NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8179, 22 July 1912, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Interesting list of current wages paid to workers in Merrie England;—Women make blouses at 9d, lid, and Is 3d per dozen —and have to find their own cotton. Babies’ bibs, 8d per dozen. Boys’ reefer coats, 4d each. Women’s coats, 7d each. Envelopes, lid per 1000. Match , boxes, 2id per gross—makers finding their own paste. Now then, all together, boys! • * • • ' • SI

One of the Sydney daily papers informed us the other day that “during the English coal strike the death rate of Middles borough fell to 13.80, as compared with 2G.36 for the corresponding period of last year—a drop of one-half.’’ A clear indication that modern industry is. more dangerous than modern warfare. And yet the English miner is expected to cheerfully double his risk of death for 4s a day! v w . • tt • THINKING TT OUT.

You cannot realise in New Zealand what a bad time the English working man has had.' It is only of recent years that any politician cared about him or justice for him. Until half a century ago, politics wag an affair of the upper classes. Then it became an interest to the middle classes. Now, and with a suddenness which bewildered certain sections of society, politics has become an affair of the toiling multitudes. This may not be due entirely to the presence of the Labor party in the House of Commons; but no honest observer can doubt that the presence of that party has exerted an enormous influence, and that henceforth, even supposing that Labor does not increase its Parliamentary representation, the Labor members will count more and more in the House of Commons. The English laboring man to-day is not only discontented, but he is reading. , He has discovered that in the past the work of Parliament was carried on for the profit of aristocracy, then of plutocracy, and he does not see why the machinery of legislation should not be turned at length to begefit bim. • ■ • • • • SOCIAL BULWAUKS. One. of the chief .Catholic Associations in Germany is the League of Young Artisans, founded by the late Rev. Adolf Kolping. At present it counts oyer SO fully-equipped club-houses in different cities of Germany, Austria, Hungary, Holland. and Belgium, with an actual membership of 80,000 Catholic young men. Father Kolping in his youth had learned

■uie trade of a shoemaker, and realised ftiie many dangers to which a young artiwas exposed away from home, bo that he do voted his life to solving a problem of providing a club—the nest best feiace —for them. He was encouraged by his superiors, and opened his first clubhouse in Cologne. It supplied comfortable quarters and all popular amusements. Sobriety, good behaviour, and regalar attendance to religious duties (Con-\ fession and Communion), were necessary ( conditions of membership. There is (Similar organisation of German Catholic 'laborers (Arbeitervcroin), which numbers some hundreds of thousands. It wall easily be seen what a powerful bulwark these social unions alone form against socialism and anarchy—to say nothing of the numerous sodalities, confraternities, and other pious associations connected with them. _ _ . • . » * "INFERNAL SNOBBISHNESS." Sir George Reid, addressing the National Industrial Education League, recently in London, said that there infernal snobbishness" in Great Britain, which drew a line between clerk and artisan. Many men who were qualifying for clerkships would do better in the ranks of industry. # , , , CIGARS IN CHURCH. Eive hundred men packed the new "men’s church" at Atlantic City, TJ.B.A. (hays a recent "Inter-Ocean") and pulled cigars and pipes furnished by the Rev. Sydney Goodman during the Sermon, which was sandwiched in betw r een a special entertainment, also provided by the new idea pastor. , , #

The "Voice of Labor” threatened to be louder and larger. It has fulfilled its promise. It has come out in very attractive dress, dressed with red, printed in fine typo on a high grade of paper, and shows every evidence of being able to give a wide swathe in its work. May it grow louder, larger, and saner every day that passes. '