TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8316, 20 December 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

As a sequel" to the recent bestowal of the Order of the Bath upon the President of the Republic of Mexico, and the outcome of the general friendly feeling existing between Great Britain and Mexico, it has been decided to raise the representation of the Republic in Great Britain from a legation to an embassy. The first ambassador to Great Britain will in all likelihood be Senor Guillermo Landa y Escandon, at present Governor of the Federal District of Mexico (Mexico City), who was educated in England at StonyhurstjCollege. Individually, officially, and socially, Senor Guillermo Landa y Escandon is highly esteemed, and if he should eventually be sent to London he will meet with a very warm welcome, while leaving a host of friends and admirers to regret his departure.

At a recent meeting of the Wellington Industrial Association the subject of the shortage of boys was seriously discussed. The matter arose from a report by One of the subcommittees, in which it was remarked that the complaint that boys were unobtainable was heard in every department of trade and business. The problem of what becomes of all the boys who leave school, which the committee's investigations did nothing to elucidate, comes appropriately at this season of the year, when so many boys are leaving the little world of school for the larger world outside it. It is not so long ago since the question used to be, "What shall we do with our boys?" but of late that question sfeems in some way to have answered itself, for if Wellington can be regarded as typical of the rest of the colony, there are far more billets for boys than there are boys to fill them. The city of Stockholm, Sweden, can boast the only women's cooperative store in the Yf or W. -Miss Anna Whitlock, leader of the woman suffragists in Sweden, .was the promoter of this scheme.. Her appeal was to the cultured women of small means. She outlined the possibilities of this movement in talks before the women's clubs of Stockholm. Her propaganda met with favour in the Fredrika Bremer Association, Students and Workers, White Ribbon, and the Woman's Club. At first the "Svenska Hem," as it is called, was boycotted on all sides. The retail dealers made up their minds to crush these women, who had dared to compete with them. The women soon learned that the markets of their own country were closed to them, for every wholesale dealer had been warned. They sent their buyers to Denmark, Holland, Germany, and England; they traded only in ports where goods could be shipped by water route, as the heavy railroad freight rates and high tariff in Europe would eat up all their profit. The result is that, though the scheme is still young, payments of 4 per cent, on capital and 5 per cent, on purchases are. being made. Correspondence has been passing between the secretary of the Muni-

cipal (Mr T. F. Martin) and the Wellington Trades and Labour Council on the subject of a superannuation scheme as applied to municipal employees. The proposal; of the association is to bring within the scheme the members of the office staffs and the seventy-six city and borough councils affiliated to the association and the permanent workmen employed by those bodies, and the secretary of the association asked the Trades Council to ascertain whether the workmen desired to be included in the scheme. The last letter sent by the Secretary of the Trades Council in reply states:— "My Council considers it would be useless to ask the men to give their opinion of a scheme unless we could place before them such information as to the cost to them, etc. Most of the outside workers have a difficulty in paying their way under present conditions, and unless a scheme can be evolved which will not entail any considerable sacrifice of present comfort, I fear no great success will follow. At any rate, we believe it necessary to obtain probable cost before any attempt is made to get the men's opinion."