NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19807, 30 November 1927, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

INDUSTRIAL WELFARE. Addressing a conference of the Incorpoiated Secretaries' Association at Buxton. Mr. Robert Hyde, director of tho Industrial Welfare Society, said tho society claimed that in these modern days when the retention of the old intimate, personal ties between "boss" and worker is almost impracticable, there should be in every business enterprise some person—director, member of staff or welfare worker —who would regard the whole organisation from the human end. It was in this direction that industrial peace and stability would ultimately be found, but, unfortunately, the suggestion was so simple, so obvious, that it did not attract tho attention it deserved. National schemes were impracticable for no universal specific had ever been, or ever would be, discovered. No two firms and no two industries had to face the same set of problems. One could not compare the circumstances of, say, a jute mill in Dundee with thoso of a quarry in Cornwall: a coalmine with a chocolate factory. Moreover, industrial troubles began in individ lal shops where conditions or relations were altogether wrong. Somo injustice, hardship or repression created a feeling of discontent, which found an echo in the minds of others who suffered, the same distresses and so it spread until tho whole body was infected. To regard this preventable trouble as revolution was hopelessly stupid. If they desired peaco then they must seek it shop by shop and niino by mine. There was no other way.

UNEMPLOYED TEACHERS. Attention was recently directed by the Liirmingham Post to tho fact that whereas an advertisement for a junior shorthandtypisto attracted only four applicants, of whom three could noither write shorthand >-or type, there were 200 applications for five positions in a new higher-grade school. Many of the candidates held university degrees and 80 of them were unemployed. It was reckoned that the Education Act of 1918, when in full operation, would require an annual entrance of 15,000 teachers into the profession —double the number actually entering it at the time. The raising of teachers' salaries provided an attraction which was not overlooked At tho same time additional facilities were offered in training colleges and elsewhere for preparation for tho teaching profession. As time passed, however, it became plain that more teachers were being turned out than wero needed. In spite of the increased number of schools and classes, trained teachers have multiplied more rapidly. Now that tho urgent demands of national economy have compelled the Board of Education to press upon local authorities the necessity of cutting down their staffs whero possible, there is unemployment among tho swollen ranks of the teachers. And the pinch is felt particularly by the women. To-day, when there is moro than a little unemployment among teachers, the women who ate about to leave tho training colleges in search of appointments have good cause for anxiety.

YOUTIf IN POLITICS. Regret that Mr. Baldwin did not take the opportunity created by Lord Cecil's resignation to undertake a general reconstruction of the British Government was expressed by the Times, when it was announced that only tho vacancy had been filled. The certainty that politics are becoming a moro and more exacting profession has caused the most interesting feature of the present Parliament to be the appearance among the Conservative ranks of young men who iack neither the industry to produce ideas nor the ability to express them, it observed. They hava had to face a number of adverse factors. Their own party has been in power, so that criticism, the easiest road to a reputation, has not been open to them. They have had to combat the lethargy which comes of an overwhelming Parliamentary majority. Circumstances, both at home and abroad, over which they had no control, have conspired to stultify tlieir efforts. Tho three years of their political apprenticeship have thus been a period of successive disappointments, not merely objectively, but subjectively Their abilities and their energies have been choked back behind tho scenes, where victories or defeats have an unheralded importance. It remains a fact that the wealth of talent available upon tho Conservative back benches has for three years remained almost unrecognised. Some of tho more prominent young members, it is true, have been made Parliamentary private secretaries, but such posts are a questionable boon; they involve a great deal of exacting '.'devilling'' and impose an irritating taciturnity For the rest the young Conservatives have rendered services both to the nation and to their party which are by no means to be underrated, but which have hardly met with the promotion which they deserved. They have shown that the Conservative Party has 110 dearth of capable leaders for the future. The real cause for regret is that so few of these future leaders have had the training in this Parliament—the only effective training for leadership—which consists in early practical responsibility.