TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19118, 1 December 1933, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

New Dominion Coinage. The design of the new halfcrown of the New Zealand silver coinage, a few of which are in circulation in Hamilton, does not reflect credit on its originator. On the obverse side is an effigy of the King in crown and court regalia—both subjects which require such an amount of detail that the intended effect is lost. The words “King Emperor” are divided by the crown in the legend reading “George V. King Emperor” in such a manner as to give a lopsided appearance to the coin. The reverse side borders on the crude. An attempt to surround the heraldic arms of New Zealand by a Maori design has resulted in an incongruous spoiling of both. The anachronism is further accentuated by the fact that the Maori design emerges from what apparently purport to be cornucopias. Einstein and Liberty. “If we want to resist tho powers which threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedom we must keep clearly before us what is at stake and what we owe to that freedom which our ancestors have won for us after hard struggles,” says Professor Einstein. “Without such freedom there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Faraday, no Pasteur, and no Lister. “ There would be no comfortable houses for the mass of tho people, no railways, no wireless, no protection against epidemics, no cheap books, no culture, and no enjoyment of art for all. There would he no machines to relieve the people from the arduous labour needed for the production of the necessities of life. Only men who arc free can create the inventions and intellectual works which to us moderns make life worth while.” Men and Women Wage-Earners. “ It may, of course, be true that it is more important from a social point of view that men should he employed than that women should he employed,” writes Mr A. G. Gardner. “Men are apt to deteriorate more than women if they are without the discipline of a time-table. Except in rare eases, they are helpless ‘ about the house.’ Tliev arc not handy with a sewing machine or knitting needles, and have no interest in clothes beyond wearing them out. “ When a man’s hat is shabby you don’t find him sitting at home in the evening putting on a nice new hand, and it his trousers are baggy and shiny it does not occur to him to spend the Saturday afternoon in turning I hem inside out. He wants his Saturday ai’lerltoon for more thrilling entertainment. In all these respects women I,v habit and temperament are in less need of harness than men, and do not deteriorate as men do in the absence of fixed duties and regular work. Hut this has no hearing upon the solution of tho unemployed problem. " The exclusion of women from industry would not increase work or wages. It would only introduce a sex disability in a field in which that disability has no justification and no practical meaning —not even the meaning of lowering the cost of production.”