The Passing Show.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18950, 20 May 1933, Page 11 (Supplement)

The Passing Show.

AUCKLAND RETAILERS and manufacturers are tiecoming Lot and ■bothered over the Unemployment Board’s invitation to Auckland manufacturers to tender for the 20,000 pairs of boots and shoes to be supplied to. relief workers. Now probably these good people know their own business best and their difficulties may not be apparent to the outsider, but really one might have thought that they would have been pleased that the trade was to be favoured with such a large order. The retailers are concerned about the curtailment of staffs in shops and the manufacturers are worried -because the board might go outside Auckland. Can they not cheer themselves up with the thought that while the retailers may suffer a little, trade generally will benefit materially? The Government previously stressed the fact that manufacturing of goods would ha given largely to the ordinary trade and also referred to the assistance to unemployed boot operatives. After all the Aucklanders can scarcely expect the Unemployment Board to take a trip to the Queen City and purchase the boots over the counter from various shops in order that each may receive the legitimate percentage of profit can they? * # tt * Just now the departmental heads tend to become the butt of criticism and complaint. If they are rather quiet we assume they are apathetic, if they exhibit too much keenness regarding the Economic Conference we assume they are filled with pleasurable anticipation of the joys of overseas travelling and are lighting for the privileges of representation. If they dp not show practical sympathy towards the unemployed there is a row, and If they do l they have not adopted the right method. Surely there cannot be so very much the matter with a scheme which means more work and more boots for those in need. Anyway, let us hope the manufacturers, whoever they are, will turn out well-made boots that will not blister the feet of the poor, long-suffering reliefworkers and that Forbes’ boots may come to enjoy the popularity of Bill Massey strides. ip • Owing to the difficult days In which we arc living one of our city dailies has evidently been compelled to engage assistants, who have not completed their primary education. Anyway, the first edition of the said journal contains enough mistakes to make a pedantic professor’s scanty locks stand on end. The -other day a well-known minister was reported as having much to say about traps laid for the unwary -by Satin. (Near enough, probably. These expensive materials are responsible for considerable extravagance during hard times). The reporter accompanying Lord and Lady Bledisloc on their recent trip to Samoa was probably the culprit deserving the blast for “the history of the past,” about as inexcusable a bull as the “true facts” which slips so readily off the pens of Times correspondents and would reach print if the editor did not administer a thick blue pencil. At least two papers told us with delightful naivete that the wharf-labourer died from the effects of drinking the swills from the empty (?) casks. Sure and some members of the staffs of these Journals must have been horn in dear old Ireland. * * * * The Importance of teaching young people how to spend their leisure was stressed by the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, at the recent teachers’ refresher course, There is wisdom in Lord Bledisloe’s remarks. He referred to the imminence of technocracy which would permit a larger output of industrial products being obtained without the necessity for .constant and continuous employment of workers in factory and on

Comment and Criticism.

(By “Free Lance.")

farm. His Lordship Is right. We have ft** rived at the stage when, modes of life 'Obtaining a century ago are obsolete. If the confirmed conservatives who expose their Ignorance by blaming modern Inventions for so -many -of the maladies which torture the body economic would only sit up, rub their eyes, and do a little thinking they would realise that the robot is their friend, eliminating drudgery, and creating new trades and professions. 'Have we made no progress sinoe the Industrial revolution of the eighteenth century when frequent riots and destruction of machines heralded the advent -of mechanical expedients? There is no doubt that hand in hand with modern Invention and shorter hours of labour comes leisure rightly used. Surely the visualisation of sufficient work to keep all classes comfortable and happy and leisure to use In -studying art or in the enjoyment of social life is no Idle dream In working and planning for 'this ideal our educational authorities will be -rendering signal service, u * # * Art unions have loomed largely on the horizon in recent days, and they have received a great advertisement through the protest entered by the churches in Auckland, and the volte face on the -part of a southern clergyman, who after applying for a grant from the profits of the gamble refused to accept same owing to pressure of his colleagues in the ministry who pointed out to him that he had transgressed the moral code of his church. The matter ha* given rise to a more or less heated controversy in a southern city and the Church has been dealt out some hot stuff for its “Inconsistency," "strait-lacedness," “bigotry," “fanaticism,” etc. Many of the denunciators declare that the worthiness- of a cause sanctifies even tainted cash. Leaving aside that aspect of the question, however, “Free Lance" realises that hard knocks are consistently dealt out tt all who do not conform to the ethics of the masses. The Church condemned the gambling evil as being the source of much misery; then she was accused of inconsistency as she allegedly smiles cn raffles, bran tubs and similar frivolities to raise funds for her own activities. Recognising there was logic in the jibe several important denominations many years ago decreed that gambling in all its forms was to be eschewed in the raising of church finance. Still the detractors are not satisfied. They resurrect the old sneer-s in one breath, and in the next ridicule the spirit which decries the sacrifice of the substance for the shadow. If there is any inconsistency it surely rests on the shoulders of the critics I —their methods are as unstable as water. * * * !f Certain religious sorts have appropriated the tunes of well-known secular songs in a way that is irritating as well as rather amusing, that is if one may smile without appearing irreverent. As a glaring instance, take tiiat beautiful old-world song, "Drink to’ me only with thine eyes.” The writer does not remember ever having read of the circumstances under which the song was composed, but surely the author had in mind the picture -of some gallant cavalier bidding his lovely lady adieu under the ethereal beauty of a harvest moon, or were they -strolling through a rose-covered arbour? However religious one may try to be, any attempt to sing a hymn to a tune with such romantic associations is doomed to failure. Then there is the “Long Long Trail.” Whoever -sings that chorus without having at the -back of one’s mind a long procession of dusty soldiers trudging bravely along, singing to forget their fatigue and homesickness? Have these folks no imaginations?