MY COUNTRY NOTEBOOK

Otago Witness, Issue 3868, 1 May 1928, Page 22

MY COUNTRY NOTEBOOK

By

MURIHIKU.

(Special fob the Otago Witness.) So England is to have a petrol tax 1 All over the world the rise of the new form of transport has brought problems to those who have to administer either railways or roadways. The railways feel the competition, and the roadways crack up under the strain of the new loads travelling at such a high rate of speed. It is this problem of our competing transport systems that is helping to pile up costs in this country—in every civilised country.

Consider the question in any part of New Zealand, and it is obvious to those who have goods to transport that the whole cost of both road and rail must be borne by the same people. Away up in North Auckland some years ago nearly all the peninsula was served by a fairly efficient steamship company. The railway was not joined up, and the roads were execrable. To-day many of the isolated stretches of railway have been joined up, and the shipping company is being driven off by railways. Now, with the declaration of main highways, the roads in North Auckland are threatening the railways! Sooner or later we shall have to recognise the faet that all these competing transport services are really complementary one to another, and they will have to be coordinated a great deal better than they are now, if our transport costs are not going to remain excessive.

In the readjustment of these at present conflicting interests some one is bound to get hurt and to suffer financial loss. Our railways are in difficulties; to-day, so are the English railways; and apparently in New South Wales and Victoria they are worse off even than we are.

In the past—before the Main Highways Act came in—the country people, through their county councils, found most of the money for our reading system. But the burden became too great. Mr Coates introduced the new main highways system in 1921, providing for 2000 miles of real main highways, proposing that all works of construction and maintenance on these main highways should lie carried out without any contribution from local authorities. County councillors objected, to this, and in 1922 a modified Main Highways Act came into force. This Act, with some amendments, is now in force.

The money’ to subsidise local authorities comes from several sources—from the Consolidated Fund, from the Public Works Fund, from the annual taxes on motor tyres, and from the annual license fees. But all this was not sufficient, so last year a 4d per gallon petrol tax was put on. Generally, the farmer hailed this with delight, but the city motor associations are just a little dubious in their praise. Recently the North Island Motor Union protested against the heavy taxation, and Mr M'Leod (the Minister of Lands), in reply, roundly condemned the attitude of men who sit in offices, dictate to the Government, and refuse to see the conditions of men in the backblocks.

Farmers in this country should thank their lucky stars that they have county councillors and members of Parliament who look after their interests. Consider the plight of fanners in Essex, England:

Said to be the first cases under the Essex County Council’s by-law, which calls upon fanners to clean the wheels of the'r earts before leaving their fields, summonses against a farmer and his horseman for letting mud drop from a cart on to the highway were lately dismissed on payment cf costs at Ongar.

But the farmers are now getting a little of thqir own back on to the motorists of Great Britain. For Winston Churchill now proposes a petrol tax of 4d, and this in ’addition to the very heavy power tax they already have—which I believe is £1 for every horsepower of the engine: Taxi owners and drivers say that it is simply ruinous. The Commercial Motor Users’ Association estimates that .the average goods traffic vehicle will pay from £4 0 to £5O annually extra for petrol. This is simply staggering, and will cost the General Omnibus Company more than £300,000 extra yearly. It is expected that the fares will be increased. “ The farmer and his horseman ” at Ongar, Essex, will both chuckle heartily when they learn that the president of a big motor corporation predicts that “ this iniquitous legislation will drive a great number of cars off the road altogether.” ♦ * # If the British and the New Zealand transport problems have a good deal of similarity, so also are our industrial difficulties being tackled in much the same manner. For in both countries round-the-table conferences are taking place between employers and employees. At the Wellington Conference a good deal of diversion has been caused by the professors of political economy from the several university colleges. Two items from one who attended the conference are too rich to be lost. I would not say that they enlighten us much, but they are interesting, and deserve preservation.

Professor Murphy insists that the court goes into too much fiddling detail, and when challenged about what he calls jam-tart ” interference solemnly read an extract from the Book of Awards. He is replying to a certain employee’s delegate: , evid e n tt y gave the conference the impression that the jam-tart incident B r m in thl e t d in th ? del,thf! ot my imagination. u”L th - IYL ao ’ and the whole thing is so rich that I will quote it. My authiS lh °Jo?. ok o£ -Awards, Volume XXIV, 2 ”’ i? a i ee 122 ’ On that pa g e i 8 embalmed the whole entrancing, comic incident; and f you listen carefully it will give you an idea of the mentality that the operations of the court are bringing into this country i COPY OF APPLICATION FOR INTERPRETATION. Whereas by an award of the Court of Ar?«o5 tlon ? ated the 2£>th day of September, iqzz, and recorded in Book ot Awards Volume XXIII, page GlO, it was directed! inter alia, in clause 10, that “ where- fe'Bales are employed as journeywomen they snail be paid the same wage as journeyfemales other than journeywomen snali not be employed to manufacture any goods in the bakehouse or to do any hotplate work ; but they may be employed in breaking eggs, cleaning and greasing tins and utensßs papering tins and cake-hoops, nnishing and packing small goods, and cleaning fruit, and generally to do ail kinds work ” : And whereas a quesarls®n aa t 0 th e interpretation of this award, to the following purport :—A nas in Ins employ divers females employed in putting jam and cream on sponge cakes. Doe , 3 . £h ’, s work come under the heading of unskilled work, or should the work be paid for at journeymen’s rates, or at two-thirds the rates of journeymen? OPINION OF THE COURT, DELIVERED BY FRAZER, J. The work is unskilled. Dated this 14th day of March, 1923. Certainly the judge wasted no words in his “ opinion.” * * * Professor Tocker and a Mr Tucker, another employee's delegate, frequently got at loggerheads about index figures, and quoted decimal points, weightings, and groups until nearly everybody had a headache. Mr Tucker was still unconverted, but Professor Tocker, in a very rapid manner, proceeded to make the matter quite clear: Mr Tucker asked a question about wage index numbers, and asked me to explain that matter. I said that workers, excluding the agricultural and pastoral workers, have had their wages increased by af least 63 per cent, since 1914, according to the Government Statistician’s figures. There Is a table in the Year Book showing the rise of wage rates year by year. That table is weighted, and the total weight is given as 853 for all the groups. The agricultural and pastoral group, whose index has risen 47 per cent., has a weight of 188. It you take the 188 weight of the agricultural groups from the total it leaves a weight ot 665 for the remaining groups. The average index for ail groups, based on 1914 equals 100, is 158. Multiply this 158 by the total weight, 853, subtract the product of the farm wage index and its weight, 147 by 188, and divide the remainder by the remaining weight, 665. The result is 163. . . . Whereupon tlie laughter was long and loud. It sounded so like that old children’s game: “Think of a number, double it, ” etc. Certainly the professor’s reply made the whole business just as dear as the bottom of a flax swamp I