UNDERCURRENTS.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17219, 30 September 1927, Page 4

UNDERCURRENTS.

IN THE DRIFT OF LIFE, (By “SeekerTT SPEEDING CARS: SPOILED ROADS. “Something has to be done,” said a local business man, discussing the question of motor traffic, high cost of road upkeep and competition with the railways. He emphasised particularly the damage done to the roads by speeding: “Two thousand pounds was spent on the road between Taupiri and Ngaruaxvahia. I went over the road two months after the work had been completed, and it was as bad as previously. The speeding car loosens the sand or binding, the water gets in and the roadway disintegrates. A high speed is well enough on concrete roads, but it will be some years before we get concrete from Hamilton to Auckland. In the meantime numerous service cars are running over the route, competing with the excellent railway service, and guaranteeing to do the trip in about two hours and three-quarters. This means that they must travel at a speed that is. ruinous to the roads. <■ A speed limit should be fixed, varying according to the character of the roads, and heavy fines should he imposed on those who exceed the limit.

“Certainly the motorists ought to pay more for the use of the roads. I have a car and i can afford to pay £lO a year for the luxury as a contribution to roading. At present the farmer-ratepayer has to pay, and the rates have risen to an impossible height. It is not right that the counties should have to share the cost of the main highways.

“For service cars and lorries the charges should he higher. A surcharge of 2s 6d might be collected on all fares between Hamilton and Auckland and this sum placed to the roadiiig fund. If people find it more convenient to travel hy service car than by train, they can afford to pay the extra 2s 6d. A direct lax might be better, hut in any case these cars should be made to pay for the damage they are doing to the roads and should he prevented frooa speeding.” “ PURSUED.” “The policy of eliminating the busier level crossings is being pursued," says the Minister of Railways (Hon. J. G. Coates) in his annual statement. Frankton Junction, with its incredible level crossing, seems to be still well ahead of the pursuer. “Art thou weary, art thou languid?" one might ask of the pursuing policy. WOMEN IN EMPLOYMENT. "Grandma” and the “Seeker" have support from a woman who (I suspect) is not a grandma. After reading my comment she writes: “The average man is fettered by custom and precedent. He tries to solve the problems of to-day by the canons, of yesterday. Consequently he may clog the wheels of progress, and shelve the problems indefinitely but he will not solve them. The question of unemployment among girls is a case in point. He would (judging by recent correspondence) cure this evil by transforming the modern miss with her education and her ambitions into a replica of her Victorian grandmother. The days are past when all the women were fair and helpless, and all the men were chivalrous knights. Women have shingled their hair and taken. to cigarettes. But this is all superficial. The big thing behind it is the fact that they have elected to face life on equal terms with men. Their success in business is beyond dispute, but the male argument is that woman’s highest duty is motherhood —to which the rather obvious retort suggests itself, that man’s highest duty is fatherhood. The feminine revolt is not against motherhood, but against the conception'of motherhood which includes the ,duties of cook, housekeeper and charwoman. One hears much about vocational training for men. A boy does not follow his father’s profession or his father’s choice of a profession, if he displays a marked aptitude for other work. It would be cruelty and folly to attempt to turn the born engineer into an indifferent lawyer. Yet this is precisely the method followed with the girls. The standard of education' for girls is higher here than in any other country. The aim of education is to discover and develop latent ability. Thanks to our educational system, women have been able to prove their ability in many professions formerly open only to men. Yet as soon as they marry, they are expected to turn from the work at which they have succeeded to the duties of housekeeping. If they find housekeeping irksome, they are condemned as unwomanly. If they elect to follow their chosen vocation rather than fail as housekeepers they arc selfish because they are the cause of unemployment among girls. . To succeed as a nation wo must eliminate waste, f To eliminate waste we must employ none but efficient help, and it is an economic fallacy to employ an efficient business woman as an inefficient housekeeper. In business she has a right to hold down a job that unmarried girls want—because she does her job well. But has she a right to keep an efficient housekeeper out. of a position when she is herself inefficient? Happiness is only to he found in doing one's own particular job in life and doing it well. And marriage ceases to be a gamble and becomes an assured success when a couple can look forward to a well-ordered home plus an outside interest for the wife as well as for Hie husband.” MARRIAGE AND CONFLICT. Here is comfort for married couples who arc finding “the first ten years the hardest”: “The profound conflicts of life appear not where each goes his own way but where the two are trying to work together,” writes Frederick Harris in. the World To-morrow. “The picture usually drawn of a successful marriage represents a mild peace gradually deep* cning to deadly monotony. This is not the case with those who are ever expanding the area of their shared interests. Life is adventurous and exciting. The whole attempt to form, a real co-operation involves many disagreements, some trivial, some really serious—The tragic tension of marriage’ of wLS&di Count Kcyserling speaks.” By way of further comfort to agonised' wives and husbands, one might remind them that “tragic tension” is not peculiar to marital relations.

OUT-OF-DATE TORTURES.

Said Victor Hugo: A day will come when a cannon ball will be exhibited in public museums, just as'an instrument of torture is now, and people will be amazed that such-a thing could ever have been. His prediction has come true, but hardly as he expected. We have put the cannonballs in the museums because we have invented so much more efficient instruments of torture—submarines, high-explosive shells, and poison gases.