NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19730, 1 September 1927, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

WORK AND RECREATION. With the case of the man who, after an active life, retires from business and shortly afterwards dies, every one is familiar, says the Yorkshire Post. It is a commonplace to say of a man, "to retire would kill him," but there is a less ready realisation that length of life is to be secured by mere zest for life. The day is 24 hours long. Sixteen of these were meant to be lived. Many men live eight of them and exist for the other eight. Such men not only waste half their lives i;i the loss of enjoyment and experience, but actually invite an earlier termination to what should lie an exciting adventure—tho adventure of being alive. It is not necessary that a man should too earnestly embrace a particular form of exercise for which ho may have no taste. Rather ho should make his leisure hours the balance of his working hours. If the body is untaxed and the brain is worked by the business of earning a livelihood, the body should ba given its due share of activity in leisure The young take good caro that such a balance is preserved and it may be said that no man is old until he allows himself to lose the habits of youth. Age, in short, is a man's own fault, and it is the fruit of a self-deceit which calls idleness by some more flattering name.

THE CASE FOR ARBITRATION A vigorous denunciation of "tho gross immorality and irreligion of warfare between classes" was uttered by Mr. Philip Snowden, ono of the leaders of the British Labour Party, in an address at the conference of tho National Brotherhood Movement. "A trade dispute is not the concern only of tho parties directly interested," said Mr. Snowden. "Every stoppage affects the interests of the wholo community and tho community therefore has a right to have a voice in determining the matter, i'his is the conclusive argument against strikes and lockouts and for the substitution of some system of arbitration. Each industry lives out of the community, and- tho community has a right to protect itself agaiiiflt unfair exploitation, while at tho same time it has a duty to see that allround justico is done. Questions of wages and conditions of labour should be determined on a new < basis and by new methods. Tho capacity of the industry must be taken into account; thf> possibilities of increasing tho efficiently of the industry should bo exploited by the co-operativo efforts of management and labour; tho interdependence of all industry should be borne in mind; the reactions of any settlement on trado as a whole must be considered; and the method of securing theso results should be left largely to the particular industries themselves, with the provision of tribunals for tho settlement of disputes, tribunals which would be so constituted as to command the confidence of both parties and at the same time would look to the wider interests which are involved. If such tribunals can be set up, the. right to strike or the right to lock-out will bo as indefensible as the right of a nation to go to war because it has refused to accept the decision ol an impartial Court of Arbitration.*?-