THE OLD COUNTRY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 1, 6 January 1909, Page 9

THE OLD COUNTRY.

The South Australian Sunbeam Society's gift to the pauper children of London will entertain 5000 destitute children. The British quarterly revenue was £33,256.000, Customs yielding £7,636,000, excise £10,170,000, and stamps £2,060,000. Three hundred assisted immigrants left England for Queensland during December, including 45 indentured Scotch farm hands. A sum of 20 millions sterling, mostly under wills, was entrusted to the control of the Public Trustees during 1908, the first year the office was in existence. Admiral Sir Nathaniel Bowden-Smith, who was Commander-in-Ccief on the Australian Station from 1892-95, and who lias recently retired, has declined a good service pension of £3OO a year. The pension has now been awarded to Admiral Sir Wm. Kennedy. Fair Wages. The report of the Departmental Committee appointed in August, 1907, to consider the working of the Fair Wages resolution adopted by the House of Commons on February 13, 1891, as embodied in Government contracts, recommends that the present wording of the clause, obliging the contractor to pay current rates of wages for competent workmen in the district where the work is conducted, be retained. The Committee thinks that piecework earnings should exceed standard time wages on similar work. It declines to recommend that Government contracts be restricted to houses paying fair wages, but says that great care ought to be taken to place only good employers or contractors on the list. The Committee suggested the formation of a representative departmental Committee to ensure co-operation among contracting departments. The Committee disagreed on the question of the substitution of trade union rates for current rates in the clause, and suggested that the current rates of wages in unorganised trades might be arrived at either by the Government fixing the rate or a general minimum rate being fixed, or the establishment of wages boards, or contractor supplying a schedule of wages and hourp of labour. Severe Weather. Extremely cold weather has for some days been experienced all over England, snow being general. In the north-east of Scotland the snowfall was the heaviest known for 20 years, railway and telegraph communication being interrupted. Some of the trains are snowed up. The Isle of Man has had the greatest snowstorm for 14 years. A train was snowed up near Douglas, the passengers suffering terribly. Heavy snow’ has also fallen in the north-east of England, and in the Thames Valley. A labourer was frozen to death at Plumstead Marshes. Much snow has fallen in Northern and Central Europe. Snowed Up. The Scottish express was on Dec, 31st dug out of the snow at Drumlithie, in Kincardineshire, after being buried for 28 hours. Other snow-bound trains were rescued with less difficulty. Costly Strike. The strike of weavers at Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, has collapsed. It lasted 22 weeks, and cost the Weavers’ Amalgamation £23,000. Old Age Pensions. The British Post Office has been provided with 13 tons of silver to paw over half a million old age pensions. The “Times’’ estimates that when all

applications for old age pensions are examined it will be found that there are 620,000 entitled to pensions, costing £155,000 weekly, exclusive of the administration of the Act.