TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13747, 31 May 1910, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

In America at the present Who time they are discussing the Pays? matter of higher wages, and are asking, -'Who pays?" "Tn the spring," a light-hearted. parodist chants, "tho workman's fancy seriously turns to thoughts of strikes." Amf so, to buy off the hydra-headed monster of labour unrest, many of the great- corporations, notably the railloads, have granted the wage-earners' demands without waiting for the men to quit work. Among other outstanding instances, the fsteol Trust has recently granted an increase of wages to something like 220,000 of its men; tho Pennsylvania Railroad has advanced tho pay of 185,000 operatives by 6 per cent, (entailing an additional expenditure of from 6,000,000 to 10,000,000 dollars a year), while other. concerns have been equally prompt and liberal in their dealings with their hands. It is surmised that every cent of these vast increases will be squeezed from the pockets of the ultimate coufcunier. It may bo a long way round, hut the effect will, it is believed, eventually fall upon that mucaLarassed individual. The railroad corporations will inevitably attempt to recoup themselves by raising their freight charges'; the manufacturers using .transportation facilities will demand moro for their wares from the merchants, the merchants will impose increased rates upon the retailer., nnd finally the retailers will pass on tho original increase, plus the accretions that have been insinuated en routo from Original causes to final effects. In a nutshell it is argued that particular bodies of wage-earners have obtained advantages the provision of which is spread over tho whole community, and th-vt the cost of living, in the aggregate, must be increased to the extent, at the very least, of the tax. that is ko imposed. There are those, of course, who contend that better wages will stand for a greater consumption of food, clothing, and products of every sort, and thus add to the general prosperity in which tho ultimate cpnsuraer will have a share. While this may be true to a limited extent, it is the almost invariable experience, in America that by tho time. any benefits of the sort have reached tho length of tho -ultimate consumer they'have been'whittled away to the '"merest-shadow -of -their former solves. The groat anthracite strike, which was settled by President Roosovclt amid a prodigious flourish of trumpets, some-years ago, is a ease iv point The dove of industrial peace brought not jnly*an olive branc|i, ]but the announcement of an increase in ; the price of coal, and tho American publio has gone on paying the inoreaso ever since. , :

Tho gradual proA cosa of evolution "Made-to-Ordor!' by which a haniCity. let grows in timo i , . into a city" is, by tho decree of man, being evaded in tho case of Prjnc© Rupert, in British Columbia. This place possesses tho distinction of boing "made to order," and the order is being executed with all the neatness and despatch at the command of those whoso trade it is to manufacture cities at the behest of commerce. It lies nearly halfway between, Vancouver and Skagway, arid about thirty miles south of Port Simpson, on the coast of British Columbia.. Tho man whoso decree has gone forth that hero a city shall bo is Mr Charles M. Haye, an Illinois shorthand-writer who has risen to tho position of president of the Canadian Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. Ho has been dubbed tho "Cecil Rhodes" of Canada, and he. is at present engineering the huildin* of an All-Rod line from tho Atlantic to the Pacific. When Mr Hays ,was :lookijig for a terminal point', for his gigantic railway, he started at Vanoouvor and worked slowly tip the coaei, entering and spying round all the inlets. The search seemed hopeless until on* day, when nearing th© fifty-fifth parallel, the northern limit of Canada's Pacific seaboard, ho happened on a hug© bay, with a splendid depth of water everywhero. Investigations showed that nothing stood, in tho way of making this ono of the easiest and safest ports of entrance to the Pacific coast, and it is now prodieted that Prince Rup*?rt is destined to become the Liveryool of the Pacific. It is nearer to Asia than any other North American port, it offers a short cut to and it is less troubled by snow and ice than its rivals further south, for it is exposed to the brunt of the warm chinook, which is to Canada what the Gnlf Stream is to the United Kingdom. Four years a_o not a yard of the city had. been surveyed • to-day there is a population Ol 4000, which is growing rapidly.. Among the industries that will havo their bases there Will bo salmon-canning, whaling, and lumbering, while down to its wharves will come the products brought by a railway that begins on the other shore of the continent. According to a writer in the "World's Work," Mr Hays fixes the completion of tho Grand Trunk for -1913, though the constructional engineers anticipate having a- train through in the previous year. Canadians have great faith in Mr Hays's judgment on the transportation problem. It was he who, in defiance of adverse criticism, selected.n route for the railway that was deemed too far north- To-day tho finest grades of wheat are being raised in the area ho selected. A few weeks ago tho first steamship left Vancouver for England with a cargo of grain, and other vessels will follow from that roost, especially when _*rinCe Rupert is brought into railway touch with the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.