NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 191, 8 May 1924, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

It now seems possible that the oufiifcoinc of the German elections may lead to the installation of a Nationalist Government—a Government, that is to say, of reactionaries who are prepared, to go to all possible lengths in evading their country’s treaty obligations. Should affairs take this course, prospects of a reparations settlement no doubt will vanish, for a time .at least, into thin air. Although, however, the Nationalists now have prospects of being the strongest individual party in the Reichstag, they are far short of possessing an independent majority. A considerable majority of the newly-elected members are in favour of accepting the experts’ reports. According to a correspondent quoted to-day these members have a majority of at. least a hundred over the rest of the Reichstag. The will of the majority can only find effective expression, however, through the medium of a coalition, or some alternative working arrangement between parties. Past experience unfortunately goes to show that in Germany coalitions and party arrangements are deficient in even the most elementary qualities of stability.

One strike or strike-threat after another appears to be the fate marked out meantime for Great. Britain. According to the London Daihi Herald, a national strike affecting half a million building trade workers appears to be inevitable, the operatives having rejected the employers’ offer of a halfpenny per hour instead of the twopence demanded, and voted for a strike on a date fixed, but not yet disclosed. Another serious problem for the Labour Government seems likely to result. In contrast with the general conditions of unemployment in the United Kingdom, the building trades are seriously undermanned, and there is a great shortage of housing accommoda tion which it is proposed to overcome by ensuring the erection of 200,000 dwellings a year over a long period of years. In these conditions the effects of a building strike are likely.to be felt very severely, particularly by the British working population. Whether the present demands of the building trade operatives are based on a good case seems to be decidedly more doubtful. Few, if any, of the bigger industrial groups in Great Britain have secured a larger increase on pre-war wages than building tradesmen and labourers. In the building trade, wages are from 90 to 114 per cent, above the pre-war rates. Very many workers in Britain have secured only about half this increase, and in tho shipbuilding industry current wages are only from 18 to 26 per cent, above pre-war rates. The visible facts suggest that the British building trade workers are trading upon the necessities of their less fortunate brethren in an effort to improve still further their own relatively advantageous position.

In a message to the executive officers of his Department, at the conference at Hamner, the Minister of Forestry (Sir R. Heaton Rhodes) gave an encouraging account of the progress that is being made towards an efficient management of the national forest estate. It is noteworthy that the Department last year realised an income from all sources of nearly £lOO,OOO (as compared with £7259 in 1919), and that more than half of this sum represented surplus revenue available for capital investment in the State plantations. A progressive increase in the area of forest lands administered by the Department no doubt accounts in part for this increase in revenue. In a very considerable measure, however, the growth in revenue is due to the introduction of an up-to-date timber sale policy. Apart from the protection of forests against fire, in which category a particularly fine performance was recorded during the financial year just ended, and the extension of State plantations, the activities of the Department to date have been chiefly in the nature of preparatory investigation and research. As the Minister of Forestry intimates in his message, however, the time is almost ripe for a vigorous extension of the activities of the Department. The forest resources of the Dominion have been surveyed and methods of conserving these resources and utilising them to the best advantage have been studied. The next great step is a practical development of forest management ensuring that in forests still controlled by the State milling shall be conducted in conditions permitting and ensuring the growth of continuing crops of timber.