the cost of living will become lower, and, indeed, account has to be taken of the fact that for over ten years now the tendency has been, on the average, for the prices to rise of inany of those things without which a family cannot exist.

HEROIC HENS. One does not generally ascribe heroism to the useful domestic hen, but in "The Bird Our Brother," Olive Thome Miller quotes Kir Edward Arnold's story of the bravery displayed by a hen when a ferret, escaped from confinement, suddenly appeared before her. She was in charge of a brood of chicks, and "the ferret was evidently after something to eat. "Imagine," says the narrator, "some rural matron abruptly confronted with a dragon or foaming tiger! Terror would paralyse her. She could and would proba'bly do nothing but scream; •but this fussy, foolish little Dame Partlett fluffed out her gallant plumage, and went for the monster so vigorously, pecking and kicking and bewildering inm, that the little ones were safely perched in a small fir tree before the dangerous beast had filled his wicked mouth with her feathers and anjrily given up the chase. "Our glorious order of the VXJ. has been awarded for deeds which were the. merest child's play compared to the valour of that heroic hen." A similar devotion was exhibited by this universally misunderstood bird during a disastrous fire in Minnesota, known in the annals of the State as the Hinckley Fire. When walking over the ruins, a man discovered a dead hen sitting close on the ground. He poked I her with his foot, when she fell over! and disclosed a lively little brood of ducks, which ran out, apparently glad | to be released. She had protected them : with her own life, for she could easily I have escaped herselt j