TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 22013, 12 May 1933, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Animals for Slaughter, “Some 16,000,000 animals are slaughtered annually in England for food,” says a Times correspondent. “Of these 4,000,000 are despatched with the humane killer, of which there are two kinds, one a pistol firing a bullet, the other a captive bolt. Both these weapons insure instant and merciful death. The other 12,000,000 are killed with a knife or the poleaxe, which also brings instantaneous death if the slaughterman strikes a correct blow, but in many cases several are required. It does not require much imagination then to visualize what the unfortunate animal suffers in pain and fear. It has been argued that the flesh of animals killed with the humane killer is not so good as that of those killed by the old-fashioned method. This is not the fact. Humane slaughter of animals in Scotland is compulsory, and Scottish meat fetches the highest price on account of its excellent quality. Most of us eat meat, and the least we can do is to insist that animals are slaughtered in the most painless possible manner. I therefore very earnestly ask all thinking people to try their hardest to get this wrong put right.” Shorter Hours. “Many of us have witnessed the change in working hours, first from sun-up to sun-down, in the earliest days of this generation, to a 12-hour day—now we are likely approaching a six-hour day, and the degree of change is much greater than the preceding ones and, consequently, more difficult to adjust,” writes Mr S. M. Kintner in the Review of Reviews of America. “No doubt the tendency of the age toward shorter and shorter working time will continue. Furthermore, it is highly probable that as we work more into the new order of things, workers will enter active work at a later period than now, and, similarly, retire at an earlier period in their lives. That production per man-power has been so materially increased is to my mind not the prime cause for alarm. The real menace is in the fact that so little progress has been made in balancing the earning power of all producers so that they in turn could buy continuously the products of others. Under-distribution, not overproduction, is our real problem. Virtually everybody wants more of the products of our machines than he now has—this was true even in the days of prosperity. The wants of man are never satisfied. Who would advocate retracing our steps and throwing away all our labour-saving machines, in order that we might have more jobs? Surely no one who gives the question serious thought. What is needed is a modified plan of operation that will give due consideration to our new order of things, and permit us to enjoy the millennium of freedom from drudgery and leisure for thought and pleasure—the end toward which we have all striven so long and the real purpose for which the machine was devised. Such a plan to be successful must still hold out rewards for the ones who do the best in still further improving conditions. Human nature has not changed and the incentive to do better must still be preserved.”