CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVII, Issue 11225, 24 March 1897, Page 5

CURRENT TOPICS.

In England, ns here, the enthusiasm for volunteering .appears to ho on the wane, and .suggestions are being made for si.iiaulp.ting interest in it or for inducing

encouragement OF VOLUNTEERING.

foung men to enrol themselves in the

ranks. Sir Henry Havelock Allan, in a recent number of the Fortnightly Review, put forward a scheme as an alternative to compulsory military training. He thinks the volunteer force could he largely augmented hy the following means : “ First, the general recognition, hy law or by resolution of both Houses of Parliament, that ‘lt is the honnden duty of every Englishman receiving Stateaided primary, secondary, or technical education, at the expense of the general taxpayer, to learn the use of arms between Ids ninth and twenty-first year, so as to be able to defend his country in time of emergency.’ Second, a declaration by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament that any able-bodied boy who does not bind himself, through his parents or guardians, at the age of nine years, to become a qualified volunteer by the age of twenty-<sne should not, after the former age, receive any educational aid, either from the State or from the grants made by the County Councils.” There are manifest flaws in these suggestions. To begin with they would lead to an utter defeat of the principle of compulsory education by causing thousands of boys to leave school at nine years of ago. Nor can we see anything - in the idea of a quid pro quo, so far as primary education is concerned, for it is the “ general taxpayer” who receives as well as pays for elementary instruction. Something might be done by arousing the spirit of emulation if scholarships or other aids to higher education were limited to pupils who acquired military training. The establishment of cadet corps in connection with public schools is also an excellent idea. These are the true lines upon which to proceed, rather than those of withdrawing State aid and soliciting subscriptions from private citizens. At a time when our Government is organising charitable aid it would be a retrograde step to hand over our national defences to private benevolence.

Some of the labour bodies

THE EIGHT HOURS DAY.

in the colony are moving in the direction of having the eight hours law so amended

as to embrace all Government employes in its provisions. This, as we pointed out when the matter was under debate in Parliament, is not only the logical corollary of the enforcement of the law on private employers, but is also necessary as a proof of the consistency of the State and of the principle of equity in legislation. The Government ought to bo the model employer, if not as regards wages, at least in the matters of hours and conditions of labour. The eight hours’ working day, which is an institution as old as the days of Alfred the Great, is at present enjoyed by but a fractional portion of English people, while in other countries excessive hours of labour are still the rule. In Belgium, where the average length of the working day is eleven hours, an effort is being made to introduce the eight hours’ system. A Bill on the subject is to be presented to the Belgian Parliament during the present session, and it is said that at least some members of the Ministry are pledged to support it. The prospects of the measure have been . prejudiced by the action of a large employer of labour, who proposed to adopt the eight hours day voluntarily. He resolved to give a fortnight’s trial to the system, telling his employes that he believed they would, by working three hours less daily, work better and produce as much as formerly. The “ piece ” workers were guaranteed that if they produced less than their average wages the employer would make up the difference, while the employes who were paid by the week were promised a continuance of their old wages. The result was that the employer lost an hour and a half per day on the labour of each “ piece ” worker; while bn the work of fifty employes paid by the week he lost the full three hours daily, or a loss of nine hundred hours’ work per week.

PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE!.

English experience, when hours were reduced from ten to nine, proved that no

economic loss resulted, as the more effective labour in the shorter period was equal to that of the longer period. There are three possible explanations of the Belgian failure. Either the workers were already driven to their utmost capacity; or they lacked the conscientious thoroughness of the English; or the reduction of hours was too great to be compensated for by increased exertion.. The latter is probably the true explanation, though all throe causes may have operated. The “ piece ” workers —in all likelihood a superior class —were able to make good the loss of nine hours a week, which is a highly creditable performance; whereas the ordinary employes on fixed wages lacked either the stamina or the moral incentive to make up any leeway. Clearly, the lesson for labour reformers in Belgium is that they should proceed cautiously, and not injure their cause by unreasonable demands. A limitation of hours of labour to ten daily would be for the Belgian worker a considerable step in advance, and one that could be effected without entailing loss on the employer, or injuring the country’s position as a competitor in the industrial arena. In New Zealand, as is well known, a compulsory eight hours lav/ is hardly necessary save as a means of bringing a few hard task-masters into line, but, since we have a law on the subject, it certainly ought to embrace the employes in State workshops. The Mines (Eight Hours) Bill is pretty sure to bo debated in the British Parliament this session, and though in the hands of a private member, it has a fair chance of becoming law. The English Government, it may be said, has found it practicable to adopt the eight hours’ day in its dockyards and arsenals, and thus it can with perfect consistency support proposals to apply the same principle not only to mines and rmhealthy trades, but also to all private factories. It is gratifying to find the movement for the limitation of the hours of labour making headway in different parts of the world, for in this lies the solution of the pressing industrial problems of the day.

The affairs of the Belgian Prince, Joseph de Chimay and de Caraman, have

PRINCESS AND GIPSY.

become public property through his successful suit for divorce from his wife, the young and eccentric American who endowed him with live million dollars in return lor a title. The Princess’s father, Eber C. Ward, was engaged in the shipping trade on the great American lakes, and he became the richest man in Michigan. This is not the first marriage of the kind that has turned out unhappily; but it docs not follow that all the European nobility who seek American wives are unscrupulous ruffians who inflict suffer-

ing and wrong upon angels of innocence. Miss Clara Ward tired of the role of Belgian princess after seven years, and deserted her husband. In a letter of warning which she recently addressed to her countrywomen, she said : —“ What I have done I did because I felt that I had to do it. I hate hypocrisy and lies. I wanted to have done with them. I wanted to be free, to escape the fffitid atmosphere in which modern society lives. Could I have been a man I would have become a second Count Tolstoi in some respects. What I want to impress on my countrywomen —especially on those who, like me, are spoiled children of fortune—is that they should always be true to themselves and others ; that they should never give up the highest ideals of life for the sake of social position. I wish that you, my sisters at home, would take my fate as a lesson.” Unfortunately for the high morality that breathes in this epistle, the Princess’s elopement has had a most unromantic ending. The lady in a few months got tired of her gipsy lover, and has once more fled from what was doubtless a mare “ foetid atmosphere” than the one she formerly moved in. A telegram from Milan to a London newspaper states that the Princess and her gipsy lover Rigo stayed at an hotel in that city, and it seems almost immediately began to quarrel violently. The Princess s screams of rage and the gipsy’s forcible language alarmed and disturbed the other residents in the hotel, who complained to the landlord. The telegram briefly adds that the Princess at the end of one of these quarrels packed up her things and left Milan for Monte Carlo, paying her own bill, but leaving Rigo’s unsettled.