The Star. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1927. SLACK METHODS IN INDUSTRY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18085, 19 February 1927, Page 8

The Star. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1927. SLACK METHODS IN INDUSTRY.

Several cablegrams during ihe past week have emphasised the effort now being made in Great Britain to infuse new life into industry. According to many critics, not only must great energy he displayed hut also sympathetic cooperation between masters and men, as well as receptivity to new methods. In a recent address, Mr J. M. Keynes, the famous economist, told a London audience that the old cut-throat competition and beggar-my-neighbour policy was so devastating that every go-ahead and prosperous industry spent half its time in trying to get rid of it. Those which continued to exist in small units in free competition, like coal and cotton, were rapidly going bankrupt, and would continue to go bankrupt until they altered their ways. It was the duty of the Government, he said, to make it their deliberate policy to break down commercial secretiveness, and compel business knowledge to be pooled and distributed for the good of the whole. It is astonishing to think that scores of large businesses at Home persist in shutting their eyes to modern methods. While, on their recent visit, Mr Bruce and Mr Coates both took (tie opportunity of pointing out the fallacy of such an attitude, and leading -English newspapers hacked them up. The trouble may he, of course, that the present Conservative Government, itself inefficient and bankrupt of ideas, has a deadening influence. It sets a poor example in initiative and enterprise. Mr Keynes seems to think so. He holds that Mr Baldwin has not a vestige oi a plan for dealing with the new and changed, conditions, that Toryism can never satisfy the hopes of men, and that a change of Government is the best key to progress.

On returning to London yesterday after a successful flight to India, Britain's Air Minister, Sir Samuel Hoare, said that there had not been a breakdown of any kind and the journey in every way came up to expectations. Tiie news is important because it marks the successful inauguration of extensive Empire air services and the competition over long distances of airci’aft wi!h steamers. The principal reason for Sir Samuel Hoare's flight was to inspect the service that has just begun to run fortnightly from Cairo to Karachi, over a distance of about 2500 miles. It connects in Cairo with British mail steamers, and enables six days to be saved and the Bed Sea to be avoided in the journey to and from India. Now that good x’esults are being met with on this route, developments can be expected in other directions. This month will probably see the beginning of an Imperial air sei-vice in the Sudan. This will follow the line of the Nile from Khartoum to Ivisumu, in Kenya Colony, on Lake Victoria Nyanza, a distance of 1200 miles as the bird flies. When the line is in operation it will be possible for the passenger to leave Khartoum at 7 a.m. and, by 12.40 the following afternoon, to be at Kisumu. The next step, of course, will be an extension of the air services to Australia and New Zealand. Officials of the Air Ministry are already busy with plans to that end.

A correspondent has written to the “Star” asking whether, during the surf-bathing season, arrangements couhl be. made at Sumner and New Brighton for the display in prominent places of large-type notices giving advice to visitors about the state of the current. The. suggestion is worth investigation by the borough authorities. Something is already being done on these lines in the way of marking off safe or unsafe portions of the beach by means of flags, hut it could be extended with beneficial results. On nor’-west days, for instance, the sign displayed in all dressing-sheds would read: “ Strong undertow. Beware.” At other times the notice might say that conditions were good, but that risks should xxot he taken in parts of the sea where currents had made a deep scour. Further than that, at the spot where a surf-reel is kepi, there should he instructions fox* the bexicfit ol amateui’ rescue, crews, particularly one to the effect that, if a line is hauled in too quickly it may easily cause the death of both the belt-man and subject.