Untitled

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16816, 23 April 1920, Page 6

"The increased consumption of tobacco," said Mr Austen Chamberlain in his Budget speech, "was unprecedented." The fact is as obvious here as at Home. Our soldiers smoked furiously in Flanders, also in France, and everywhere else, and the habit has persisted. "We have not here, as yet, the woman smoker, who smokes in railway carriages and other public placcs, but she will no doubt arrive in time. As we mentioned a week or two ago, one English railway company has recognised the increase in the smoking l ■ habit, and at the same time consulted ( | the comfort of its patrons, by allowing j i smoking in all but a comparatively few j carriages. It has abolished the "smok- ; : ing carriage," and substituted the j "non-smoking carriage," realising that, | passengers who want to smoke outnum-i j ber nowadays those who do not. j Local smokers generally will wish that the Railway Department and the Tramway Board would also see matters in the same light as the South-Eastern I and Chatham Railway Company. More 1 smoking carriages are urgently needed on our trains, and more accommodation for smokers on our trams, particularly at the bnurs when men are going to and from their work in tho city. Not only is the accommodation actually proi vided for smokers inadequate, but some l of it is often occupied by women pas- ! sengers, especially in the trailers, in which smoking is permitted in the rear half. This is noticeable, not merely ' when cars are full and seats are difficult to get, but when there are vacant seats in that part of the car in which smoking is prohibited.

i- The conduct rs have now authority to prevent passengers from standing on jr the platforms—and except when the Board cannot provide sufficient cars for th:se who wish to travel, this authority is exercised rigorously, at the cost of s considerable inconvenience to passcne gers. "We suggest that the conductors e should also be invested with power to r _ insist that women jtossenners occupy in 2 smokers' scats should vacate them, if G seats in the nun-smoking portion of the ? car were available, just as they can i now require children to move from - seats in the smokers' half of a trailer, j "Women, wo IVI stnv. tm?rrc r s in tlr's fc manner out of and cn'y need to bo reminded by the conductors once or twice to hare tnc fact s upon them lint it is not fair te deprive - smokers of tho privilege prnnted. in s too "small measure, by the Bjard. J A comparison lictwecn the wharf-h-'jMurcis' new agreoinent regarding ' , v.-ni.cs and hours, and the conditions "| under which the ?:ime class of labour ' car,is a iiving at Darwin, tlie pert and ?! capital o! the Northern Territoiy, sug- , ! :;v>sts that the former have much to I; learn in the- art of squeezing their eni- ' plovers. The Darwin wharf labourers' | agi eentcnl with the local moat freezing ! co:xipany—Vestev'f, of which so much i was heard during the recent enquiry ' ! into Territory affairs —provided that ! I hey should load all tho meat boats that - c-.iir.c in at a weekly wage cf £8 7s Gd. i Tho agreement expired on 3larch Ist, a r meat boat came in on the sth. and a scale of casual rates was fixed up after liuieli discussion, the men securing os an hour for day, and 10s an hour for night work. As meat is loaded at l>arwin only between tho hours cf 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., the men were to draw £C> per night. But that was not all. The boat could stay only ten days —any moat that was not aboard at the end of I that period was to be left behind. That meant putting 130 tons on hoard each night. But at the rat© at which the I men, 65 of them, worked, it would j have taken seventeen days to load tho ship, and eventually tho company had to promise to pay them for seventeen days if the meat was loaded in ten. Each man, ■ therefore, drew—one can hardlv say "earned" —£102 for ten nights' work, tho total labour bill ,at the ship's side being £G630. In addition to this, tho company had to pay the railway freight on tho meat from the works to the wharf, and the cost of loading the meat on to the trucks at the works. No one can be surprised at the company's decision not to kill this year.