Please, Did you hear John Hilton's story Nag Me of the sergeant who went into a tea-og Me - Shop, sat himself down, and ordered a plate of stale bread and butter, and a slightly musty boiled egg? The waitress asked him twice to make sure. When she brought it, he asked, "And would you do me a favour. Miss; would you sit down just for a minute and nag at me?" She said, "I will if you want me to, but why? He said, "I'm feeling homezick."—"Listenei oe Te Duce Low had a dog, a faithful Dog and Some ten years ago David x companion in his studio; he called it Mussolini. One day, he observes "Listener." I introduced him into a cartoon and this was the beginning of a long and popular newspaper career for him; for he became a regular feature. Judge of my astonishment one day to receive 9 call from an excited Italian gentleman, too ostentatiously unofficial to be other than official, to convey the regrets of the entire Italian nation at the desecration of this exalted. surname, and to request that in the interests of international concord the dog be rechristened. I pointed out that there were probably 500 Mussolinis in the Rome telephone book and inquired which was he talking about? Further, the coincidence by which Il Duce and I opined, be fairly met by the suggested step unless the principle were carried further and other dogs bearing names o Romans, such as Caesar and Nero, were rendered nameless also. To this there was no reply, and after talking the matter over with my dog we decided to let the matter drop. The dog eventually went blind and had to be put to sleep like his namesake.
Shipbuilding There are many signs that the Speeding-up Government is now more alive to the need of providing that measure of purposive direction to industrial workers without which industrial mobilization cannot be-complete, intimates the "Economist" It has been announced that the First Lord of the Admiralty, who is already responsible for the construction of naval and merchant ships, will in future have the task of ensuring the employment of shipbuilding workers to the best advantage. And in view of the danger to Great Britain's sea communications this year, it came none too soon. There is to be a central committee, consisting of two representatives each of the employers and the Workers, which will meet under an Admiralty chairman. Subject to general direction from the centre, the actual task of ensuring the most advantageous use of labour will devolve upon local controls headed by District Shipyard Con-rollers, who will be the Flag Officers-in-Charge of the Pool These representatives of the Admiralty will act through three executives, representing naval shipbuilding and repair, merchant shipbuilding and repair, and labour; the representative of labour will normally be the shipyard labour supply officer, who will be transferred to the service of the Admiralty. The local controls will have the task of determining local priorities, and they will be responsible for the day-to-day allocation and interchange of labour in their districts, and for the transfer of workers from one district to another. But the Minister of Labour will continue to be responsible for the supply of additional workers, and Mr. Bevin has stated that the shipbuilding and repairing problem could be overcome by the intake of 50,000 more workers of the right categories. The new arrangements seem logical. But in a sense they are as unorthodox as is the decision to concentrate the output of consumers' goods. They involve the pooling of the shipyard workers, and they will enable the local controls to. determine the terms of employment and, within limits, the nature of the work to be done by each worker. A guaranteed. weekly wage was probably the best method of securing the ce-operation of the workers. That the present state of affairs could not be allowed to continue was admitted by Mr. Bevin when he pointed out in a speech that the workers could increase production by 30 per cent.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.