NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15549, 5 March 1914, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

GENERAL VILLAS CAREER. A picitresqite brigand is General Villa, who, by ordering the death of a British subject, has set the world talking about intervention in Mexico. He is ignorant, and has behind him a career stained with brigandage, loot, and " executions," which, judged by modern military practice, are murders. He is bold and resolute, and no other man in Mexico to-day is feared as he is. It is difficult to imagine General Villa President of Mexico, but he is credited with that ambition, and should Huerta's dictatorship fall, he will probably refuse to stand aside for General Carranza or anyone else. General Villa's ideas of warfare and government are primitive, but hi? power has come to be extraordinary. He has held as a hostage the son of General Terrazas, millionaire and ex-Governor, and has made him sign printed money for a quarter of a million dollars to be paid to Villa's soldiers at Chihuahua. He has conducted the business of that town in a way fully like a dictator and partly like a socialist. A correspondent of an American paper recently wrote : —The street car system, the . stores, the electric light plant, the brewery, a clothing factory, and the railroad between Chihuahua and Juarez— the gambling houses—are all being operated by the rebel Government, and all of them are yielding a profit. In some of them the prices have been cut below those charged by private individuals. In the case of the railroad, where persons are not able to pay and their necessity for travel exists, they travel without pay. Villa the bandit" shoots his men for looting or stealing, but Villa " the chief" confiscates whole estates, factories, railroad systems, and operates them as nonchalantly as he used to hold up and rob an ore train in the mountains. The moneys derived from their operations he applies to the payment of his army.' General Villa is said to be ju6t to those who obey him, and his successes have given him an increasing army of devoted adherents.

PROFIT-SHARING EXTRAORDINARY The announcement of the sensational profit-sharing scheme which the Ford Motor Company of Ohio proposes to establish opens up a number of interesting I economic questions, remarks the' London Spectator. Mr. Ford, the head of the firm, estimates that in the current year his company will make a profit of about £2.000,000, and ho proposes to distribute this profit among the employees of the company, with the result that their wages will be increased in most cases fifty per cent., and in many cases nearly a hundred i per cent. The payments are to be spread : over the year in fortnightly sums, and i it is estimated that the sum payable to a ! mechanic now receiving £1 a day will : bring his daily wages to approximately j 31s, while an ordinary labourer who has ! hitherto been earning 10s 6d per day will , have his earnings increased to £1- Mr. Ford is an enthusiast whose good intentions no one is likely for a moment to question. But, like many other enthusiasts, he apparently allows himself to be j guided rather by his heart than by his j head. He wishes to improve not. only the , pecuniary position, but also the moral character, of his employees. With this end in view, it is part of his scheme to . establish a 'sociological department' in ! the works. The object of this department is officially defined as follows:—To keep an eye on the men, and "to eliminate as beneficiaries under the plan any who are found using the extra amount in such a way as is considered improper for right-living.' It remains to be seen whether under the banner of the great American Republic people will acquiesce in this inquisition into their private lives for the sake of a fifty per cent, increase in their salaries. For the credit of England we hope that very few fvould De found here, and that on this ground alone the Ford Company will not trouble to extend their scheme to their employees in this country. We do not in the least depreciate the value of profit-sharing as a form of industrial organisation. In many cases, and probably in the case of the Ford Company, true profit-sharing is a most salutary improvement on the mere wage nexus; but profit-sharing, if it is to succeed, must be justified on its own economic merits. It is essentially a device for inducing workpeople to turn out better work and to consider more fully the interest of their employers than they would do if they were receiving wages merely. Mr. Ford's sensational scheme has nothing except the name to connect it with true profit-sharing. It is' not a stimulus to better work- It is a charitable gift by Mr. Ford himself to the persons who happen to be in his employment, and as such it possesses all the disadvantages of schemes of, benevolence which have not been carefully thought . out."

AIRSHIPS FOR THE NAVYThree airships of the Forlanini type have been ordered by the Admiralty for the Naval Air Service. One of these will be built at Milan and the other two by Messrs. Armstrong, Whit-worth, near Selby, in Yorkshire. Although the order given to the English firm represented a last minute decision, it may be regarded as further proof of the Admiralty's desire to encourage the home industry wherever possible. The conclusion of ' this transaction probably formed an item in Mr. Churchill's programme during his recent extended visit to Paris. Some six months ago the director of the Air Department and one of his assistants went to Milan to watch the trials of the Forlanini airship Citta di Milano, which was recently presented by national subscription to the Italian Army, and Captain Suet.er was said to be highly satisfied with his inspection of the vessel. It took the engineer Forlanini 18 months to build this vessel, but, Messrs. Armstrong will probably build them in less than six months. The Forlanini ship is of the semi-rigid type, and naval opinion is inclined to favour rigid vessels, but the rapidity with which the semi-rigid ships can be constructed will probably give them a temporary advantage over the others. The Forlanini is said to possess many remarkable features. Tho car forms part of the keel, and is entirely covered in, but it has navigation windows forward. The keel is a girder supported by a cable running through the outer gas envelope end to end. The inner envelope is divided into a dozen or more sections, and the two envelopes are connected at the top, but elsewhere are separated by ba-lkmets. The Citta di Milano can carry three guns, and is stated to have a displacement of about 12 tons. The overall length is about 240 ft, and the breadth about 60ft. She has two engines, each of about 90-h.p., and two threebladed propellers, her estimated speed being something under 50 miles per hour. The success of the designer of this interesting vessel adds yet another name to the list of remarkable inventors whom Italy has produced of late years, notably Marconi, the inventor of wireless telegia pby for commercial purposes; Cuniberti, the naval architect, who originally suggested the Dreadnought type; and Oalderara, probably the first to design a practicable seaplane.