TOPICS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 65, 14 September 1926, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

In rather tantalising fashion, Mr. Arthur Henderson mentioned the drift to the towns as an obstacle to successful migration. But he did not pursue the subject. Naturally, he does not wish to tread on controversial ground. He and his co-delegates are in this part of the Empire to promote union, not conflict. But if, after all-round investigation of Australian and New Zealand conditions, tho British Parliamentarians can help us to decide how this drift to the towns may bo checked, and how far it is desirable to check it, we shall be grateful for their assistance. The drift cannot be measured in simple statistics of borough and county popu-j lation. In the beginning New Zealand was wholly rural* Now the home market for manufactured products is expanding, and it is possible to make in tho Dominion many of the articles i which formerly were imported. This local manufacture necessarily increases the proportion of town-dwellers. It would be a mistake to force tho develop-, merit of local manufacture unduly, but a natural growth ig beneficial to all sections of tho community. Tho difficulty comes in deciding what is natural and what is artificial. If that question can be' settled we can put a full-stop to Protection and Tariff arguments.

. It. seems that, in, proposing ,an em-ployer-employee industrial mission to the United States, tho Prime Minister of the Commonwealth wished to make the two partners in industry more conversant with certain United States industrial methods, whereby (it is claimed) employer and employee work in harmony, profit (though not the rate of profit) is increased, wage also is increased, yet the price to the consumer (the third partner in industry) is reduced. Becent important books on United States manufacture make this all-embracing claim, but stipulate that the result can be secured only by "big business" in the sense of mass production and big scale economy. Recognising this stipulation, Mr. Bruce thought that he might comply with it if he could remove industrial control from tho States to the Federal Government, thus making the Commonwealth a unit instead of six industrial fractions. But this vision of unity and big scale manufacture pales under the disappointment of the adverse referenda vote. If Australia's five-to-six million population could be handled as one whole, tho prospects of manufacturers in the Home market might be bright. But how can there be mass production when costs fluctuate in every State? The Home market of ■ over 100 millions of people is the pivot of American manufacturing success. Australia's ratio of l-in-20 becomes even less when the centrifugal force of State industrial laws has done its worst.

; Estimates of. the quantity of wool to be offered at tho London wool sales, fifth series, have increased latterly by 25,000 bales, and now total close on 200,000, of which. a good deal (including. New Zealand crossbred) has been held over from the fourth aeries. Obviously it is of great importance to New Zealand that crossbred should sell well. Tho holding-over . wag motived by a hope that the coal strike would terminate, and as that hope has not been realised, reliance must now be placed on the calculation that the wool market has found bottom, irrespective of the limitation imposed on British purchasing power by the strike. For some time there has been confidence that wool prices are about at bedrock —a confidence that was by. no means extended to butter; so there has really been no element of surprise in the fall of butter prices to below the 160s mark. But it would be a shock if, after all the deflating, wool failed to stand firm. On the eve of the fifth series, cable news from London is encouraging.

An educationist in Dunedin has been expressing doubt whether, many of the young men chosen as Rhodes Scholars measure up to the type that Khodes had in mind. This doubt refers to the Canadian, Australian, aud Now Zealand scholars. It is not the first time that it has been expressed. Tho desire of Ehodes was to make the cultural in-

fluence of his old University available to men who would follow in his own footsteps as Imperial statesmen and leaders in action. The success or failure of his great plan is not to bo judged by the fact that it has not yet produced a second Rhodes. It has produced men who have made their mark in Empire administration; but it has produced more who have distinguished themselves in science and other walks of life. The difficulty appears to be that men of the Rhodes type and the Rhodes ideal cannot be made according to recipe. The most that tho selectors can do is to keep the ideal in mind, and seek constantly to place tho bonefits of the scholarships at the disposal of young men who give the most promise of measuring up to the founder's standard.