Golden Age, October 31, 1928

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Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND C'juRAGE

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in this issue

FACTS ABOUT WORKERS

. . world-wide information on the labor situation ■

SAVING THE TONSILS

expert advice on the treatment of tonsillar troubles

WORLD NEWS ITEMS

“THE SON OF MAN”

meaning of our Lord’s well-known title fully explained in broadcast by Judge Rutherford

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EVERY

5 c a copy.

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October 31, 192 8

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Contents

--------r----;-rr-W^=^====^^

. Labor astd Economics

A. Few Facts About tut, Wobkebb ............ 67

Industry Booming in latestine ............ i 13

The Labor Problem in South Africa ..........*» 74

The Life of a Chinese Cookie .............. 78

Social- and Education al

Herb ash Thebe About the Wobm> ............. 72

Police Tortures in Rumania .............. 72

Earth’s Population Limit ............... 72

Census of Expatriated Italians..... 73

The Nine Outstanding Successes .............. 75

Two Million Croats Starving .............. 75

The Hero Chukhnovsky ................ 80

The Longest Word ................... 88

Finance—Commerce—Transportation

Injustices of an Unfair Monetary Unit .......... 77

Real Estate Booms .................. 70

The Chain Store ................... 79

Things Do Happen on the Subway ............ 80

Salesmanship .................... 81

Motor-Busses in England ................ 04

Political—Domestic and Foreign Events in Canada ...................75

Home and Health

Marked Improvement in Health ............. 81

Saving the Tonsils of Y'oun Child ............. 83

■ Travel and Miscellany

"Dominion Over the Fish of the Sea”

Mother Shipton's Poem .

Religion and Philosophy

What Chicago Ministers Doubt ............. 71

Bible Question and Answer .........

Salvation in London, Canada . .

Charged $12 fob Changing his Clothes .

“The Son of Man" . .

The Children’s Own Radio Story

Published every other Wednesday at 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., V. S. A., by WOODWORTH, KNORR & MARTIN

Copartners and Proprietors Address: 111 Adams Street, Brooklyn, A’. Y., U. S. A.

CLAYTON J. WOODWORTH .. Editor ROBERT I. MARTIN .. Business Manager NATHAN H. KNORR .. Secretary and Treasurer

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Entered as second-class matter at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1S79-

The Golden Age

Volume X

Brooklyn, N. Y„ Wednesday, October 31, 1928

Nomber 238

A Few Facts About the Workers

IN 1348 Europe was swept with, the bubonic plague. One-third of the population perished. There was a scarcity of labor. Wages of labor increased, despite all efforts of parliament to prevent it. In some respects it was the happiest era England ever knew, because work was plentiful and its rewards were good. When the workers are happy everybody is happy.

Two hundred years later there was a surplus of labor, wages were low, and the law of 1549 enabled any master to enslave a worker whom he formally denounced as an idler. A worker who left his master for a fortnight could bo legally branded on the forehead with a letter “S” and made a slave for life. If he revolted he could be executed.

The ruling classes of France and Holland passed similar laws in those countries; and in France, in the next 140 years, the burdens of the peasants were made increasingly heavy until the -workers were deprived of proper food, even the bread that they produced being taken from them, and the French Revolution taught a startled aristocracy that there is a limit to human forbearance. Today the Public Utility crowd are anxious to learn that lesson all over again.

Poor Wages in Europe, Now

THE wages now paid to labor of all kinds in Europe are hardly more than enough to provide with decent bed and board and a few clothes. Life insurance on a large scale is not possible in Europe. The people have no funds with which to pay premiums.

In Europe a successful commercial traveler gets wages of $40 to $60 a month, a stenographer $20 a month, while a first-class mechanic may be had for $12.50 a week. In America building mechanics get as much for a day. Day-laborers in Europe average less than $1 a day. Their homes are devoid of all comforts. Running water is not common. Toilets are filthy.

In Holland and Germany human beings do the work of drawing canal boats. The cabins of British canal boats are inconceivably small, yet they house whole families; and the total pay of the family, with all of them engaged in navigating- the boat, will not average over $7.50 a week, Human life is so plentiful and so cheap in Belgium and .Holland that it is a common sight to see women scrubbing their sidewalks and even the pavements in front of their homes.

Europe has seasonal migrations of farm laborers on a huge scale. By hundreds of thousands they pour out of Poland and Italy into Germany and France, frequently taking their wives and children along with them for the seven months of their agricultural activity. Thus 450,000 Poles and 800,000 Italians have become permanent residents of France since the World War.

Poor Wages Elsewhere

ONDITIONS in Asia are as much worse than in Europe as those in Europe are worse than in America. In India it is not uncommon for mothers to drug their babies with opium to keep them quiet while they work in the factories. The Shanghai massacres had their inception in the low ’wages paid in Japanese-owned cotton-mills at Tsingtao.

The mills employ child -workers between the. ages of six and twelve. Wages are ten cents a day in Shanghai money, with twelve hours’ work a day for seven days in a week, with holidays on rare occasions. Children attempting to play while at work were beaten. Dissatisfaction with conditions at Tsingtao spread to Shanghai, resulting in the massacre of stu-

'dents, Hindu troops, under British orders, did

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In Australia the white man comes in direct competition with Hindu and other Asiatic labor. Thus the Hindu working on a sugar estate in Fiji gets twenty cents a ton for cutting cane, while the white man in Australia, near by, gets $2.50 a ton; and the sugar is sold in the same market. Capital naturally flows in the direction of greatest profits.

Telephone girls in Bogota, Colombia, who did not dare sign their names, sent a request to President Green of the American Federation of Labor, asking the aid of American Labor in bettering their terrible working conditions and low wages. They charged their employers-with violating every labor law and threatening immediate discharge of any complainant.

Early American Workers

TO THE English peasant of the earljr seventeenth century, America was pictured as the land of opportunity. Many who lacked funds to pay their passage were induced to make the trip by captains who were in league with slave-dealers. Horrible conditions prevailed on the vessels, and upon arrival the poor victims were sold for a term of years to the highest bidders. Letters were intercepted, families were divided and hundreds died of starvation and disease.

The early Virginia colonies were prison-camps. The capitalists who financed colonization remained in England, interested only in the profits of the venture. We can not say much even now when we think of some of the prison-camps of the South.

At the outbreak of the Revolution wages in America were two dollars a week: barely enough to keep a man out of jail. Indeed it often happened that when a worker recovered from an illness or an accident he was taken to jail for debts incurred during the time of his illness.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the average wages in America were about $65 a year. The first strike occurred in New York city, where the seamen demanded an increase over the $10 a month they were receiving. The strike was broken up by a constable’s arresting the leader.

A labor contract at Dover, N. IL, made a hundred years ago, obligated every employe not to join any labor union and to accept such wages as the company saw fit to pay. They were subject to fines. Joining a labor organization resulted in discharge, with forfeiture of all back pay. Some corporations collected the preacher’s salary from their employes, and the company store was the only one allowed in the town. This is still true in some places.

The Value of Organization

WHAT American workers have gained has come to them through their voting strength and their power of organization. Labor publishes the following amusing story as illustrating the value of organization:

Sam, the colored driver of an ox team, saw a little lizard crawling up a tree. He flourished his long whip and very deftly snapped off the lizard’s head. Farther along the road, with skilful precision, he picked a horsefly off the fence with the same weapon. His skill as a marksman was next exhibited on a chipmunk that showed his ’head above the ground. A white companion finally said: "Sam, take a crack at that hornets’ nest.” Sam grinned and replied: "No, suh; no, suh, boss; them fellahs is awganized.”

The value of intelligent organization is also interestingly set forth by an editorial in the New York Evening Journal:

Everybody admits that the bee is a good worker and that he works hard enough. But the bee does all his work in about four hours. .During the rest of the time he sits about, polishes up his legs and his body and reflects with satisfaction upon what a fine thing it is to be a hard-working bee. . He is able to do it because he and his fellow bees, all working, get all ox the honey that labor brings back to the hive. They haven’t got among the bees any collection of polite gentlemen in silk hats and large fat automobiles standing at the edge of the hive, or running a business office in one corner of the hive and taking for themselves so milch out of every load of honey that the bees bring home. . . . Bees, with their slight intelligence, and with no machinery but their honeygathering apparatus and their marvelous mathematical capacity for fixing their cells, and their instinct of brotherhood, are able to do for themselves, with four hours’ work per day, a great deal more than stupid humanity is able to do by working not only the grown men and women but the children themselves throughout all the hours of daylight.

A writer in. The Equilist thinks that the early labor leaders were men of higher type than some of the present ones. He says:

The early days of the labor movement produced great men. They differed greatly from the modern labor leader. These early leaders sought no publicity, they were single minded, not interested in their own glory nor their own financial advancement. They did not serve labor for pay. They made great sacrifices that the future might be a bit brighter for their fellow workers. The rank and file have let, their servants become their masters and dictators. The workers have now to fight not alone their exploiters but, likewise their own leaders, who often betray them, and sell them out, who put their own advancement ahead of that of the working masses, who make of the rank and file political pawns.

distributed among all workers. It is to the general advantage of capital to work labor as long as possible, so as to keep the line of applicants large. Every hungry man at the employment office is a menace to the workers in the factory. The fact that he is there keeps hours long and wages low, and that is what capital instinctively desires; and yet too many hungry and determined men at the factory gate endangers the whole structure upon -which our truly devilish civilization is built.

The Market for Time

AMONG working men one constantly hears the expressions “full time”, “half time,” “'over time,” “'time and a half” and “douhle time”. Time is the thing the workman has to sell, and which he must sell if he is to live. But among executives one hears them discussing “labor”, “labor costs,” etc. They are not interested in what happens to anybody's time. What they wish to know’ is what will be the cost of labor.

The worker rightly fears any great increase in the amount of time that is offered for sale. Just now there are supposed to be about 40,000,000 workers in the United States. Let us say that among them they average eight hours apiece. Then it takes 320,000,000 hours of work a day to run this country as we are now running it.

It is best for the laborer when there are not enough workers of the right kind to do the necessary work in the regular time. Thon lie is sure of steady work at good pay and will also get overtime and extra pay for that. But executives would always like to see a surplus of labor iii the market, so that workers will fear to lose their jobs and be content with small pay-

Excessively rapid work cuts down the hours of work to be had. It is to the immediate advantage of the individual worker»but to the general disadvantage of his fellows. Best rioted immigration from other countries or from other parts of the country makes executives glad but affects labor adversely. The more women and children there are to tend machines, the less must eventually be tire pay of the men with whom they come in competition.

Labor constantly seeks to reduce hours of labor, so that the total work to be done may be

Insecurity of the Workers

WHEN one considers the insecurity of the ' workers he can but wonder at their

courage. Their pay is not large. Even now the general average pay in the printing trades is but $33 a week, with, iron and steel workers averaging $30, workers in food establishments $26, leather workers $24, lumber workers $22 and textile workers $20. The general average in all six trades is less than $27 a week.

Workers are necessarily more or less nomadic, going from job to job, but the present effort of executives is to keep their men busy by stimulating sales and creating new markets rather than lose their skill and experience by, laying them off in dull spells.

Some advantage, both to workers and to employers, accrues from paying the workers in cheeks of $5 and $10 denominations instead of in cash. The payroll is less liable to be held up, bank deposits of employers remain higher, and thrift is encouraged in the worker.

Nine-tenths of the wealth of Britain is possessed by less than one-tenth of the population. It takes a lot of explaining and explaining and explaining to explain why such a state of affairs should he suffered to continue. A brief explanation is that the bulk of it was gotten dishonestly or unjustly. *

The Board of Directors

IT IS hard for a board of directors to have any interest in or sympathy for an individual, especially one that it never sees. It is a little raw, perhaps, to say as did Karl Marx, that capital came into the world “dripping with blood and dirt from every pore”; but it is still true that heartless corporations remain heartless.

The natural operation of the capitalistic mind was disebjseti in Philadelphia a hundred years ago when the present system of free public schools was first proposed. It was roundly denounced as impractical, as of class legislation and as placing a premium on idleness*

Today the board of directors hate? and fears thr labor union as it did a hundred years ago, and employs high-priced and very capable legal talent to encompass its ruin. Coal and iron police, “yellow dog’ contracts and injunction judges make a sorry wreck of tree speech, free press anil nee assmiiblairv, without which a labor organization is a helpless giant.

The conscience of a representative board of directors was revealed in London where a fur skin dresser was required to work seventeen hours a day for eight weeks in lire height of the season and then was refused the extra pay which he had earned, on the ground that it would exceed the irmximmu rates allowed by the Board of Trade (the child of iheir own creation).

A joker put the viewpoint of the board of directors as follows:

There are 365 day® in the year. You sleep eight hours, which in a year equals 122 days, leaving 243 days. For leisure and recreation you also have 8 hours a.' day, which in a year equals 122 days, leaving 121 days. There are 52 Sundays in a year, leaving 69 days. A hah" day off on Saturdays the year ’round leaves 43 days. An hour and a half for lunch the year ’round will equal 28 days, leaving 15 days. Two weeks’ vacation takes 14 days from the remaining days, leaving only 1, and this being Labor Day. no one works. ;

Some of the modern curbs on the union are the so-called company unions (which are not unions at all), group insurance and stock ownership. Ownership of stock gives the worker the desire to stick to his job and suffer a decrease of pay rather than see the company fall behind in its earnings. Sale of stock before five years have elapsed usually results injuriously to the worker, through the loss of bonus or otherwise.

Uisks of the Workers

rpHERE are 620 occupations listed, as liazard-ous, forty-two of them in the tanning in

dustry alone. There are fifty-three poisonous acids, fumes and dusts with which workers have to come in contact, ami more are being added all the while as new chemical processes are developed.

Tuberculosis is caused by silica dust, bronchitis by abrasives, anthrax by dust from infected. hides. Pneumonia and rheumatism are common to workers in cold storage plants. Workers in compressed air get caisson disease. Electric welders have their eyes injured. G-r-tain industries have too much heat for health or comfort. Machinists are subject to boils. Bakers ami sugar handlers aiv subject to the itch. Life on barges i* deplorable: the cabins are often tenthly damp, as wi ll as cramped D e yu ml m ea s ur e.

Hai workers are subject to mercury poisoning. Textile workers are often, injured by anunmiia or dye fumes. Naphtha, benzine and gasoline affect painters, rubber workers, dry cleaners, dyers, chauffeurs, garage workers and workers in refineries. Duco is liable to explode in the making.

Benzol and other coal-tar products often injure workers in. dyes, drugs, perfumes, explosives, shcs» polish, MKip, phmographir materials, electroplating. duming. printing and lithographing. Duel i.-. a foe of quarry-workers, srorp-enit-ws. rick-dtilhrs. miners, sand-blasters, potters, emery-grinders,- polishers and buffers. Lawdries are hard places to work. There are great numbers of accidents in the building industries, and 25,00b miners have

killed in the past ten years. Brakemen are subject to a tr<>ubh* Jammu as dropwrist.

Every day in the year 77 workers are killed at their tasks, and over 8,000 injured. The United States Secretary of Labor has expressed the belief that at least eighty-five percent of these 35,000 deaths and 2,500,000 accidents per annum are preventable.

In some states there is a measure of compensation for occupational diseases, but in thirtyseven states there is none. Conditions among workers in the canneries of Alaska are probably the worst with, which - workers under the American flag have to contend. Unbelievable filth, communicable diseases, narcotics, unfit food, vermin-infested sleeping quarters, gunmen, cheap cotton socks a dollar a pair, soap 25^ a cake, ami. restricted water supply, are some of the charges made against the canners, and. those are enough. ,.

Mistaaffn# Zdewr of Compensation

npIHE idea that workers are adequately .com-pensated for their losses is entirely misleading. No amount of money can compensate a worker for the loss of his life or the loss of eyes, lungs, arms, legs or other members of his body. Disease, suffering and death can not be measured in dollars and cents.

As a matter of fact the compensations offered workers are very small. Thus, in New Jersey, the largest compensation a man’s family can get is $17 a week, no matter how many children he leaves.

Another sad fact is that out of $1,000,000 collected in premiums for compensation insurance, $550,000 went to the insurance company, $215,000 to the doctors and only $237,000 to the workers; which, when you come to think of it, is not: only absolutely raw, but as absolutely crooked as the domestic- rates of American electric light companies.

Workers need vacations. We give some timely advice of the United States Public Health Service on this point:

A vacation should mean very different things to different classes. A clerk, for instance, should do something that would make him use his muscles (though not to excess), and an iron-mill worker something that would enable him to rest his. A girl who .has been typewriting or packing cigarettes or cooking in somebody rise’s home should use hex* vacation in outdoor sports, such as playing tennis or something like that. A tired wife and mother should rest by getting away from husband and children, soothing her nerves by chatting with other women, and having a few moments of genuine privacy. The tired business man of whom the papers say so much is not so foolish as some persons think when he goes to the theater to listen, to a farrago of nonsense; for this is the very antithesis of his daily work. . . . On the other hand, the farmer who works fifteen hours a day from, early spring to late fall might do worse than spend two winter weeks in the city, fighting off the wily “confidence” men and attending the movies.

And more or less similarly for his wife. They would both get enough mental stimulus to sustain them through the laborious days of next summer.

Some employers, Inking note of the need that their workers should get some fresh air and sunshine, are erecting their factories in open spaces, so that to them a little walk is almost necessary. Not a bad idea. that. And it cuts down taxes, too.

Piece-Work and Monotony

TILE charge is often made that the piecework system begets dishonesty among all employes, including the supervisory forces, because workmen, especially uh repairs, are tempted to turn out inferior work or turn in charges for work not done.

It is conceded that piece-work is monotonous. Screwing a nut on a bolt for an entire lifetime is a rather tame job; and yet such tasks exist in the great automobile factories. As mass production becomes more and more a factor of life in America there are fewer and fewer first-class workmen who enjoy doing a good job for the job’s sake.

Women can usually endure monotonous jobs with better grace than men. They have been known to work twenty years at the simplest mechanical operations and to express their contentment, and even happiness, at their work.

Plenty of work of some kind is not only good, but absolutely essential for the happiness of man. Little work or no work is the most killing kind of work there is. Even uncongenial work is to be preferred to none. The idea that anybody is in danger of overworking, if he takes proper care of his body, is a delusion. Men and women were made to work, but not to work without adequate food and rest and comfort. Worry kills more people than work. Thank God that the time is coming when the "workers are going to be relieved of their worries. That will be Christ’s kingdom, for which we pray.

What Chicago Ministers Doubt

A QUEST.TONAIRE sent out to 436 Chicago ministers shows that eight percent doubt the sinlessness of Christ thirteen percent doubt that God is omnipotent; twenty-nine percent 'doubt the virgin birth of Jesus; thirty percent boubt the inspiration of the Bible; thirty-two percent doubt the record of miracles performed; thirty-three percent doubt that there is any “sure word of prophecy”; forty percent doubt the existence of a personal devil; but fifty-three percent of them are sure that hell is an actual place. Imagine the mental condition of their flocks!

Fri^Mr: Considers Sahara Plan

A MEEICAN engineers propose to cut three ■^ship canals from tic Mediterranean into the Sahara and thus to flood an area of some ten thousand square miles. Before beginning operations the Americans want a concession of some fifty thousand square miles adjoining the flooded area. It is expected that the canals, if cut, will cause a marked change in the Sahara climate.

Egyptian Liberty a Travesty

EGYPT has every liberty except that of selfgovernment. Many times she has been promised self-government, but always 'with strings tied to the offer. Encouraged and almost forced into the World War on the assurance of liberty thereafter, she is now ruled by a London-appointed, king who does exactly what he is told. Ten years after all the promises Egypt is as far from liberty as when the promises were made.

Police Tortures in Rumania

GERMAN newspapers have published accounts of the tortures of peasants by the police of Rumania. In one instance a quantity of salt was forced down a man’s throat and he was denied water; in another, a man was forced to drink water until he could no longer swallow; in a third instance a man was forced to have cats confined in his clothing next to his body, then the cats were beaten and in their efforts to escape bit and clawed the poor man unmercifully. Every year 20,000 Rumanians emigrate to Brazil. Is it any -wonder they emigrate?

Hollywood Badly Disturbed

HOLLYWOOD is badly disturbed, and not without cause. Now that talking movies are all the rage, those who have been film stars are no longer stars unless they have voices that produce good results over the microphone. It is certain that many favorites will be. laid aside and that others who have the necessary qualifications of voice will take their place. In two of the three methods now used the voice is photographed on the edge of the motion picture, film itself. In the remaining one the voice is phonographed.

Vaccination and Sleeping Sickness

HAVING discovered that many eases of sleeping sickness followed the vaccination of school children in Holland, and that half of those thus smitten died, the physicians of Holland have “persuaded” the Government to discontinue for twelve months the compulsory vaccination of children. Last year there were 1,615 cases of sleeping sickness among the civil populations of England and Wales.

A Jewish Development in Siberia

JEWISH colonists in the Crimea have suffered so much persecution at the hands of the Russian secret police that it is probable the Crimean settlements may be abandoned. Meantime extensive preparations are being made for a large Jewish development in Eastern Siberia, on the north bank of the Amur River. The winters are cold, but the soil is known to be very rich and capable of supporting a considerable population.

The Parceling-out of Manchuria

UNTIL this year there has been plenty of free land in Manchuria. In the year 1926, six hundred thousand Chinese took up farms there, in 1927 the immigration was doubled and this year it was nearly four million; but last winter the politicians got together and distributed all the land among political favorities, so that now there are no more free lands, but all immigrants must become tenants, paying rents to landlords who have never done one thing to justify the fabulous incomes that will become theirs.

Earth’s Population Limit

YEARS ago Bible Students were criticized for holding to the Bible doctrine of an earthly resurrection of the dead, the claim being made that the earth could not maintain the twenty thousand millions estimated to compose the total, that have lived. Now two German professors have agreed that under even present imperfect conditions the earth will maintain over one-third of that number. They hold that. Australia can support over fifty times its present population and that Africa and the Americas are as yet largely unoccupied, ■ '

Italians Hold Endurance and Distance Records ITALIANS eontjiHU* to hold world airplane 1 records. The two Italians who made the world's endurance record of 58 hours, 37 minutes, used the same plane in their 4,500-mile flight from Italy to Brazil. ■

Almost Noiseless Invisible Planes

EUROPE is disturbed because of a new in

vention which makes the approach of an airplane almost noiseless. Inventors also have experimented with paint and other methods of camouflage which render an approaching airplane almost invisible.

Industry Booming in Palestine

PALESTINE passed through a period of depression in 1927 and the emigration was more than the immigration. Conditions are now reversed. Jaffa oranges have become the fashion in England. London takes the entire output of nearly three million boxes. It is estimated that thirty thousand families can live on the orange industry alone. Palestine production of hosiery, perfumery, soap, paper boxes and cement is on the increase. The paper boxes are being shipped all the way to America. .

Census of Expatriated Italians

THE Italian Government has just completed a census of Italians living abroad and finds there are something over nine million of them. Nearly four million of these are in the United States. Possibly it was with somewhat similar ideas in mind that Kaiser Wilhelm had elaborate maps made which showed him. where he had millions of subjects in the United States. But when the time came he found he had none at all. It may be so with Mussolini. -

Zogu Grabs Albanian Crown

Achmed Zogu,who drove out Fan Noli, regularly elected president of Albania, has once more shown what fools the common people are. Determined to make himself king he had a crown and royal robe made and laid aside until such time as, by clever political work, he could have the Albanians rise up in. one city after another and insist that he become king. This they have now done and he has gracefully yielded to the inevitable which he so carefully planned. Achmed has the backing of Mussolini in his venture. '

Ford Building

AS A reward for admitting Ford automobiles duty free, both the Hungarian and Bulgarian governments are having certain roads macadamized for them at the expense of the Ford organization.

Eighty-Nine Years Ago

EIGHTY-NINE years ago a newspaper said ;

■'Tia- railway can not succeed because of two definite shortcomings: First, it. can not go uphill, and, second, not enough people ’want to go anywhere in a hurry to make it pay.”

Radio in Russia

THEBE are now sixty-seven broadcasting stations in Russia and 250,000 receiving sets in use. An intensified development of radio communication and broadcasting in Russia is expected soon. Russia has a sixteen-million-dollar paper-mill now approaching completion. In another four years it will have completed an $85,000,000 water-power project on the Dneiper River. The dam will be the largest in the world and will develop more water-power than is now developed at Niagara Falls.

Description of Solomon’s Stables

EXCAVATIONS in the ancient city of Megiddo, one of the so-called chariot cities of the times of Solomon, have disclosed the stables in which some hundreds of Solomon’s horses were kept. The stalls are arranged in double rows, twelve horses facing twelve, with a passage between for the grooms and keepers. The massive stone hitching-posts still stand beside the mangers in which the horses were fed. Solomon had fourteen hundred chariots and forty thousand stalls.

Hauling and Feeding the Elect

HpiIE elect, by which is meant the families and J- friends of railroad officials, are being hauled criss-cross all over the country, anywhere they wish to go, free of all expense, not even having- to pay for their meals. This is done in the private ears of railway officials, in violation and in. defiance of all law. The railway lines leading to health resorts are overburdened by the private cars of foreign roads which, as a matter of inter-railway courtesy, are carried free of charge. One more load hung on the neck of the working man.

Land Reclamation in Italy

OF SIX million acres of land in Southern

Italy which were susceptible of reclamation when Mussolini came into power three million acres have already been reclaimed and one million more are in the process. The objective is the control of malaria and an increase in the food supply.

Hard Times in Hungary

TIMES are so hard in Hungary that at least one family advertised that it would rent for use at night a bed which is occupied during the day.

British Attitude Toward Palestine

Colonel josiah wedgewood, member of British Parliament, charges British officials in Palestine with indifference and resentment toward the Jewish colonists who have recently gone to Palestine. He declares that “'the whole governing class, civil, military and religious, look upon the development of Palestine into a prosperous twentieth-century Judaeo-British colony with repugnance. They view with equal displeasure the advent of Jewish capital, and Jewish settlers, and American tourists”. Colonel Wedgewood has given a very good definition of the Devil’s organization. As a matter of course they oppose Zionism.

Train and Air Service to the Northwest

ONE whole day has been cut out of the time needed to go from New York to points in Minnesota and beyond by the Pennsylvania Railroad train-and-air service which went into effect August 15. Passengers go by rail to Chicago, take a four-hour hop to Minneapolis or St. Paul and connect with westbound trains, so that they leave New York at 6:10 one night and are away out in Montana on the afternoon of the second day.

On the return trip passengers can leave Montana points around noon of one day, land in Chicago the next noon and be in New York in time for business on the morning of the day following. This is the first combined train-and-air service actually put in operation and is preliminary to several such services planned, including the one between New York and Los Angeles. In effect this gives the Pennsylvania Railroad a Minneapolis and St. Paul terminus.

China Making Progress

IN A country where people reverence the dead

more than the living the Chinese are now: permitting roads to be cut through their cemeteries, and are permitting other roads to be ' widened even when it necessitates cutting into the cemeteries. This change in sentiment has come within the past ten years.

The Bantu in South Africa

A BANTU waiting in the Manchester Guardian points out what many Americans know to be true, namely, that the Bantu of South Africa are a superior race. Already they number many educated, capable and intelligent lawyers, pastors, doctors, academic professors, social workers and journalists. But although these people outnumber the whites three to one, yet they have been confined to one-twentieth of the land, much of it uninhabitable, fever-stricken, or too rocky to provide even the barest necessities of life. The native reserves which are habitable are grossly overcrowded. In proportion to incomes the taxes of the blacks are far heavier* than the whites. There are free schools for the whites, but no free schools for the blacks. By government order the best jobs filled by the blacks have been taken from them and given to poor whites.

The Labor Problem in South Africa

THE entrance of whites into the heart of

Africa has spread sleeping sickness, syphilis, tuberculosis, dysentery and influenza all over the continent. The natives are dying off so rapidly that in order to run mines in the Congo it is necessary to recruit labor from points a thousand miles away. Half the men thus recruited desert or die enroute. They are obligated to serve for one year. During the year thirty to eighty per thousand die because of inability to adjust themselves to crovTded conditions. The labor is hired through negotiations with chiefs and is only one step removed from, actual slavery. Village life is disorganized by so many men’s being away. The wages paid are a mere pittance, barely enough to sustain life. The Bantu of the South are crying out against laws which expressly discriminate against them in matters of employment, restricting them to the most poorly paid occupations and bestowing all the favors on the poor whites.

Education of King Michael

MICHAEL, boy king of Rumania, will be educated in a school where at least one boy representative of every race and every class now living m Rumania will be a fellow pupil. This will be the first king educated by this new and sensible system.

More Reforms in Turkey

THE old Turkish title “Pasha” has been changed to “General”. No longer are shoes to be removed on entering a mosque. Organs and Western music are being used in mosque rituals. Sermons are being preached by the laity. Quite likely the Turkish characters of the alphabet will be replaced with Roman characters.

The Nine Outstanding Successes

IT SEEMS that a Fifth Avenue photographer is displaying the faces of what he regards as the nine most outstandingly successful men in America. A woman writer on the staff of The World has been standing near the photographs listening to the comments of the people who stop to scrutinize the faces, and the comments are not at all flattering.

Trie common people look them over and usually size them up as hard-hearted and untrustworthy, and in no sense men to be admired. The writer concludes with the observation that “even though the world may envy a successful man his money and position, it does not envy him the disposition it thinks it sees written all over his face”.

Two Million Cfoats-Stdrving:^^

HpHE claim is made that two million Croats are on the verge of starvation, and are barely managing to exist by Jiving on roots, grass and bark. Pests have destroyed their vines and tariff duties on their tobacco have left them without anything to sell. ' .

Short Radio Waves

IT IS now believed that a cure for consumption may be found in the use of ultra-short radio waves. Mice inoculated with tuberculosis germs and then exposed to such rays made a complete recovery while others so inoculated and not thus treated died.

The Men over Fifty

ENRY FORD, at age 65, does not believe in Oslerizing the men over 50. Explaining that the profit made on Ford ears is not considered as private profit, but as a revolving fund to be used in making and putting out ever better and cheaper cars, Mr. Ford said of those that have passtul the meridian of life:

.Some men of 65, perhaps, should not do too much running and jumping, but that is no reason why they should not do as much work with the mind as ever— and better work.

‘‘Isn’t there an age limit somewhere'?” he was asked.

I haven’t found it yet. You take all the experience and judgment of men over 50 out of the world, and there wouldn’t be enough left to run it. Youngsters have their place and are necessary, but the experience and judgment of men over 50 is what gives purpose and meaning to younger men’s efforts.

Events in Canada (By Our Canadian Correspondent)

UNDER the caption, “Protestantism on Sick Bed,” the Saskatoon Baily Star has the following news item:

Toronto, June 11.—Commenting on the Kev. Dr. R. P. Mackay's report on church and life work, Rev. Dr. Salem Bland stated at the Toronto conference of the United Church of Canada today that in every part of the world today protestantism. is on its sick bed. “You can’t take up a paper today without finding evidence that protestantism is in a very sick way,” ho said. Dr. Biand thought, that too much attention was being paid to the raising of money and too little to spiritual things. Dr. Mackay’s report, which occasioned the remarks, was given this morning and expressed the view that civilization must either be mended or ended. Alarm was voiced at the growth of birth control, Sabbath desecration and companionate marriage. Doubts were expressed of the success of church union. By a vote of 94 to .86 the report was referred back to union.

Canada’s Air Mail

WHILE Canada has lagged far behind Europe and the United States in the development of an air mail service, a beginning has now been made. Speaking editorially the Daily ■Province of Vancouver says: •

May 11, 1928.—Air mail service for Canada, got away to a flying start last week, literally and more imaginatively, too. A mail and cargo plane flew from Toronto to Montreal in two hours and a half, and one from Ottawa in less than an hour. At Montreal they transferred their load to two other planes, which flew to Ehnouski, down the river from Quebec, where they in turn consigned their mail bags to the liner Eegina, bound for England. On the following day three planes met the incoming Empress of Scotland at Rimouski, and brought the mail on to Montreal. Thus begins the performance of the four air mail contracts, recently let by the Dominion Government to three different companies; and thus is set up a new landmark in the progress of Canadian aviation. 1

It is a beginning, and there must, always be a beginning; but it becomes us as loyal Canadians to be rather modest about these first air mails in Canada. Compared with the United States, or with Europe, we are years behind the times in this business. For two years now, the United States post office has been carrying letters by air mail from the Pacific Coast to New York for 10 cents each. In all the larger American cities nowadays, there are street letter boxes, painted red and white, marked “Air Mail”. A mail plane—still known as “Eddie Hubbard’s plane”—■ has been flying from Seattle to Victoria to pick up mail from the incoming Empresses for the last five or six years. It was as an aerial mail carrier that Lindbergh got his flying experience. It came to us with something of the surprise of a new adventure, the other day, to learn that Ben Eielson, companion and pilot of Captain Wilkins in his splendid achievement of the Arctic air passage, had been carrying air mail in Alaska since 1923. Air mail is long since past the stage of experiment. ■

i? Now that we have begun in this business, better late than never, it is hard to put bounds to the possibilities of air mail in Canada. It seems to be a boon particularly valuable in a country of great distances and scattered populations. Only this morning, wo are told in the despatches that Mr. George Maclean, the new gold commissioner of the Yukon, has cut nine days from the customary time of his journey from Ottawa to Dawson City by flying the last 450 miles, from White Horse to Dawson, in six hours. We are told that the Cunard Steamship Company is considering a scheme by which mail planes will be carried on its liners, to be released when the St, Lawrence is reached. This would cut two days from the present time of a letter from London to Montreal. It ought to be possible, in the near future, to bring a letter from London to Vancouver in eight days—five days to the mouth of the St. Lawrence by steamship, and three days from there to Vancouver by airplane.

Hypocritical Disarmament

T N THIS day of much hypocritical talk about disarmament it is interesting to note the ever-increasing zeal of the nations in preparing for war. In this regard a news item appearing in the Ottawa Farm Journal under the heading "Many Think Active Plans Indicate World on Brink of Second Huge Conflict”, is well worth repeating. It reads :

London.—Is the world heading fast for Armageddon, and will this year bring us the brink of a conflict the magnitude of which will make the great struggle of 1914-18 seem almost trivial?

These are questions which a great many men of wide vision are asking themselves. They are questions prompted by the enormous and, to some extent, secret preparations that are being made by all the great Powers today, some details of which are revealed below.

Recently a great aviation show was held in Paris, most of the exhibits at which were frankly military or naval models—heavy battle and bombing machines, huge naval hydroplanes, dull grey, like flying torpedoes hanging under the body, and machines positively bristling with quick-firing guns.

France is prepared to call up more than 5,000 war machines, apart from her reserves in civil air-craft and the potential weapon of her great manufacturing centers.

Germany has leaped to the forefront in the scientific development of aerial resources, and America is particularly active in evolving giant air weapons of destruction.

Some months ago there were secret trials in the United States of a great night bombing aeroplane capable of carrying three men and four 1,000-pound bombs. Fully loaded, this monster weighs 16,000 pounds. It is constructed throughout of welded steel and duralumin, and driven by one motor of 825 horsepower.

A distinguishing feature is a disappearing turret, which drops the machine-gunner and his platform two feet beneath the floor of the fuselage between the wings and the tail, permitting him to cover the ship’s rear completely. When unused, the platform automatically lifts itself flush with the floor of the plane.

There is another gun turret on top of the body of the plane farther aft, and a machine-gun on the tip of each lower wing, firing straight ahead and controlled in the pilot’s cockpit.

The new fighter stands 20 feet high, with a wing spread of 85 feet, has a speed of 110 miles per hour, and a cruising range of 500 miles. ,

One gas bomb of the type now possessed by a certain Power would, if dropped in Trafalgar Square, put out of action nearly every inhabitant in the heart of London.

A high-speed race for naval supremacy is likewise going on between the nations. New types of warships vastly different from and more formidable than the old are under construction.

A strange new ship is the British battleship Nelson, which has the largest forecastle in the world—410 feet long from stem to bridge. The total length of the ship is 702 feet.

The bridge is totally unlike anything hitherto called a bridge. It is really an armored tower of many stories and great spaciousness, and is a regular Bluebeard’s tower of secrets.

The next war will undoubtedly see the introduction of poison gas which has the persistency of mustard gas and the toxicity of phosgene.

An American inventor has succeeded in trapping deadly vapors in a canister so small that every soldier can carry one without adding more than a pound or two to his equipment.

By the exploitation of the gases developed since the last war it will be possible to render a whole army helpless for many hours.

Future conflicts may also see the employment of the televisor, which will make it possible to follow an enemy’s movements when he believes himself to be in darkness, for the invisible ray of the televisor gives the power to see in total darkness.

Attacking aeroplanes approaching under cover of night will be disclosed to the defending headquar-ters by the electric eye of the televisor. They will be followed by searchlights emitting invisible rays, and as these rays will be unseen by them they will continue to approach until, without difficulty, they are brought down. '

Finance and Immigration

OR the development of the enormous natural resources of Canada two things are essential—immigration and capital. The immigration question is ever uppermost in the debates of the House of Parliament and in the public press. Americans are awakening to the opportunities

in this land and are crossing the border in considerable numbers, while her vast wealth is steadily flowing this way.: The Saskatoqii ■Star, commenting thereon, states: : :

Monday, May 21, 1928. Canada borrowed $268,000, 000 from the United States last year as against only $51,000,000 from. Great Britain. Up till the war period British, investment in the Dominion far exceeded American, but the position has since been reversed. United States capitalists have now about one billion dollars more at stake in Canada than British capitalists. The figures for 1927 indicate to what an extent New-York rather than London is supplying funds for new Canadian enterprises. There is no lack of money in Great Britain for investment overseas. In 1927 Africa absorbed $172,000,000 of it, more than three times as much as Canada.

It is a little disappointing to Canadians that British interest in this Dominion has flagged in recent years, yet the preponderance of American dollars in the immigrant capital is no cause for alarm. It does not involve any surrender of Canadian sovereignty over Canadian economic policy. Nor does it foreshadow, as some have said, the absorption of the Dominion into the United States. M‘hny are inclined to forget that until recently the United States was itself a debtor nation and that Great Britain was. the republic’s principal creditor. A generation ago many leading American companies were chiefly owned by British investors, yet that by no means affected the political independence of the United States. Canada is passing through a stage from which her neighbor emerged some years ago, the stage in which domestic reserves of capital are insufficient, to finance development of natural resources. The source of the Dominion’s borrowings during this period is not of primary importance.

Injustices of an Unfair Monetary Unit By IF. E. Brokaw

TN YOUR issue for July 11, the article on ■L Porto Rico says: ‘‘It is estimated that from two-thirds to four-fifths of the wealth produced in Porto Rico goes abroad in the shape of dividends to absentee owners of stock in the sugar and tobacco industries.”

That is a sample of “'owning for an income”, a thing made possible solely by a monetary unit that, puts a price on what is not human work. If the monetary unit represented one hour’s adult human work, and nothing else, such an income would be impossible. The above sample shows how futile is the hope of Dean Dexter S. Kimball, mentioned on your page 651, of increased production’s abolishing poverty.

Nothing short of equitable distribution can do that.

The writer of “The Short and Simple Annals of the Poor” will find, if lie thoroughly investigates, that such conditions are the necessary consequences of an economic system which makes “owning for an income” possible. Workers sell nothing but their work. If they did not have to buy anything hut human work they would find making a living very easy. But our money puts a price on what is not human work and thus compels them to work for others without being worked for in return.

If workers would meditate upon this they might begin to see daylight on this subject.

The Life of a Chinese Coolie By Frank Bortlik

■HE following letter was originally written by a young man who had a very good record in a nautical school and is now an officer of one of the large American liners. He wrote this to his parents regarding life among the lowly "from "the war-stricken part: of China to Manchuria, principally to find work.

Dear Parents: Tins has been.: my first opportunity to write to you since leaving Yokohama. We arrived here three days ago in a blinding snow-storm, and' due to an insufficient number of berths lay outside the harbor. It is freezing here always; now the highest temperature today is 32°.

The people back home may think that life conditions have treated them harshly. Perhaps it is so, but it can not compare with the. life led by a “coolie”. During freezing weather wearing clothes that are really rags; living or existing in hovels in which there is no heat at all; eating rice and thanking their god for it; working from sunrise to sunset in their own country, which is to a large extent, governed by foreigners, they are treated as dogs. A sign at the entrance of one, or I should say the only, nice park in the city reads: “No natives allowed”—a fine stata^o-i affairs when a man in his own country can not enter a park!

A ship arrived two hours after we had, loaded with deck passengers, meaning those who pay full fare but who stand on deck or in the holds. With the temperature down to 25°, the poor devils stood on deck for two and a half days—stood because there was no room to lie down, unable to go below the holds because they were packed like sardines down there.

•Coolies never wash. They can be seen in their off minutes (ton minutes a day) picking lice from their clothes. I. am not in the least exaggerating and I have seen this myself right here in Dairen. How they manage to live is beyond mev It is a secret which they alone possess. The Chinese “coolie” would rather sit and shiver in the cold than walk to where he might sfih ill warmth. ■ " : ' ' < " '

Their own ships are manned by Chinamen, but'officered throughout by English or Americans. The pay these men draw is enormous. How one man can regard a fellow being, with so little consideration as is given to these poor sinners, is beyond me! A “coolie” is not a man—just a piece of wood; no feeling or senses," treated with less thought, than should be bestowed upon the lowliest of low curs. How they manage to multiply, to ever .survive to become of age is wonderful. The stamina of the white man is lacking, but not here with the “coolie”. Why one should wish to live their life, even for a day, must be part of their oriental philosophy. I guess as I stand on deck myself, miserable with cold and fatigue, I can still feel compassion for these people ; and we are all given to pity ourselves to some extent I

Every time a mate uses a ladder (of iron) after being used by a coolie, he washes his hands with a disinfectant, and needs to I

Just seeing these people has made me feel that the life of mine is so much easier and honorable that it is a grand and glorious life after all I

Your loving son, Ralph.

“Dominion Over the Fish of the Sea” By 'Jennie Denholm (Scotland)

SPENDING a few weeks in the quaint little village of Port Logan, in the south of Scotland, on the Wigtownshire coast, we heard that one of the chief attractions of this pretty spot was a pond where tame fish were to be seen which actually rose to the surface of the water and took food from the hand that provided it.

With, curiosity aroused, we set out one evening' to investigate this wonderful thing. Our ■way led along by the rocky seashore for a. bit, and then, entering the precincts of the estate of a wealthy gentleman of the county, we knocked at the door of a little cottage, wherey we were informed, the keeper of this remarkable fish-pond lived, part of whose duty it is to show interested visitors round it.

Guided by him we found ourselves on the edge of a pond formed naturally by the rocks, but enlarged now by artificial means and so constructed that the incoming tide keeps the pond supplied with water, but also so that the fish once in can not get back into the sea.

In this pond, which measures about twelve feet in diameter and is nine feet deep, are about fifty fish, mostly cod. We watched almost breathlessly, while our guide, who carried a basket of limpets in his hand, fed the eager creatures, which rushed to the surface and with gaping mouths received the tasty bite from the keeper, at the same time actually allowing him to stroke their backs. ■

As we watched, our pleasant-faced young guide explained to us that at one time the pond had been used solely to supply the people of the “big house” with fish, but that on discovering that the poor prisoners, compelled to rely for sustenance on the food supplied to them by band, were gradually becoming tame, the practice of catching iwh for domestic purposes was abandoned, and the pond kept purely as a curiosity.

He went on to tell us that through the constant unnatural exposure to the light, the ilsli eventually become blind, in which case they are removed from the pond and fresh ones caught and put in, the newcomers being directed by the "old hands'* as to where they must now look for food.

Real Estate Booms Bn IF. L. Pellc

A REAL estate boom is one of the modern a*. wonders of the world (for the agent). Quite frequently it is mushroom-like: springing up over night. It resembles the •'‘boom" of a cannon-cracker or the eruption of a volcano in that it shoots up in a hurry (sometimes unexpectedly) and also dies down the same way, leaving only a few scattered fragments'of the investor’s pocketbook.

Sometimes a gentleman has near an enterprising city a large piece of land which he can not or will not convert into a corn or wheat field. It may have a large pond in the center and a “hot dog” stand on one corner, that makes no difference. All he needs to do to make it popular and populous is to stick up a lot of street signs, call the land by a new name, buy a whole page in the newspaper, and presto! What a change! Instead of cornstalks, in less than no time it has produced houses and garages; and instead of the green banks of the pond, the erstwhile owner has greenbacks in the bank.

Once in a while a man invests in a piece of land via the mail-order route. On one occasion a gentleman transacted a real estate deal in this way. lie bought a lot in a subdivision in Swampgrass County. He received a letter stating that his property was located at.the..corner of Waterlily and. Frogpond Avenues. A lit lie later when he" went to investigate to see how successful his real estate deal, hid been, he found that the deal was real, but he could, not find the estate. He discovered also that what he.needed was. a reel and a.fishing line, because the fish refused to move out.

When a real estate boom is on, one is made to believe that “the land, is as the garden of Eden before him” instead of a desolate wilderness. Very frequently the prospective buyer is like the fly that was invited into the spider’s parlor.

The Chain Store

WHAT can prevent a great concern like Sears & Roebuck, Montgomery'Ward, the A & P. or any other great aggregation of capital, from going to a factory or producer of any kind and making an offer to take the whole output for a term of years if the price is cut to the very bone? Nothing.

What can prevent such a purchaser from going into any town and renting or buying a place next door to any merchant and selling the goods thus bought for a less sum than that for which the merchant himself can buy them? Nothing.

" What, can prevent such a chain store concern from using its vast capital to gradually wear out and ruin a, local store that attempts to compete? Nothing.

What can prevent the public from going where they can. buy the goods they need for the least money,-even though it does ruin the men that have had their trade for a generation? Nothing.

What can prevent the multiplication of chain stores until they have entered every buying center and have actually and literally ruined all the merchants in the country? Nothing.

What can prevent the chain stores, when they have driven all the old-style merchants to the wall, from combining and boosting the prices to- the sky, and insisting upon cash for life’s necessities which the people must have whether they have any cash or not? Nothing.

What can prevent the people themselves, when they, like their old store-keepers, have been driven to the wall and are face to face with starvation, from suddenly turning on their tormentors and wrecking the wreckers? .Nothing except Christ’s kingdom.

Nice Things Do Happen on the Subway 'Contributed

■E'W York does have a heart; at least some of its inhabitants manifest the possession of those qualities of which, that organ is symbolic. I came in on the New Yorker tonight from Albany. The trip wasn’t very pleasant. The train was too cold for comfort; it was very crowded and the passengers were getting-snappy. I was far from being physically fresh myself. I made the regular dash for the subway shuttle train so as to get to Brooklyn and to bed as quickly as possible, and managed to crowd through the door just as it swished shut. (The subway shuttle train doors are that way: they seem always to be closing in your face, or just behind your back.) The third seat from the vestibule was empty and I took it and set to looking at a newspaper sheet I had picked up on the train.

Suddenly I felt a hand grasping mine. An old lady selling newspapers was passing through the car, and the lurch of the starting train had upset her at my seat. The hand was a pudgy one, but warm and soft; one thought that it might belong to a mother. Its owners face "was kind and motherly, too. Rising, I took her firmly by the arm and placed her in my seat, with her stock of thirty-odd papers tucked professionally under her left arm. Too bad the jerking, swaying train had spoiled her business activities; but the subway is like that I

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