TEXTILE PROFITS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160639, 4 May 1920, Page 7

TEXTILE PROFITS.

COTTON MAGNATE’S DEFENCE

LONDON, April 30. The chairman of the Cotton Spinners’ Federation, in a speech at Manchester, said that though the earnings of the textile firms were the greatest in history, labour’s share was much greater,than capital’s share.

“We are described as profiteers, almost traitors, against Britain,” be said, “but recrimination is needless. It is a question of supply and demand.”

The strongest opponents of the profits tax include the former Chancellor, Mr McKenna, the originator of the tax, who says that it ought to be regarded as a war measure only; otherwise it is dangerous. The Star declares that the Government must surrender to the clamour against the profits tax.

FRANCE WON’T RUN DRY. The Daily Mail upbraids Mr Chamberlain for not reducing the departmental estimates and the lavish salaries of the Land Values Department, which is now obsolete, because land duties have disappeared. The Government’s salvation would be assured if it stopped waste and adventures in borrowing. The Times correspondent at Paris states that Frenchmen point out that the proposals are a poor return for all that France has done. England would be all the better if she took more wine and less spirits. She was too human, too full of the joy of life, and had too much common sense to penalise herself by prohibition. The Times City editor reminds Mr Chamberlain that he recently promised to abolish the excess profits tax.

SCHEME FOR PAYING IN- • CREASES.

Mr Charles Macara, a cotton magnate, suggests that increases in wages should be given in the form of shares, the workers contributing the needed capital and thus assuring themselves of power which hitherto they had not enjoyed.

WOMEN S POWER CHANGING WORLD’S FACE. CARE OF THE CHILD. LONDON, April 30. The National Women’s Conference of Labour was opened in London today. Pour hundred delegates attended. Mrs Mary Macarthur, secretary of the National Federation of Women Workers, who presided, said that it was the first women’s labour conference on such a representative scale. One hundred and eighty branches were represented. She emphasised that women were never so important politically as nowadays. There was sufficient driving force in that assembly to chatige the face not merely of England, but of the world. Referring to the Washington La hour Conference, In connection with which she deplored the general apathy shown, Mrs Macarthur said that everything vital in politics centred round the child. It was because of the child that the Labour Party had turned its back on the blood-stained past. The conference resolved to call on the Government immediately to give effect to the Washington Conventions, by introducing a bill providing for the care of mothers at child birth, and of infants, on a universal non-contributory basis, as the first step towards the creation of international social and industrial law.

It declared, however, that the conventions fall short of the necessities of the times, especially with regard to continuation of the schools, prohibition against overtime, and night work. The conference also passed an urgency resolution with regard to the use of black troops in Ruhr.