NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 61, 6 December 1920, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

Although evidence has Mely been produced to show that extraordinarily scamped work has been put into some Australian-built ships, thp Government shipyards now seem to be established on a solid basis. A Commonwealth, Parliamentary Committee reports that there is good reason to look forward'to Australia obtaining a fair share of the world's ship.

building trade. It is all a question of prices, and in thaJt respect the.Commonwealth is no longer hopelessly handicapped. For ships that in pre-war days were huilt at under .£lO per ton, British builders have been asking and getting as much aa .£35 per ton, while in America prices aro stilt higher. Of the Australian ships launched up to the present, the Dromana cost X 29 Ts. 7d. a ton, the. Duniosa iCSO 2s. Id. a, ton, and the Dundula J3l Gs. 9d. a ton. The freight market has" weakened of late, and there is evidence of a slump in the world demand for ■ ships, but at the same time Australia's requirements for her coastal and overseas trade are sonio distance from being met. The Commonwealth Government steamers are still beiag fought by the shipping combines, but the ability of Australia to build and run its own steamships must have a steadying and 'beneficial influence on the shipping situation on this side of the world.

The latest pronouncement on the main roads question is that "a Bill dealing with main roads could not be tackled until after the holidays." During the past thirty years promise after promise has been made by successive Ministries on this matter, and it will require not the mere production of a.' Bill, but its passaga and the actual commencement of work to convince the public that something is at last to bo done. A recent commission estimates the cost of laying down water-bound macadam, tar-sealed, at Je3ioo per mile, with an annual cost for maintenance of X 315. Mr. Coates hopes to have a fund of .£500,000 for tho whole Dominion for a start. As it- would require „C3i0,000 to lay down 100 miles of road on the above basis, it is obvious;that Mr. Coatee's half-million would not go much further than providing the Helens-ville-Hamilton road, which was the especcial object of inquiry of the commission. Motor vehicles aro increasing by the thousand every year, road expenditure is practically, standing still, and our once good ioad3 are'in an advanced stage of disintegration, A big expenditure is needed, and the bigness of the bill increases enormously with every year of delay.

The root problem in industry to-day is to discover an equitablo basis for the remuneration of the various factors concerned in production. In the Arbitration Court on Friday there was. an interesting exchange of remarks on the over-paid bachelor and the under-paid family man. < level* wage to all workers if it gives enough to a married man with a family Kiv«3 a bachelor far too much, and to

do the fair thing'in one case must pile » totally unnecessary burden on the community. Moreover, the social effect of the system is inherently virions, as it leads' to postponement of marriage and restriction in tho size of families. Nationalisation, syndicalism, direct action, sovietisin, the' guild principle, and a thousand other things aro talked of for improving tho lot of the worker. None of them, eo far as we can discover, provides any sound working formula for an equitable division of file "proceeds of industry. Nationalisation reduces the share of capital to a iixed percentage of interest, but leaves the conflict between producer and iconsuiner the samn , old struggle of pull devil, pull baker. '.[fTe expansion of industrial plants and the establishment of new enterprises can only coma from savings mado by someBody, and the only wny of inducing people to save and forgo present csjoyment is by the offer of a sufficiently attractive reward. If our local 'thbow extremists would address themselves to the practical aspects of this problem and endeavour to" discover n basis that will turn unrest into contentment they would be uoing far more- useful work than in stirring up "class consciousness" and m preaching a nonsensical doctrine of Bolshevism.

Italy is evidently tiring of the situation created by d'Annunzio's harebrained exploit at -Finnic. A little move than a year ago this poet and alrman--in private life Signor the idea of disposing of a delicate international question by a dashing inte'rwntion with a.handful of swashbuckling adventurers. His object was to force tho hand of tho Italian Government, and to present diplomacy with <"£ fact accomplished while it was. still groping for a delimitation of frontiers on the Adriatic that would be satisfactory to Italy d nd Jugo-Slavia. As might have been expected, the only result has been to make Italy look ridiculous and add another complication 'to an already en'tangled problem. D'Annunzio drama Bg staged iu I'M 1 . We. ,'osos the glamour it poshes when ueen ~.. rto footli'dit-!. In his own across me iuoui„h>-. . . eyes d'Annunzio is doubtless an inspiredpatriot who boldly does tho deed while tho politicians temporise, in a fog of words. To the world at largo he is merely a -public nuisance. D'Annunzio lives in a world in which tho common sense and practical realities, to say nothing of tho moralities, of Europe have no place. Ho lives in his emotions, and although by no means prepossessing in appearance has a remarkable gift of fiery eloquence, capable of lifting ouough of his countrymen oft' their feet to make Fiurao a hornets' nest for the. Italian Government. It is possible that tho antioualist ardour excited in tltaly by d'Annunzio may cause tho task of ending his mischief-making to bo a disturbing one for Italy.

While the prediction of the weather makes only slow and toilsome advance in accuracy, the .forecasting of volcanic actiTity, according to Dr. J. Allan Thomson,'has already reached a high.degree of certainty. New Zealand includes a large volcanic area, which was the scene of a disastrous eruption within the memory 4 the present generation. Another Teat eruption within tlho area would probably be a far greater catastrophe today with' the growth of population. Dr. Thomson states that tho volcanic observatory in Hawaii is able to give eighteen .days' no.tice of a coming eruption. Observations in Japan enabled the prediction of the eruption of Sakura-jima in 1014 a fortnight in • advance, and the Japanese Government, by prompt action, romoved the entiro population, so that when tho eruption occurred and tho island blew to pieces not a 6ingle lifo was lost. Observations of tho rise of the lava columns in toe Hawaiian volcanoes show that they correspond with complex earth movements caused by the sun and mcon, and tho rising of the lava follows eighteen days later. Tho local intensity of these earth tides as recorded in the obseryatory has enabled accurate prediction of the violence of the following lava flow. If observations of volcanic activity and terrestrial movements in Now Zealand will give us a warning in advance ! -of any future eruption, tho cost of an observatory' will be money well ex- , pendod.