TRADES KILLED BY WAR.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 30, Issue 17, 1 March 1918, Page 6

TRADES KILLED BY WAR.

With the workers in the furniture factories of England streaming into the aeroplane works yet another great trade is added to the long list of those that have practically ceased to exist owing to the war. Scarcely any new furniture is being made. Second-hand stuff is at a premium. A new sideboard or a new wardrobe is a thing to be desired but not acquired. The list of trades that are now almost at a standstill is well-nigh inexhaustible. For instance, the increasing demand for munitions has stopped the issue of more steel for bicycles. Manufactories are now dependent on what steel they may have in stock. A certain amount will be allowed for spare parts. No order has been issued against the manufacture of bicycles, but brand-new machines will soon be very difficult to buy. The production of new pianos is now only a tenth of the pre-war output. Four years ago 126,000 pianos were made in England. Owing to the shortage of copper the trade has been rationed to allow about 12,500 pianos a year, on the condition that three-fourths should bo exported or supplied to the Y.M.C.A. huts or the canteens of the Navy and Army Canteen Beard. The consequence is that there is a tremendous demand for second-hand instruments at high prices. The luxury trades are shortly to suffer further severe restrictions.

Ten years of ago and nine years’ service in the Army seems rather impossible, but that is the record of Albert Morvillez, son of Ernest Morvillez, adjutant of the medical corps of the 3rd Colonial Regiment (French). Father and son are at present in Wellington (says the “Post”), the father, after three years’ service in France, having been transferred for home service. Albert, a sturdy youngster, who wears khaki is a ‘son of the regiment,' being born while his father was on service. Ho accompanied the troops in three years' campaigning in French Indo-China, and then had three years with the regiment in Senegal. When the great war broke out, the regiment was ordered to France, and Albert Morvillcz went too. For a further three years he experienced the hardships of a soldier’s life. On one occasion he made a forced march with the troops of nearly twenty miles, carrying his “kit” over his shoulder. He is regularly entered on the regimental roll and receives pay at the rate of 5d a day, twice the amount allowed to a private soldier. The following extract from the New York Tribune forms an interesting commentary on the views of those critics who see Germany victorious in all her operations: “As between the British and the Germans, no one should mistake the advantage that rests with the former. The British have taken live prisoners to the Germans’ one. They have occupied more than a million square miles of German colonial territory, whereas the Germans have not reached a foot of British territory. They have banished the German flag from the sea. They have blockaded the German ports. They have destroyed the bases of German trade. By every sign and token one can adduce, the British have triumphed over the Germans so far as the war has been a struggle between these tw r o nations. Were the war to end to day, on the basis of things as they are, so far as the British and Germans are concerned, no one can fail to concede the extent of the British victory.” i