NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 172, 17 April 1937, Page 8

NOTES OF THE DAY

The greater demand for books—and, it is encouraging to note, books of a better class—from public libraries is significant of the mental appetite and growth of the community. A reading public begets greater general intelligence. And, since books of technical and scientific nature are being more widely read, there _ must undoubtedly be a better background of knowledge. Certainly in this momentous age, when inventive wonders follow hot upon one another, it behoves men and women to keep themselves mentally abreast of the times. Increased leisure, too, will bring increased reading. It is to be hoped, therefore, that ways and means may be found of increasing Wellington’s service of branch libraries. Children especially cannot make regular use of libraries unless such are provided within reasonable distance of their homes.

The differentiation between the guaranteed prices for cheese and butter will have to be varied in the coming season, according to what the Minister of Agriculture told an audience at the Dalefield Dairy Company’s jubilee. Calculations had not worked out quite as had been expected, said Mr. Lee Martin, and the present price would not allow some cheese factories to pay their suppliers the intended premium of a penny halfpenny a pound butterfat over that paid by butter factories. Farmers say the guaranteed price itself has not worked out as well as was expected; very soon taxpayers will be finding it has worked out as many of them feared. .The differential rate between payments by butter and cheese factories is, after all, only a detail of the general scheme. If mistakes can be made in a detail, is it not possible that a big mistake has been made with the whole scheme? Farmers say, “Yes, the price is too low.” Regard for the solvency of the public finances over a long term compels an opposite diagnosis—that the price is too high. The Government is likely to find increasing difficulty in steering its way between these opposing points of view.

Professor Hall, of the University of London, stripped New Zealand Labour policy of some of its trappings in the Auckland interview reported this morning. There is a disposition on the part of some people—and it is skilfully fostered by Labour propagandists —to attribute all the blessings of recovery in New Zealand to the change of Government. It is wholesomely refreshing to be reminded that the Government was lucky in inheriting large London funds, and luckier that its election coincided with the turn of the economic tide overseas. The Government so far has been riding on the wave; as Professor Hall says, there has been no test of the economic soundness of its policy. Again, a shorter working week may be a!) right if people work harder to balance the loss, and so prevent costs from rising proportionately: “You can carry higher wages and shorter hours if you become more efficient at the same time”—but not unless.