CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 271, 17 April 1914, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

MUDDLE. Recent events in connection with the administration of the foreshore control stress the need for some proper supervision by the. Borough Council. Through lack of business experience, certainly not on account of any lack of enthusiasm, the affairs of the Moturoa Seaside Improvement '/Society became bemuddleA and mixed, and the good offices of Mr. W. A. Collis, as representing the municipal reserves committee, had to be requisitioned in order to unravel the tangle. Needless to say, Mr. Oollis' service were willingly given, and he was successful in his mediation between the two eons tending parties. One outcome is the appointment of an auditor to examine the finances of the Society, and submit a balance-sheet. These seaside committees should have a proper code of rules (and by-tows, without which the deliberations and energies of so many men are apt to end in chaos, and often in heart-burnings which rob the movement of energetic workers and weaken the organisation in various ways. Where each man is a law unto himself there must in the end be trouble. There is no need to croak, of course. The suc- ' cess of the various seaside societies in I most of their undertakings has been : almost phenomenal, hut that success will I be all the more general and all the more | lasting under a code of rules comfirmed I by the societies themselves and by the | Borough Council, which, of course, must J always be the controlling body.

NO GUIDING HAND. Whilst on this topic, it is not amiss to refer to the recent regatta and anniversary celebrations at Moturoa. There was a very noticeable absence of a guiding hand, and the celebrations reminded one of a ship without a rudder. To our mind, the anniversary festivities in the capital of the province, and at the very spot where the pioneers first set foot on Tarahaki soil, arc tup too important to be delegated to any haphazard committee. Those citizens who interested themselves for Anniversary Day in the entertainment of tho pioneers found a state of unpreparedness that was nio credit to anyone. There is this one grain of comfort in the incident, that it is unlikely that the people will again take the risk of an Anniversary Day fiasco. It should lead someone to make it his business to organise the affair, and it is hoped the right man will be forthcoming, and that he will have tho support of the people.

WILLING WORKERS.

There are many Willing Workers down among the unemployed, and their lives are spent in trouble and in hardship unalloyed. And they cry, "It's rank injustice that we nvn of willing hands must be classed with bums and hobos, with the non-productive bands. Here we stand and ask for labour, beg for work and beg in vain, and there's surely something rotten witli the Nation's heart or brain. Wo aTe little Willing Workers, and no labours would we shirk, but you make us down-and-outers, for you will not give us work." I have hired some Willing Workers, ahto-bodied men and strong, and they surely worked <-«ke blazes—but they always did things wrong. Oh, no odds what job they tackled, they would do it wapperjawed, whether 'they were herding chickens or just spading up a sod; whether they were fixing fences or repairing buggysheds, they were willing with their muscles, but they never used their heads. And I always had to follow, follow sadly in their track, doing all their labours over, with a green pain in my back. This is why the Willing Workers find this world so sad a joint; this is why the stern employers say to them, "Skidoo! Aroint''"— Walt Mason.