How the World Wags

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 3, 23 October 1931, Page 7

How the World Wags

Britain’s unemployed show decrease in numbers of 33,000 for last week.

A strike of bank employees in the National Savingsi Bank at Santiago, Chile, ended after the Government agreed to discharge the general manager and two other high officers.

A Servian peasant woman, agen 76, whose husband is 84, has given birth to triplets. At least so the cable asserts, but it takes a lot of believing.

The New York Press urges Australia to set up a temporary dictatorship as the best way out of its economic troubles.

Two local trust companies at Boston, with total deposits of about £1,460,000, have been closed “to conserve their assets.” Blessed words!

It is estimated that 160,000 dole coupons are issued fortnightly in New South Wales at a total annual cost of about £6,000,000.

A world’s grain exhibition and conference will be held at Regina, Saskatchewan, from from July 24 to August 5, 1933.

The Chilean Minister at Paris has been authorised to begin negotiations with Russian commercial agents relative to a possible exchange of Chilean nitrate for Russian petroleum. True trade.

For the first months of the fiscal year, which began on July 1, the Treasury books of the United States show the Government to be £100,400,000 in arrears. Amerca does everything in a big way.

British finances, Mussolini says, are guaranteed by almost unlimited resources. Confidence in British strength and financial integrity throughout the world militates in Britain’s favour.

According to statistics presented in a report to the League of Nations, the United States has in its service 593 policewomen, this being approximately one-third of the total number of women so employed throughout the world. Great Britain has only 150.

The possibility of a rupture be- • tween the Vatican and Spain, if further measures against the Church are adopted, is being discussed in authoritative quarters in Rome. The new Spanish Cabinet has issued a decree forbidding religious orders to abandon the work of teaching under penalty of forfeiture of their property.

A message from Rangoon states that, in spite of fears in some quarters that the revolt in Burma would seriously interfere with the rice crop, it is only 2 percent less than last year’s estimate, and only 4 percent less than was indicated by last year’s actual sowing.

Mr. L. W. Matlers, an Australian and a Labour member of the British parliament, returning from a lengthy visit to the Kara Sea region of Northern Russia, said : “Russia is a large country for anyone to sum up in sweeping terms, but in the important area I covered there is no such thing as slavery. Everybody, especially the rising generation, is well fed and contented.”

Cologne is putting sections of its fortifications, now no longer needed, as Cologne is located in a demilitarised zone, to good use by converting them into playgrounds for children. In a new playground of this kind there are lawns and wading pools, shady trees, sand pits and showers. The children, who are taken out in groups-, may stay there the whole afternoon. A substantial meal is provided and special young officers preserve order.

The full facilities of the League of Nations are to be used to help China develop a modern educational system. Acting upon a suggestion of the Chinese Government, the League’s Committee of Intellectual Co-opera-tion, in session July 20 to 25, set in motion a scheme of interchange of knowledge between China and the western world which will gradually open wide the doors of the world’s oldest civilisation. It will place within the reach of eager Chinese students the accumulated treasures of learning found in the West.

As many as 2000 varieties of sausage are now produced in Germany. “Ivian cannot fear, hate or worry intellectually. He does these things with all his organs,”—Charles Mayo, a leading American surgeon. The American Federation of Labour in its annual convention after a lengthy and heated debate opposed the establishment of compulsory unemployment insurance in the United States. Gardens should be used as schools for small children, says the British National Union of Teachers. Freedom of movement, constant change of occupation, and access to the open air are indispensable for children under the age of eight, a statement declared. School buildings of the bungalow type, with movable walls, are recommended. Realising activity is the first step toward employment, a settlement at Maes-yr-haf, in South Wales, is providing intellectual and vocational activity for the idle mining population of the district. Special classes have

been arranged in co-operation with the University of Wales, and with the Workers’ Educational Association, and instruction is given in biology, economics, country dancing, psychology and teaching methods. All classes have been very satisfactorily attended by unemployed men and girls. Dr. 11. H. Kung, the Chinese Minister of Industry, announces that the Government intends to subsidise the “small hand” industries, which include all factories and plants employing less than 30 men or women, who are manufacturing goods “for the benefit of the people.” The Government will judge the manufactured articles by their quality, popularity, durability, cleanliness, and methods. The Government will provide small funds to deserving producers. The “Use Home Goods” movement is spreading. 1 Mrs. Edith Glenville, an Australian who paid a very short visit to Russia recently, lectured on “The Truth about Russia,” at Bondi and gave some of her “appalling recollections” of that country with “its tragic background of bloodshed, misery and suffering.” She concluded : “Children have been known to report their parents, because the parents have entered a church. I have seen one child go up to another and say, “Comrade, I will report you.’ ” As the good lady by her own confession, knows no language but her own, and the child is hardly likely to have spoken to the other in English, one wonders how she could “see” the child saying that. Thus is public opinion made.