NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19924, 18 April 1928, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

AMERICAN UNEMPLOYxMENT,

"Unemployment is as severe in America as in Britain," says the London Observer. "Even tho scant official recoids have for several months revealed an advancing depression. If it has burst with suddenness in the shape of queues and demonstrations, that is becauso tho American temperament refuses to give the ill-omened tho encouragement of publicity." The Observer's New York correspondent says:—"Tho instalment system of purchase is likely be tho first orphan of tho coming storm, if indeed tho present blast rises to such a height, but it has been carefully consolidated for some time to meet such an emergency. Dealers have become more critical of their customers' credit; the periods of payment have been shortened. The chief trouble in any partial collapse will be not so much direct losses as the lack of encouragement to expansion. The whole of American industry, one might almost say American life, philosophy and religion, is built up on this theory of the permanent possibility of increasing consumption and production. Tho immediate question is what is going to happen to trade, and it must bo said that though, psychologically, America is badly prepared for a slump, from tho point, of view of organisation and banking arrangements and control she was never better prepared. But she has a great capacity for slumps and panics, and wo may see a sudden slide down into a serious trough. Thero are too many factors of solidity and enough resilience to take advantage of them, however, before any slump becomes too serious."

THE PARKING PROBLEM. A set of model regulations to apply to parking places has been issued by the British Ministry of Health for the guidance of local authorities and some general considerations are discussed in an accompanying memorandum. The latter advises local authorities, befoie fixing parking places in the -streets at all, to consider carefully whether their doing so will or will not reduce congestion by making it easier to 'enforce tho law against obstruction; if they decide to fix such parking places they should not only consult the authorities or persons responsible for maintenance of the street, they should ascertain the view of the police authority. From tho legislation it is evident that Parliament was anxious that parking should not cause appreciable obstruction or diminution of tho right of access to any promises or tho public right of using the streets for passing and repassing. It follows that the use of a parking placo should not bo regarded as a right availablo to every owner of a vehicle as long as ho desires: to take one extreme example, it would not bo proper, or consistent with tho overruling rights of the public, that a man after driving to business should park his vehicle in tho street from 9 o'clock to 6. Tho time fixed in the London traffic area does not exceed two hours, and it will bo for the local authority to consider whether, without letting abuses creep in, any greater period can be allowed, particularly in tho evening or at times when tho streets arc less likely to bo thronged by moving vehicles. Again, it may well bo questioned whether tho streets should bo used -as parking places for the benfit of particular trading establishments which attract largo numbers of vehicles, or whether these establishments ought not themselves to provide (as is already dono to some extent, singly or in combination) places for garaging the vehicles of their customers or parking them elsewhere than in the street.