THE PASSING SHOW.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17367, 31 March 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

THE PASSING SHOW.

COMMENT AND CRITICISM.

(By “Free Lance.”) The problem of providing employment for those seeking it is apparently getting greater every day, and with the approach of winter it is likely to become more acute. A writer in a Wellington paper opens up an aspect of the problem which deserves deep consideration. Everyone will agree that married men should receive preference when jobs are apportioned. But single men, even if they have not the responsibilities of their married brothers, have to live, and should be provided with the wherewithal to do so. There is a tendency to dismiss the claims of the unmarried men with an airy, ‘‘Oh, we must give the work to the married man with a family.” But they have the right to earn a living, and their unemployment is breeding much discontent, which is likely to have a serious effect, not only upon themselves, but upon the community generally. A man with a legitimate grievance is a breeding ground for all sorts of trouble.

The Wellington correspondent voices a real grievance when he writes: “I think it is about time the single men of New Zealand xvere considered a little, at least in the way of employment. At present there are hundreds of single New Zealand-born and bred young men out of employment, between the ages of eighteen and thirty —men who are quite walling to do anything to earn an honest living, yet they arc told when asking for employment: married men only. I wmuld like to know what is the future of New Zealand going to be if all single New Zealand men are to be barred from earning an honest living, to enable them to get married and settled down. There are quite a number of single New Zealanders who are anxious to get married and help their country along, but what encouragement are they getting when they apply for work and are told that only married men are wanted? During the last Great War it would have gone very hard if all single men were rejetced; the same applies today. It seems to me as if all single men wffio have been living in New Zealand, our own native country, for the past twenty-five years must leave the country because they are barred' from earning a living, while outsiders come to New r Zealand, stay long enough to he given work, make a few pounds and then leave the country. If New Zealand is to be the wonderful country in the-future that it has been in the past the single men of New' Zealand must be considered before outsiders.

Love’s young dream! A young couple caused much interest, and not a little amusement, by walking the length of Victoria Street at midday on Sunday with their arms thrown lovingly around each other, and evidently with ears and eyes for no one hut themselves. They were in a world of their own. Funny thing, love, isn’t it?

Oil and politics appear to be well mixed in the United S.tates of America. The Teapot Dome lease scandal is leaving a slimy trail, in which the names of many prominent legislators and Ministers are being besmirched. Contributions to party funds hide a multitude of political transgressions, and when they arc investigated they do not seem to cause much commotion, but arc regarded as justright, and regular; in fact, it seems to be an understood lliing that the party in power is entitled to feather its nest by any and every means available. True, Senator Borah has raised a protest, but his is a voice in the. wilderness, and it will largely pass unheeded. Had the revelations wiiich have been made iri the United States been disclosed in Britain, it- is safe to assert that every public man whose name has been mentioned in connection therewith would have been relegated to political oblivion, from which he would never a'gain emerge. Uncle Sam may be able io teach John Bull some things, but clean methods of administration are not included among them. * * * *

Hamilton is nothing if not up-to-date. At present it enjoys the rather doubtful distinction of being the first town in New Zealand to be affected by the religious unrest of the Churches at Home. We may yet become famous as the Darwen of New Zealand.

Flat-dwellers must often sign for a Gilbertian Mikado to deal wdth the pests which inhabit the flat next door. Though surely no punishment could .fit the crime of the wireless fiend, especially he of the loud-speaker, who treats his suffering neighbours at late hours of the night to a concert composed chiefly of music, funny stories, Ihc point of which the dividing wall is just sound-proof enough to cut off, and, of course, howling valves. Wireless is admittedly in its infancy, which makes one shudder to think of the time when every home will have its own loud-speaker, and everyone will bate his next-door-neighbour, even as we hate ours.

A correspondent—needless to say of the so-called gentler sex—writes me: —The “stronger sex’’ lias succeeded in making itself ridiculous once again. Members of the B.M.A. object to women being trained with the men students, first because the men feel some embarrassment in mixed classes, and, second, because the charm of female society—like Dalila and Samson —turns Apollo, in the guise of the athletic student, into a lounge-lizard. As usual, the man is weak, and the woman pays!

Twice within four weeks did Darwin see the arrival of fliers from the other side of the world. If the Hinkler flight was an epic of skill and nerve, that of Captain Lancaster and Mrs Miller has been a magnificent example of pluck and enduranoe. Eyes are naturally focussed on this woman flier, for she is the first of her sex t.o cross from hemisphere to hemisphere by air. For five months from October 14 to March 19— these flyers battled with rain and wind storms with forced landings in jungle and mountain country,- with tropic heats, with every adverse influence that malicious fortune could bring to bear. Once they were injured in a crash. But they pressed on to a triumphant landing in Australia. * * * *

q’hosc peculiar Americans! Always they have taken the lead in disarmament conferences, yet they have now passed a huge Naval Appropriation Bill providing for the extension of all branches of the service. Why?