NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 174, 20 April 1937, Page 8

NOTES OF THE DAY

In an endeavour to make the policeman’s lot a happy one the Government has reduced his working week from 56 to 48 hours, and given him an increase of 10/- a week because of the impracticability of putting him on the 40-hour week footing. This will necessitate an addition to the .Police Force of 125 new men. lhe prison population at present is round about 800. It has fallen so low that working plants have had to be closed down, and the convicts are on a 40-hour week. With another 125 policemen on the trail of offenders there is a,faint possibility that there will eventually be no convicts at all. The policeman’s lot will then indeed be a happy one.

It has been, left to a private member of the Government Party to make the first direct statement concerning the position of the Rev. C. G. Scrimgeour, Director of Commercial Broadcasting, since the appointment was made. According to Mr. A. F. Moncur, the Commercial Broadcasting Station is expected to yield the Government at least £15,000 in the first year. Under the terms of the appointment the Director was to draw 7 per cent, commission in addition to his salary, and in reply to Opposition protests in Parliament at the time the Prime Minister stated that the position would be reviewed after three months. Has it been reviewed? If so, what is the position now? The Postmaster-General, according to a Dunedin message yesterday, says he will probably make a statement shortly. A statement is due.

There has been much debate on the question whether the mechanisation of industry has been the main factor in unemployment. In his recently-published book, The Science of Social Adjustment, Sir Josiah Stamp makes an interesting point in this connection, “The statistics provided by the Ministry of Labour indicate clearly,’’ he says, “that the industries which have been giving less employment are not those in which technological advance is most rapid. In coa’ mining, as much decrease is due to loss of export markets and the economy in the use of fuel as to coal-cutting and similar machinery The growing industries have increased employment more than the declining industries have decreased it, and the former are not those in which there is no mechanical advance. The motor industry has increased by 43 per cent, in employment from 1923 to 1934. but technological change has been taking place all the time. The Austin Works employed 55 men per car in 1922 and only eight men per car in 1934, but the total number went from 3000 to 16,000.”