DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 91, Issue 14167, 18 September 1919, Page 4

DAY BY DAY.

In Canada an-investigation is in progress 'to discover the Profits reasons for the high cost in of living, with the idea Textiles, of adopting some measures to give relief to the consumer. In the matter of garments, for example, the fact was disclosed that the material for suits costing £l3 and £l4 was sold by the manufacturer for from £3 to £3 10s. One textile company was shown to have made net earnings of 197.41 per cent, in five years. The head of the concern sought to justify its course by remarking: “Our mill was not built for the glory of God, but to make money for the shareholders, and some years we have ’been very successful in making it, but for as much as eight years at a time they had to take their dividends out in prayers.” Another textile company showed net earnings of 310 per cent, on its investment of capital amounting to £200,000, and accumulated besides a secret reserve £120,000. The explanation given for secluding the last-mentioned amount was that, if the stockholders had knowp of it, .they would have insisted on getting it jn the form of diyidgiicis. The general manager of the . 'compand deemed it "best to conserve the money because, just as they had made it, they might lose it!” Many well-informed persons are convinced that an dflqulry would reveal a state of affair's here very similar to tha,t which is being disclosed in Canada.

One of Ihe most difficult international problems of the air at Aviation the present time, acand cording to an English Smuggling, aviator, is how to prevent smuggling and other illicit practices to which the .airplane lends itself with considerable facility. The plan at present devised by those in charge of civil aviation, is to confine all departures to and arrivals from foreign countries to four elected aerodromes, at which the Customs authorities will be stationed. That appears, it is said, more designed to enable the regular inspection of incoming and outgoing traffic to bo carried out with dispatch than to defeat the determine,] smuggler. “It will bo easy,” adds the aviator, “to invent a pretext for violating any regulation framed to compel a private aviator to land where; his machine can be overhauled by Customs officials. Possibly when aircraft become as cerlain of their course and are as reliably navigable as steamships, subterfuges can be ruthlessly suppressed. but unless a very numerous coastguard service is maintained, supplemented by aerial patrols, a, large

amount of promiscuous, if rather petty, smuggling in such commodities as tobacco, saccharine, perfumes, and spirits probably will exist now that we appear to be in for an era of fiscal-- taxation certain to be high in the cases indicated. .Other practices which will be violations of our existing laws, such as surreptitious conveyance of correspondence, assisting criminals or misdemeanants to leave the country, and even the practice of burglary are not improbable, and so we may expect that, as time passes, restrictions on private aviation wall tend to increase in various directions.”