THE PELORUS GUARDIAN and Miners' Advocate. TUESDAY, 30th JANUARY, 1912. CURRENT TOPICS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 23, Issue 8, 30 January 1912, Page 4

THE PELORUS GUARDIAN and Miners' Advocate. TUESDAY, 30th JANUARY, 1912. CURRENT TOPICS.

.Will the Labour Unions ever realise how futile ace their constant clamourings for higher pay ? Will they ever learn that the sole basis of trade and industry is the la.w of supply and demand, and that so long as the Creator is permitted to regulate the population of the earth no Union effort can affect that law ? It seems as though the replies must be in the negative. Though wages in almost all trades have risen enormously during the past decade the savings of the people as a whole have not increased in anything like the same [proportion, and there are to-day more people living from hand to mouth than there were —relatively to the population—thirty years ago. Still the Unions are for ever pressing forward their claims to better pay and shorter liours. Tfie>y have lately been granted almost aIJ they asked, the employers preferring to avoid trouble and dislocation of business but passing the increase on to the public, in the sure and .certain knowledge that eventually that same public will put its foot down solidly and tell the Unions that the game of “heads I win, taihi you lose” must stop. Surely tberohas never been a. more illuminating example of the effects of the game than that provided by the agreement -just arrived at between the New Zei uland Federation of Labour and the sli dpowners and employers. This eoi npact will cost the Wellington Harbour Board about £6OO extra per ann ium, and the public will have to find the whole of the money. The Boar d had proposed to make concessioni 3 amounting to £7OO per annum by reducing the harbour improven lent rate by twopence per ton, and the inward wharfage charges on general goods by twopence per ton. But as the Board will now have to. raise this extra £6OO they have decided that they cannot give the promise d rebates. The merchants who will pay the tolls will of course add them to the price of the goods they sell ,' and the retailer will assuredly takei/'ifihe opportunity of

adding a fine percentage to his prices, until, when the members of the Union come to buy the goods their shortsightedness has caused to be increased in price, they will find that the pur-chasing-power of their wages is not one whit greater than before the rise. And they never ponder on such a curious anomaly. If they did, their olamourings would be lass insistent. High wages and dear food and clothing are synonymous. The concessions to officers of coastal boats are being paid by passengers and traders. One is inclined to complain at a tariff of twelve shillings per day at a good hotel, but there is far more reason to object to the outrageous price of £2 per day which the Union Company charge on some of their vessels, and, while fixing the fare, bless the Unions for having made it possible to so openly exploit the travelling public. When, that great section of the community that is not connected with Labour Unions decides to seriously investigate the cause of the constant industrial troubles there is likely to be some very plain speaking and a level-ling-down of prices in the interests of tbe great majority.

Dealing with the relative strengths of the natives of the world, a correspondent of “Engineering ” writes : As to battleships of the Dreadnought era, at the end of March next we shall have twenty out of the total of fortysix then in commission, which of Germany will have only nine. At the corresponding date in 1913 we shall have twenty-seven out of a total of seventy-one in commission, of which Germany is credited with seventeen ami the United States with eight. At the same date in 1914 we shall have thirty-two, while Germany is credited with twenty-one, the United States with ten, and the total completed will be one hundred and one. , Our preponderance in ships of the preDreadnought era is equally marked now, but in two or three year our fleet will begin to fall below the combined fleets of Germany and the United States, the two next greatest Powers. In armoured cruisers our position is not quite so secure; we prossess thirtyfour, while France has twenty-one, the United States fifteen, Italy ten, Germany nine, and Japan nine. Including armoured ships of high speed —-namely, over twenty- three knots — we have a still greater preponderance —twenty-six against fourteen by tbe next five powerful nations. In protected cruisers and scouts possessing a war value, we have ninety-six, as compared with eightyeight by the next five powerful nations. In light cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, we do not compare quite so favourably ; in view of the immense extent of our floating commerce, these vessels must be of great value in time of war, and we ought to make up our deficiencies.

The lugubrious individual who wail about the awful effects of the gambling habit on the New Zealander are difficult to convince; but the evidence given by Mr Wanklyn, secretary of the Canterbury Jockey Club, before the New South Wales Totalisator Commission, should at least carry weight with the moderate, and consequently more sensible, portion of the community. Mr Wanklyn stated that last season in New Zealand £210,000 was paid in stakes for horse races apart from trotting. In Australia, with a population five or six times larger, very little over £200,000 was given in stakes. The last mentioned figures he arrived at from payments to owners as given in the “Australian Turf Register.” At nearly all New Zealand country meetings £250 at least was given in stakes in one day, and if the meeting lasted two days the total stakes were £4OO or £SOO. The revenue from the totalisator was probably a great factor in enabling clubs to give . such large prizes. Homeowners in New Zealand paid last year approximately £BIO,OOO in the'keep of their horses in addition to stakes won. Australian horseowners probably spent £208,000 in the upkeep of their horses, and only got bick £200,000. At least 25 per cent, of the New Zealand owners did not bet. He was a strong supporter of the. totalisator, and pointed out that wild statements were made as to the amouht of gambling done in New Zealand. Last year £2,000,000 went through .the totalisator in the dominion. The population was a million, abvuut half of whom were over eighteen yeai.s of age, so that 500,000 people spent £4 per annum, or about one halfpenny per race. The statement that New’Zealanders were a race of gamblers was purely theoretical, and to his mind rubbish. The machine had not been used for any dishonest purpose. The men who know nothing about horse-racing or the method of working the totalisator are the most raucous in their condemnation of speculation on horse-races.