TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 9136, Issue 9136, 8 February 1910, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Cr o ? Loughlin again brought up the question of dangerous •Railway railway crossings at, the Crossings. Kairanga County Coun-

cil meeting to-day, especially those on the Palmerston-Long-burn line. He suggested that the three M.'sP. representing the Kairanga County Council be instructed to use their efforts to have the trees obstructing the railway crossings cut down. Cr Mayo thought the matter was much bigger than some people thought. In his opinion all the crossings were dangerous, and he thought all the local bodies should move in the matter. Cr Mayo went on to suggest . that the Government should be made to get some mechanical device to be opened and closed by parsing trains, thus preventing the use of the crossings while the trains were near. Cr O'Loughlin's motion was carried.

A correspondent yesterday drew attention to the extremely Telephone inconvenient form in Lists. which'the new telephone

director has been issued, and inspection of the list shows the complaint to be wellgrounded. The worst feature of the publication is the fact that the leaves are not properly indexed, making it a matter of considerable difficulty to find the letter under which a required name is placed. The arrangement of the letters is such that the subscriber cannot index the list for himself. At the end of the booklet the names are given in numerical order, but the abbreviations are of 6uch a nature that it is , practically impossible to tell what firms are referred to. Altogether the new lists are most unsatis> factory, and certainly the subscribers have a right to expect more consideration. The list is "published by authority for the Postmaster-General," but is not compiled or printed by the Department. The Department should certainly take over the work of issuing the telephone directory, as the present production can be considerably improved.

The value of co-operation of labour and capital is afforded in Labour the case of .the Furness

and ship-building, yards. It Capital, may be' remembered that a little over twelve months ago the head and founder of the firm, Sir Christopher Furness, took his employees into partnership in the business, the alternative being, if the costly strikes and labour disturbances continued, the closing down of the works. The men guaranteed not to strike, and took up 50,000 shares at £1 each between them, on terms that guaranteed 4 per cent, and gave them the right to participate equally with the other shareholders in any surplus remaining after the latter had been paid 5 per cent. The first year's working was very successful. In addition to the dividend guaranteed the employers were paid a bonus of 5 per cent. There was abundance of work and absence of labour troubles. Every order was carried out within contract time, and besides building vessels the company docked and repaired 284 steamers and engaged in salvage work. Prior to the institution of the cooperative principle heavy penalties were being constantly incurred through failure to deliver work within contract time. The company's customers lost confidence. Orders were withheld, and some which were offered could not be entertained. One steamer was delayed 152 days, another 273 days, a third 304 days, and a fourth 274 days.' All these represented important contracts for good customers. The scheme 60 far is only on its trial, but is almost sure to be ratified and permanently adopted. If this is done the directors state many more contracts will be available. The agreement has proved beneficial to the company and its workmen, and an extension of the principle may be expected in England.