NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18710, 16 May 1924, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

NEW YORK'S NEGROES.

New York is threatened with a negro problem to add to its many racial difficulties and conflicts, says the New York correspondent of the London Evening Standard. The growth of the so-called " Congo belt " has been so continuous during recent years that there are now, half a dozen ,black quarters in the cityj and white families constantly are compelled to move because of the Hamitic encroachments. No resentments have arisen on this account. The whites, retreating before the blacks, have patiently moved on to new housing accommodation. Nor are there difficulties about associating with negroes in business. The fact that the negroes live in their own zones, having their own shops, prevents daily contact with the whites. But the negroes are now developing {heir talent for acting in a way that is attracting the notice of intellectualist whites. Here, in the theatre, at last a point of contact is being reached. With negro plays increasing the problem of seating mixed audiences has arisen. Whites'do not "want to sit with blacks in America. So the Jim Crow method of the South is now being planned. That !is to say, part of the theatre will be .re--served for one race and part for the other. Thus it is that New York's melting-pot is turning sooty.

THE AMERICAN LOAF. Investigation has been made in some of the largest American cities* by the United States Department of Agriculture, as to the distribution of the 10 cents which is the price of a loaf of bread. It. was found that out of the t'en cents on the average six cents go to the baker. The retailer gets slightly more than one cent. Those who haul the wheat to the mill and the flour from the mill to the baker get about nine-tenths of a cent. The miller gets slightly more than half a cent. The elevator gets not quite onetfcnth of a cent. Those who produced the materials—including the wheat, the yeast, the salt, and other thingsget a little less than one and a half cents. The" bulk of this cent and a half goes, of course, to the wheat farmer. If the farmer's share of the price were eliminated, a loaf that now sells for ten cents would still cost a little more than eight' and a half cents. If, on the other hand, the baker's share of the price were eliminated, the price of a ten cent loaf would be reduced to four cents. The farmer gets a small fraction of a cent more for producing and hauling the wheat to market than the retailer receives for selling the loaf to the consumer. The farmer is not receiving enough for his wheat', the experts say, and the consumer is paying 100 much for the bread. Lower bread prices depend upon more. efficient milling, baking, and distribution methods, higher yields per barrel of flour, and larger volume of business by individual bakeries.

NO CASTE IN POLITICS. "While the Socialist Government at Westminster appears to me a misfortune," says Lord Beaverbrook in the Sunday Express, "there is an aspect of the growth of the Labour-Socialist movement which is a positive advantage to the community. I mean the- breaking down of the last barriers which prevented a - boy brought up in the very humblest circumstanceshoping to attain the* highest offices in the State. What Labour has done is to place as least half the posts in the Cabinet, and nearly all the lesser offices, in the keeping of men who began life with nothing but what skill lay in their hands and brains. It is the scale on which this promotion has taken place which must, in the first instance, strike the observer. Henceforward it is impossible to say that any lad born in a slum or cottage cannot, if he be found worthy, become a leader of men. And the Conservative Party has in its turn, and of necessity, come to the realisation that if the Labour Party is to recruit its ministers from the whole nation, Conservatism cannot afford to look for its own protagonists within the narrow circle of a caste limited by rank or money. The barrier, therefore, has been definitely broken in all the parties alike, and everywhere ambitious youth will be welcomed. This is an inspiring thought for those fortunate enough to be born in the twentieth century. What Great Britain is doing is to put herself into line with political and social conditions which have long existed in the Dominions and in the United States of America. Canada and Australia have drawn their statesmen and ministers from men who sprang from every class lawyers, farmers, labourers, skilled worK : men, tradesmen, journalists. The United States has gone even further. It might almost be said that there the balance is tilted against those who possess hereditary health or position. It is a commonplace that no one in the United States can hope to be the president of a railway or a great industrial corporation unless he began life as a newsboy ! Now Britain has finally and irrevocably adopted the standpoint the younger nations have long held." !