The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 1927. SCOPE FOR NEW INDUSTRIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 13, 6 April 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 1927. SCOPE FOR NEW INDUSTRIES

IT takes an unprejudiced observer to see New Zealand as it is and expose its defects and foolishness. Sir Amos Nelson, a prominent Lancashire industrialist who is a welcome visitor to Auckland, has given the school of Tories, economists and importers, which pins its faith on primary produetior, something to ponder over on the neglected question of developing manufacturing industries. Though cradled in the very nursery of the glorious Free Trade that carries more slums, more unemployed, and more semistarvation than any Protectionist country in the world, this shrewd and successful cotton-spinner holds up both his hands for increased Protection in New Zealand as a stimulus to British manufacturers. He has cited cotton as an example of the scope there is here for the establishment of a new, great and profitable industry. The climate is ideal, and there is no natural reason why such an industry could not be established under the happiest conditions. “ But no manufacturer could possibly consider it unless there was some measure of protection.” Australia can grow cotton and is willing to protect manufacturers to the limit of fiscal practice, but 'it hasn’t the .right climate. Why not bring cotton to Auckland’s ideal climatic conditions? Lancashire carries the raw material a much longer distance, and spins it for New Zealanders, twelve thousand miles away. And, according to Sir Amos Nelson, there is also a great opening in this country for the manufacture of artificial silk, for the development of the iron and steel industry, and for the construction of motor vehicles. It is a mystery to him why a country which uses such a vast number of lorries and motor-cars has not itself gone in for their manufacture. Perhaps he does not yet know that New Zealand, being “more British than Great Britain” loves to hear about the amazing prosperity of America and hastens to increase it. As a keen observer of affairs Sir Amos Nelson has noticed the immense overhead charges relative to population in respect of government, roading and public utilities. He might well have said that these charges are appalling and out of all reasonable proportion to population. Let him and New Zealand taxpayers consider these lamentable facts: Our secondary industries employ fewer workers and distribute less wages than the State and local bodies. The manufacturing establishments provide employment for 81,000 persons and pay about £16,000,000 a year in wages; the State and public bodies employ 82,000 workers and distribute £18,000,000 a year in remuneration. Is it surprising that the country has not yet started to make pins or pen-nibs. Finally, Sir Amos offers a parting word of gold: “I cannot see why you should be content to depend on produce that has to he sent to a market 12,000 miles away, when it could be profitably disposed of at your own back door.” He does not know the handicaps through being ruled by a bucolic Parliament.

WOMEN AND THE HOSPITAL

SINCE the days of Florence Nightingale, who showed the heroic and enduring qualities of womanhood in nursing as they had never been revealed to the world before, nursing has been one of the most honoured of all occupations. Men have not been a marked success as nurses, though the hospital orderlies of the medical corps did vety fine service under the direction of nursing sisters during the Great War. The essential qualities of patience, kindness and gentleness are more generally found, and in a more tender development, in women; and so it is that experience has proved women the best nurses, and that they are to be found staffing the hospitals of the world. But admirable as nurses are generally in their noble work, there is something wanting in their direction, and that is the understanding and sympathetic touch of woman in hospital administration. Under direction of hospital boards consisting solely of men there cannot be that true co-ordination which should exist between management and nursing; for men strangely lack the human insight possessed by the sex which is so largely guided by its peculiarly accurate intuition. It is encouraging, therefore, to note that one of the five labour candidates for seats on the Auckland Hospital Board is a woman. Mrs. McCready is this candidate. She is a woman of considerable intellect, with a sympathetic and understanding mind: she has rendered excellent service on the School Committees Association and other semi-public bodies, on which she has gained much administrative experience, and she would be a true and able representative of the people of the working class who form so large a proportion of the hospital population. At present there is only one woman on the hospital board, Mrs. Kidd, and one is not enough.

“ON THE LIST”

AT long last a move has been made to improve the standard of elocutionary and vocal items at Competitions. Wellington has decided that, there shall be an index expurgatorius so far as the own selections” classes are concerned. The discriminating public will rejoice to learn that aspirants for elocutionary honours no longer will tell of those terrible doings at Khatmandu as outlined in “The Green Eye of the Yellow God”; no longer will budding Henry Ainleys rant “Devil-may-care”; and no more will Joe the Crossing Sweeper bring a tear to the maudlin eye. Many of the well-worn vocal selections, among them “Softly Awakes my Heart” and “Star of Eve”—almost as familiar as the National Anthem—are also on the list, which, however, does not include such hardy evergreens (of the lower order) as “The Trumpeter,” “Until,” and “Rose in the Bud”; songs which awake in the listener a savage desire to break furniture. Let us devoutly hope that other societies will follow the excellent lead of Wellington. It may be that those who control our radio programmes will consider issuing an edict along similar lines, and purge the air o’ nights of much that is trite and jejune.

Not Like Joe. —Recently, when Lord Balfour unveiled the Chamberlain . statue, Lord Carson was overheard to say: “Damned if that’s Joe!** A Midland M.P. said: “It looks like a smug preacher who has just finished his sermon and says, “Now, brethren. 1 let us join together in singing Hymn i No. 101.’” «

Ohakune Fire Superintendent. —Mr. A. G. Sykes has been appointed superintendent of the Ohakune Volunteer Fire Brigade, in place of Mr. F. Tozer, who has left the district. Mr. Tozer has been a member of the fire brigade for over six years, and held the office of superintendent for the latter period of three years.