SHORT EXTRACTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12401, 14 October 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

SHORT EXTRACTS.

THE LABOUR SITUATION IN VICTORIA.

According to Engineering, the labour situation in the Australian colony of Victoria is by no means satisfactory from the labour leaders' point of View. The effects of the recent strike of railwaymen are being acutely felt in more ways than one. It. has often been pointed out that the demands 01 the Labour party in Victoria were such that a reaction! was sure to follow. Such reaction has come with a. vengeance. In some recent contracts entered into by the Government of the colony it was found that- the usual clauses as to wages, hours of labour, and conditions of employment were omitted. This could scarcely have been an oversight. Employers found that the resources of the Government were being used as a leverage to force up wages and reduce hours of labour; hence they resented such action. Now it is reported that the ringleaders in the railway strike hove been penalised to the extent of some hundreds of pounds sterling. So far, the labour unions have been powerless to prevent this retrograde policy, as they deem it. What action may eventually be taken no one can foresee, b;it a feeling of resentment is sure to arise against the members of the Government who initiated and supported the policy. But if the resentment manifests itself in any violent form, the probable result will be the enactment of more stringent measures inimical to labour. Now is the time for prudent counsel and conduct. Moderate men in all sections will support reasonable labour legislation, but they will join what labour men would call the "reactionaries" if labour proposes to ride roughshod over all other interests. The position is an object lesson to labour leaders at Home and elsewhere. PATH'S £100,000 ENGAGEMENT. Madame Fatti has been gossiping about her next tour in America, which is to extend for six months. The contract has been signed, and the impressario, to bind matters, is to deposit with the Messrs. Rothschild £10.000 by way of guarantee. The diva anticipates an enormous success, and will receive in fees £100,000, a sum which is guaranteed to Kubelik for 20 concerts in Russia next winter. In giving her views about Wagner's music, the singing of which has ruined so many fine voices, she says she prefers those songs which can be half sung, half declaimed, to pianoforte accompaniment- These do her voice no harm. An overwhelming orchestra, if not kept in constant control for shading and piano passages, must work havoc with singers who attempt, in Wagner's operas, to overtop it. Many conductors, she declares, have utterly wrong conceptions of how to conduct Wagnerian works. The diva's husband. Baron Cederstrom, who will, of course, accompany her to America, has been compelled to become naturalised in England owing to certain clauses in the law bearing on the inheritance of property in Great Britain. A good-looking man, of athletic build, he is very well educated, and still remains a Swede in his sympathies. Besides her fee of £luuu pc-r concert, Madame Patti is to have the gross receipts over £1500.

" THE WORST MERCHANTS IN THE WORLD."

It is a common saying in Warsaw, according to Mr. Murray, the British Consul-Gene-ral, that "the British are the best manufacturers but the worst merchants in the world." A desire to do business with the United Kingdom is very general in Poland, but it is the attitude of the British trader that deters the local buyer. Mr. Murray gives the following instance of the way in which business is thrust away by the British merchant: —

" A firm here sent a small order for yarn, enclosing a cheque for the whole amount— something like £50—advising that, in all probability, further extensive business was likely to follow. The British firm returned the cheque, saying the order was too small for them to look at."

After, this, it is not surprising to find Mr. Murray in another part or his report figuratively going down on his knees to British travellers, begging them to call at his office for information —a request that would have been thought to have been the least necessary of all.

SOME BIG AMERICAN TRUSTS. The biggest thing ever done in the way of considerable combines in England was that effected by Lloyd's Bank in 1899, and the Union Bank of London and Smith's Bank last year, Both these enterprises have a capital of 20 millions sterling. * But that is a mere flea-bite to the deals in the States. One trust alone has a capital exceeding that of the aggregate funds of all the biggest public companies in Britain. That, of course, is the United States Steel Corporation, whose capital is fixed at £220,000,000.

The Consolidated Tobacco Company, with £52.537,840; the American Shipbuilding Company, with £33,100,000; the International Harvester Company, with a capital equalling that of the Shipping Combine; and the United States Flourmilling Company, with £23,000,000, make the largest enterprises appear small by comparison. How much each sovereign actually represents in an. American syndicate is another story. The total capital of the trusts formed in America in 1899 was over £700,000,000, for the year 1901-2, the chief movements towards new trusts or the merging of lesser into greater ones represented a capital of £430,000,000.

• ' A GIANT SKYSCRAPER. The new offices of the New York Times, to be built on the triangle bounded by Forty-second-street, Seventh Avenue, and Broadway, measured from bedrock to the summit of the tower, will.be,.it-is thought, the tallest "skeleton" building in New York. The height of the building will be, from the street level to the summit of the tower, 375 ft, making it tne second tallest skyscraper, under measurement from the level oi the pavement to the top of the tower. , Tie floor to be used as press-rooms will be 55ft below the street level, or the depth of more than four full storeys, , although the actual division is into three. The uppermost of these will be a tall basement, of which the floor will be at the level of the tracks of the rapid transit underground road. The subway station will be outside the building, and near its south-east corner. The composing room will occupy the sixteenth floor, and the floors above it will be used by other departments of the paper.

A BRILLIANT YOUNG PEER, The fiscal controversy is bringing out in the House of Lords not only the old men, but also the young. Remarkable success was secured by the Earl of Lytton in dealing with the Birmingham leaflets issued on behalf of " the Chamberlain policy." His speech was well phrased and well'delivered, and caught the attention of the. Government. Lord Lytton looked quite boyish, with his pale, romantic face and his slender figure. He shows his great interest in politics by frequent attendance in the gallery of the House of Commons, and it is evident that he intends to devote himself to a career in which his father and grandfather were distinguished. Their literary ability also was conspicuous in his political effort.—