NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20481, 5 February 1930, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

RAISING THE SCHOOL AGE. Among the legislation before the British Parliament is the Government's bill "to raise to 15 years the age up to which parents are required to cause their children to receive efficient elementary instruction and to attend school, and to make provision for maintenance allowances in respect of children attending school up to that age who are over the ago of 14 years." Official memoranda accompanying the bill show that it is not to apply either to Scotland or to Northern Ireland; that in England and Wales it is to come into operation on April 1, 1931, and that the bill will not affect any child who reaches tho age of 14 before that date. Thja extension of the school leaving age by one year involves the provision of extra teaching staff and accommodation, maintenance of buildings, etc., for the additional age group. It is assumed that by the time the new building schemes, are completed and the number of children in the age group 14-15 is more or less stabilised, that is to say from 1938 onwards, tho total cost of these services will be about £2,500,000 a year, but the rise to this amount will be gradual. Tentative estimates of the cost of maintenance place it at £3,000,000 in 1932-33; owing to a temporary increase in the number of children in the schools tho cost will rise to £4,300,000 in 1934-35 and £4,400,000 in 1935-36. Of the total cost, £1,600,000 will fall on local rates, and, in the first full year, £3,900,000 on the national, exchequer, which will also have to make a special contribution of £500,000 to the Scottish Education Fund. When tho maintenance charge is at its maximum the total burden on tho Exchequer will be £5,400,000.

" DOLES " FOR THE UNEMPLOYED. Commenting on the Labour Party s legislation increasing the allowances under tlio unemployment insurance scheme, a contributor to the Review of Reviews says:—" The Labour Party declares that tho present rates arc inadequate to support a satisfactory standard of life. They should remain so. Unemployed benefit is no longer insurance, but a dole. Insurance covers a temporary risk and not a permanent condition, such as wo have had for the last 11 years and bid fair to have for eternity. If tho dole was largo enough to maintain a satisfactory standard of life, many people would give up looking for work, and an abnormal army of unemployed would bo with us permanently. Further, doles already serve to create scarcity of labour by creating a minimum wage which is too high for some industries and trades to pay. There is a notorious scarcity of domestic servants, becauso domestic servants have become factory hands in order to qualify for unemployment pay. Unemployed pay should be no moro than is necessary to keep those receiving it from starvation, and low enough therefore to make a man prefer work to idleness. Employers object strongly to the lowering of the insurance age to 15, because it will add to tho wage cost of juveniles. This is a sound reason. As the school ago is to be raised from 14 to 15, the Bondfield proposal will have the effect of giving a boy or girl on leaving school a payment equal to, if not more than, his commencing wage at present." THE INCIDENCE OF TAXATION.

Addressing a meeting called by the London Chamber of Commerce to protest against the rising tide of public expenditure, Lord Molchett pointed to the rapid increase in the cost of social services and the taxa'tion to pay for themj in 30 years outlay on social service has risen from 14s a head of the population to £8 6s. Ho also showed that in France, Germany and tho United States taxalion is being reduced. "Meanwhile, it should be remembered," says tho Times Trade Supplement, "that income-tax is paid by 5 per cent, of the population or 7 per cent, of the electorate; it follows that politicians aro tempted to make their appeal for support to the six-sevenths by promising benefits to bo paid for by tho one-seventh. In any country where tho bulk of tho taxation is direct it is obvious that its weight will fall on a small minority, and the only hope for a more intelligent adjustment of tho burden is to convince tho majority of the electors that taxation, whether direct or indirect, is ultimately a charge upon production and therefore militates against tho prosperity of trade and commerce and tends to lower the standard of living and to increase unemployment. Only when tho body of electors realise that they have a personal interest in JJio reduction of taxation can there be any prospect of getting a sufficiently large number of representatives in Parliament to ensure tho adoption of more prudent counsels." DISCIPLINE UNDER FASCISM. A declaration on the question of party discipline under the Fascist regime was recently issued by the Grand Council and the Council of Ministers, in recording their approbation cf tho new statute of the Fascist Party. After declaring that the new statuto has now become binding on all Fascists, the Grand Council invites all those who do not feel disposed to accept to the full and without restriction tho rigid discipline of tho National Fascist Party to hand in their resignations within a week. Those who, for physical or moral reasons or in virtue of special personal considerations resign, will bo allowed to share in the life of tho other subsidiary organisations of the regimo, but in the party, as in the militia, all—from tho chief down to tho rank and file—must possess tho spirit of front-lino troops, capable, especially in difficult times, of every and any sacrifice. These "gravo words" aro stated to bo not a menace but a reminder of duty. Those who have entered tho party from motives of selfinterest aro warned that they have made a completo mistake. The party, it is insisted, must represent tho elite of tho new Italy, which on account of its threat to tho old order of political ideas, is isolated in the world and surrounded on all sides by enemies of the regime. The Fascist Party is tho main support of the State, thus potentially at war with all non-Fascists, and consequently every member of tho party must submit to heavy sacrifices. The Rome correspondent of the Times remarks that it is not difficult to read between these linos an acknowledgment that tho party to-day is not entirely inspired by those idealist motives which made its earliest members anient find disinterested apostles of a new political faith.