TOPICS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 128, 1 June 1914, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

After the first feelings of sad Bttrprise and sorrow at the mesThe Atlantic sages of another great Disaster, disaster at sea, many people here and abroad must have wondered at the rapid sinking of the liner Empress of Ireland— a tragedy of tell minutes, with a thousand deaths. The public are accustomed to road about elaborate safeguards in the huge modern passenger > steamers against a sudden foundering, btit events prove that the strength and cunning of man and his machines are sometimes reduced swiftly to naught. The special bulkheads and watertight compartments have served well for the minor shocks) but they have failed to Bave vessels which have been hard hit. The Empress

of Ireland was struck as by v pointed projectile, weighing over 6000 tons, and thus the structure of a steel'ribbed ship was smashed hopelessly. The liner wat, then nothing better than a great broken iron tank, for the pitiless sea to fill quickly. These wrecks of the mammoth liners of the Atlantic are appallingly costly in human life and material. 'Die craze for size has continued till now the Germans have a leviathan displacing 58,000 tons. These steamer* carry in one voyage more folk than some of New Zealand's proud, ambitious towns can boast— a very heavy weight of responsibility on one keel. With the lengthening and widening of the monsters the luxurious appointments have increased, but for each _ increment of size and wsight there is something to debit as well as to credit. The Titanic's own weight helped the iceberg to rip up a flank, When these fabrics of immense weight crash into something solid, their tonnage assists the enemy to work havoc. Oriental Bay's people keenly resent the exclusion of the esplanade A Beach from the loan schedule, or a Park? and are asking forcibly for a restoration. Mean\diile they have another subject for vigorous debate, because Councillor Buddie is reviving the old proposal of a reclamation. Who does not remember the roar from the curving shoie some years ago when the local authorities gained power from Parliament to dump "spoil I 'into a wide sweep of the bay? The agitation was &o insistent, and vehement tliat the objectors frightened the City Council. At that time the active rasistere mhed a try of vandalism; they feared that beauty would be routed by_ ugliness— and yet The Post has given evidence that some residents, -with frontages on tlie marine highway, have been scandalous desecrators and polluters of the beach, by castmg hedge-dippings, garbage, and refuse there.' Undoubtedly, in a small, quiet, but nasty manner, they helped in a reclamation, because much of the rubbish remained. However. Councillor Buddies idea is not ,Bomething to be an eyesore. 110 advocates a filling for a park, a pleasant spread, of green in a cosy corner, for young and old. Such a scheme means good-by to_ the beach. Therefore, Oriental Bay in. particular, and Wellington City in general, will have to choose some day between a park and a beach. Thousands of citizens would be sorry to see any groat interference with the line of the shore, but they are mot all obstinately prejudiced against any such alterstion as one councillor (suggests. It is a matter of picking the better of two good things— and no judgment worth notice can be given off-hand. It is a situation which gives an interastiug themo to town-planners. —— . * A further and critical stage has been reached in the tight of Night Work the New South Wales in Northern coal-miners for Coal Mines, one working shift. At present, different coalmines in various districts are differently worked. On the Maitland field ten years ago there were three shifts— day, afternoon, and night. Persisten^ agitation against the night shift culminated, in 1906^ in its abolition as far as ordinal 1 * working is concerned. For some time now the attack has been con* centrated on the afternoon shift, and the que&tion was recently adjudicated upon by the Miners' Wages Boai-d, presided over by Judge Edmunds. The Board's tinding, recently delivered, was based upon a line of compromise that has ' been criticised as being anomalous in theory and unjubt in practice, both to employer and employee. On the ground of sane* tioned custom, certain coal-mining companies tha.t have always worked the afternoon shift were authorised to continue )t, but at the same time t the Board laia down that other companies, if they adopt the same plan of work as their competitors, must'vjay wage-rates 25 per cent, higher. Outside Labour circles, objection was raised to the special treatment of the exempted companies, ten in number. Within Labour circles, there wa» a renewed demand that the working plan of one shift per 24 hours, adopted in some mines and in industry as a whole, should have general application to coal-mining. Recognising the weakness of the Boards compromise, the Holman (Labour) ( Government appointed a Royal Commissiort to do the work of the Board over again, but with a wider order of reference. Meanwhile some/ coal-miners, taking the law into their 'own hands, refused to work the afternoon shift, and the Government has, in order to subdue their indiscipline, suspended the Commission { moreover, some of the Maitland companies threaten to close down. The public is directly concerned in., the ones* tion of abolishing the afternoon shift, because of the possible effect on the price of coal. The New South Wales situation is also of interest to the coal-mining industry and people of Now Zealand.